Synopsis:
Someone is targetting the greatest Toshin fighters one by one. As each fighter falls, Eiji and Kayin struggle to unveil the mystery before they too are defeated. Who is this powerful new enemy and who will be his next victim? And why does the assassin look like Eiji's brother? The answer lies at the heart of the Organization and its plans for world domination. Eiji must get to the bottom of everything before it's too late.

Review:
Battle Arena Toshinden is the anime version of one of the more popular fighting games around. The opening is explosive, but it's too bad that fire didn't carry over through the duration of the film. The plot is nothing special, good guys have to go after the bad guys and foil their plans to take over the world... *yawn* so what else is new? I fell asleep before I even reached the end of Battle Arena Toshinden.

Battle Arena Toshinden's redeeming factor lies in its marvelous action sequences. The fighting scenes are finely detailed and smoothly executed, much better than they are in the game(s). Battle Arena Toshinden uses a lot of split-screen animation to simultaneously show how two fighters charge towards each other. I don't know the characters very well since I've played the game only a few times. After watching this, I felt no different -- I still didn't know them very well. Not enough background is provided, and character development is virtually non-existent.

As I've already pointed out, the art and animation are excellent. The English dubbing is also okay. Fans of the game will probably appreciate this more... but as an independent anime feature, it's just so-so.

Miscellanies:
I wonder if I'd like this better if I played the game more? Truth be told, I don't think much of the BAT fighting game either. Tekken is a way better game...

Screenshots:

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