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Next Season: finally putting the “Perfect Origin” into the Kinnikuman: Perfect Origin Arc!

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It’s a bit simplistic, but does match fight results better than Chojin power levels. So far Seigi Chojin have the most wins, followed by Perfect (with most losses by far), then Akuma in last. But what can you expect? Besides Buffalo, the top devils have yet to enter the ring…

For the Perfect Large Numbers, Nemesis and Strong the Budo are both S (the only two so far), with the rest split between A (Polarman, Grim Reaper, Peek a Boo, Max Radial, Turbo Men) and B (Marvelous, Jack Chi, Dalmatiman, Marlinman, Crushman)…

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For the Seven Akuma Chojin, only their leader Buffaloman ranks as an A, while Springman/Blackhole/Atlantis are all Bs, and Ste-Casse King/The Mountain/Mister Khamen are Cs…

(Besides the overall letter grade, Chojin are also scored in five subcategories: starting at the top and going clockwise, these are: power, technique, speed, trickiness, and tactics)

You may recall how the Chojin Enma Gradebook has character profiles assigning the Perfect Origin Arc’s major Chojin with grades of C, B, A, and S for overall wrestling chops. The main Seigi Chojin mostly rank in at A, with greenhorn Brocken (and Pentagon) at B, and Geronimo a C…

I’m not going to do individual episode ranks or grades this time around, but ep21 with its Warsman Begins adaptation is probably the overall best of the season. The early episodes had some fluctuating animation quality, but things seemed to even out by the end.

And here we leave Season 2, at kind of an odd ending place. With one more episode they could’ve reached the end of vol.45 and a much better season-ending cliffhanger (imo), but if this was the price of adapting Warsman Begins, then so be it.

Polarman’s eyecatch profile really hypes him up. As it says, at 72 million his Chojin power level is higher than his fellow Large Numbers members, with Nemesis second at 68 million and Max Radial third with 48 million (this is ignoring one exception, but never mind that for now)

Prior to this fateful match, Wars made a point of shaving so he could look his best…which doesn’t seem to fit at all with the mass of machinery and nerves we eventually see. But in true Yudetamago fashion, the official lore remains that Wars can indeed grow facial hair.

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Wars being unmasked in the rain harkens back to the 21st Chojin Olympics (World Cup) finals. Upon learning that Kinnikuman’s face was really a mask, Barracuda (Robin in disguise) made unmasking the penalty for defeat. Kinnikuman won, and Wars’ face was revealed in all its glory.

The Pallo Special’s inescapable nature is compared to an antlion’s funnel-shaped pit trap, a favorite metaphor in Japanese pop culture. In the west, the main pop culture point of comparison would probably be the Sarlacc pit in Star Wars.

(The joke behind the name OLAP is that it’s “Pallo” spelled backwards…which means it should really have two ls, but “OLAP” is the spelling used in the Nisei manga)

The Pallo Special is named after English wrestler Jackie Pallo (Warsman learned this technique from Robin, so it’s appropriate it would have an English origin). In Nisei, Kevin Mask uses an inverted version called OLAP, which also seems to have been used by the real-life Pallo.

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Probably nothing sums up the overriding themes and general absurdity of Kinnikuman so well as a robot Chojin upgrading his friendship to “super friendship”

Warsman’s upgrade to Super Friendship Mode features the same friendship equation from the Scramble for the Throne arc (shown during Wars’ intro in ep20), but with the new inclusion of faith (in the sense of trusting in others, rather than religious faith)

As Ramenman alludes to here, he lost to Warsman during the 21st Chojin Olympics (World Cup) after Wars rather violently stabbed him in the head with his bear claw. To recover from this injury, Ramen had to wear a special mask, which was the birth of his Mongolman alter ego.

Kinnikuman Perfect Origin Arc, ep.22: a great end to the Warsman/Polarman fight, and a somewhat abrupt but still good end to the season as a whole. See you again in Season 3! Whenever that is… #Kinnikuman #ep22

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Also, for ch.102 Gohan Beast has been redrawn to have pupils in his eyes, in keeping with earlier chapters and the DBS: Super Hero movie.

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And then there’s these guys…but Alien Peke and Bubul and Hyowtam seem to be newly drawn. Anyway, you get the idea.

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That’s why Arale is specifically the version from the 90s V-Jump manga, since Toyotaro did a series of drawings on the various V-Jump series either by Toriyama or based on his work.

I thought DBS vol.24’s “Toriyama’s World Forever” image looked familiar, and sure enough it’s a collage of Toyotaro’s past drawings from his monthly “Toyotaro Drew It” column, which has featured many of Toriyama’s non-DB characters. Thanks to Magnificent Ponta for pointing this out.

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(And finally: the table of contents shows Popo remove his turban to display his horns, clearly inspired by Daima. And just like in Daima’s last episode, as an adult his head looks way too small without the turban)

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I felt positive that Toyotaro’s “Toriyama’s World Forever” tribute image had appeared somewhere earlier in full color, but apparently not. Anyway, it’s got Goku plus the main characters from Toriyama’s numerous non-DB works.

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And then there’s the image Toyotaro drew when Goku vs Jackie Chun won the DB Official Site’s poll for Goku’s best bout. He’s a fan of this fight too! It’s full of the gags and diverse techniques of DB’s early phase. He took a lot of care to get Jackie’s pose right.

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For Interval Special Vol.3, Toyotaro discusses his love of Gohan’s high school hijinks and how happy he was when Toriyama gave him the go-ahead to do the same with Trunks and Goten. He focused on the differences between Future and Present Trunks, and his clumsiness at romance.

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DBS vol.24 also includes the “Interval Special” images which Toyotaro did for V-Jump in the gap between DBS ch103 and 104. He finally got to draw Gero’s son Gevo in the flesh, plus Gohan Beast’s dauntless smile! www.kanzenshuu.com/translations...

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(As Toyotaro explained last year, the final correction he got from Toriyama was to show Piccolo wave goodbye to the teacher, rather than simply have the gang fly off. This probably influenced his picking this moment for the inter-chapter image)

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The inter-chapter images: Videl cooks in peace; as Goku and co mess up Beerus’ planet, Oracle Fish complains “I can’t take an afternoon nap like this!”; and Pan’s teacher waves back to Piccolo.

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Toriyama also designed the Red Pharmaceutical Company air truck for the Super Hero arc epilogue:

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Toyotaro’s vol.24 author’s comment explains how Toriyama’s corrections were typically about how manga ought to be, rather than simply how DB should be. He was a manga artist above all. “I will never forget the approach to manga which sensei taught me, and continue to do my best!”

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Todd Blankenship @herms98.bsky.social · 28/03/2025

Toyotaro’s postscript for DBS vol.24 details the creation process of the ch.104 one-shot: originally this was a text prologue he got from Toriyama, which he revised and put into manga form. And now the Super Hero arc is really, truly done: “Look forward to future developments!”

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That fits in with casting Akira Kamiya as Mayumi

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Warsman’s Wolf’s Den comrade Commandos is voiced by Japanese pro wrestler Shinsuke Nakamura, in a similar bit of stunt casting as when fellow pro wrestler Starlight Kid voiced the nurse in season one. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinsuk...

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Yep, because his father underwent a cybernetic conversion midway through life, Warsman was born half man, half machine. This just goes to show how far Chojin genetics surpasses mere human genetics.

(Meanwhile, the newspaper in the manga has the headline “Doctor Yuri Kopyrov Robot Supermen Plan” but apparently just random nonsense for the main body of the article)

Here’s a machine translation of the Russian newspaper article shown in the episode. For Chojin (超人/Chōjin/Superhumans) it apparently uses the term мета-люди/“Meta-Humans”. For anyone out there who actually knows Russian, does this article look good or ridiculous?

Yeah, there’s a face you know you can trust. Yuri looks exactly like Dr. Wily from Mega Man, but I don’t know if this is an intentional homage or just a case of them both being examples of the mad scientist archetype.

((Not to give too much away, but the Wolf’s Den appearing in the anime right now is also a big case of manga/anime synergy))

(Vol.37 also features “Kinnikuman’s Wedding”, which the Perfect Origin Arc anime adapted as the framing narrative for Episode 0)

While at this point the manga just has a brief flashback to Warsman sparing a deer during his training, the anime expands this with an adaptation of the side-story “Warsman Begins”, included in Kinnikuman vol.37. It works really well.

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During Warsman’s intro, the computer monitor shows how his “icy spirit” is overwritten with the equation “sympathy+kindness+affection=friendship”, another Scramble for the Throne callback and a prime example of Yudetamago math.

In Japanese, Polar Man says that he’ll send Warsman to join Robin in the Chojin Graveyard (超人墓場), the Chojin afterlife first seen in the Scramble for the Throne arc, and based on the Ultraman series’ Monster Graveyard. But never mind about that for now.

Another Nisei connection: Robin’s eyecatch profile mentions how his armor was made by combining pieces from his ancestors’ armor, a fact Kevin reveals of his own armor in the V-Jump version of Nisei (a shorter, more kid-friendly alternate take on the series)