We start every review with the same intro that may raise a thousand eyebrows. As blasphemous as it sounds, it no longer is an inconceivable stunt given how anime culture revealed millions of possibilities that happen in very acceptable ways.
We covered the first two matches with Thor vs. Lu Bu and Adam vs. Zeus, and if there's one thing those fights hammered into us, it's that humans can actually out-muscle a god. However, we always find them having a god-like advantage. Hence, the two consecutive losses for humanity.
Now that humans grew even more hopeful with Adam's demise, and the gods were awestruck albeit warmed up with matches that didn't bore them, it's time for Heimdall's announcement.
Instead of another brawler, humanity dusted off a swordsman most textbooks forgot to mention, and sent him in against a deity who has, by this point in the story, personally erased one of his own siblings from existence. Bold strategy. Let's see if it works out.
Synopsis
Quick refresher for anyone just joining us mid-apocalypse. Record of Ragnarok is an anime show, adapted from its manga, where the gods hold a vote every 1,000 years on whether humanity has earned the right to keep existing.
This time the vote came back “no.” However, the Valkyrie Brunhilde invoked an old loophole buried in the divine rulebook, which helped humanity to earn the right to fight back.
The format is thirteen one-on-one death matches. Humanity's handpicked champions versus history's most powerful gods, one bout at a time, winner take all for the fate of the species.
To somehow level the field, every chosen human gets paired with a Valkyrie. They merge in spirit to a god-killing weapon through a process called Volundr. It's a power-up system built entirely on spite, grief, and desperation. We don't get magic swords because we're chosen ones. We get magic swords because somebody was furious enough to make one.
Round three gives us a god who can casually part the ocean to make an entrance versus a guy who's lost every single fight of his life. On paper, this match shouldn't even be sanctioned, let alone be televised.
Warning: Spoilers ahead for the buildup and the fight itself.
Poseidon “The Tyrant Of The Ocean”
“Hmp. Circus of filth.” - Poseidon
Thor teleported to the arena from inside the chambers. Meanwhile, Hermes heralded Zeus's arrival by playing “Air on the G String.” Both gave everyone a great performance before the bout.
But Poseidon? When he walked into the arena, the gods who had spent the last two matches heckling from the cheap seats like they were at a boxing weigh-in went completely silent the second he showed up. Loki was the only one who spoke, only to let it be known that Poseidon's even worse than Odin and Zeus when it comes to lack of humor.
He gave the most unsettling entrance that made those heckling gods swallow the hardest lump that formed in their throats. It's very comprehensible that Poseidon could take their heads off in a blink of an eye and without hesitation.
Ever had a Terminator CEO or project director who walked the aisle and everyone fell silent? It's a thousand times more than that. That should tell you everything you need to know about where Poseidon sits in this pantheon's pecking order.
The show frames him as the “calm” one of the group. And in his few seconds of introduction, somehow we knew that this is the kind of entity that smites before it asks. Poseidon sees himself as the Apex predator, and that gods like him must act with god-like appropriateness. One of the first things we noticed was that he didn't bother to look around as he walked in. That tells us that it's the arena that should know its place, not him.
And if you're still not convinced he's not just posturing for the cameras: Poseidon had an older brother named Adamas. It's that one god entity at the other side of the spectrum. One who shouts as he enters, one who notices everything, and one who didn't like the system. Poseidon's cold response was to kill his own brother for defiling the differentiae that make one a god.
In just one swoop of his trident, Poseidon finally looked his brother in the eye, which is also the moment he took his life. At this point, though, we're not sure what Adamas really wanted. Is it really the throne or Poseidon's acknowledgment?
But before we stray further….
Killing Adamas isn't even the disturbing bit. Gods murder family members in mythology always. It's practically the norm way of succession. What worried us is what happened after.
Poseidon erased Adamas from history entirely. He casually told Hermes, after killing his brother, that one of the thirteen gods seemed not to be a fit for the title, and that's all it took.
From then on, not a single deity dared talk about Adamas. All they knew was that there were twelve Olympian gods. That's the kind of authority where an entire pantheon collectively agrees to pretend something never happened. A god who can make you scared to even mention his crimes is a much scarier flex.
Record of Ragnarok's Poseidon holds the greatest pride of all. While Poseidons across different media are consistently stuck in a supportive role, this version could claim the throne if he wanted to.
He sees himself as complete. There's no need for him to betray, nor command an army. His existence alone is the only thing he needs.
The god among gods indeed.
Kojiro Sasaki “The World's Greatest Loser”
Pop-quiz!
Thanks to Heimdall, the deities in the cheap seats can now look elsewhere so that they can summon back the haughty composure they've lost.
“Fool” is the first adjective that came out of the announcer's mouth. After seeing what happened to Lu Bu and Adam, I guess you're even crazier than one just by thinking of stepping anywhere near that water-filled stadium.
Continuing with Heimdall's ice breaker, though we are not sure if it's an intro script provided by the challenger or they are just good at hyping someone, a lot of names were mentioned because of the question:
“Who's the greatest swordsman of all time?
Minamoto no Yoshitsune, Nobutsuna Kamiizumi, Takayanagi Matashiro… Nay.
In the story, these warriors made a name for themselves because of their resounding wins. But Kojiro Sasaki only had his silent adventures after a loss. Thus, no one really knows why he's there.
Then, they had a face reveal.
Like the Valkyrie Goll's reaction when we first saw Kojiro Sasaki shortly after Adam's defeat, the souls hoping for someone with Lu Bu's muscular build and Adam's plot armor charm were disappointed as they saw a fossil standing in front of a shining god.
The fascinating thing about swordsmen, though, is that they have great respect for each other. Thus, no one threw a careless word about the human representative. All the notable warriors in history patiently watched. The only heckling soul there was the kid of Kojiro Sasaki's rival, Musashi Miyamoto, incredibly proud of his dad's achievements.
But when Kojiro Sasaki drew his sword, everything was settled.
The ripples stopped as the tip of Kojiro's long katana landed on the ground, emanating a crisp, echoing metallic ring. It reached everyone, and even the gods on the podium got excited. Loki, Hermes, and Ares, finally getting on after a few minutes, realized that this could be another great match.
Everyone who understands the art of mastering the blade burst into tears. From there, we knew Kojiro Sasaki did something no one else in the history of mankind could.
When the league of swordsmen all agreed that the world's greatest loser is also their “Number One Under the Sun,” it was established that humanity is being represented by someone who has a bigger chance of winning.
Every battle Kojiro had been on always ended up with him on the ground or him surrendering. Pathetic as it may sound, Kojiro didn't mind. He trained in nature with his mind, simulating the moves of his past opponents, and by the time he surpassed them in his imagination, a rematch was no longer needed. That's how he reached the state of enlightenment every swordsman yearns for.
Back to his fight against Poseidon, Kojiro Sasaki never took a careless step despite the fact that he had achieved the peak of swordsmanship. Before he surprised everyone by taking a seat, he already imagined dying 18 times at the hands of the Olympian deity. If you were so quick to react, you might have gasped watching his first foretelling where his straightforward attack led to him getting impaled badly.
Borrowing Kojiro's words, no matter how he sliced it, he's just another fish being “gored' by its hunter if his not being extra careful.
Surprisingly, his predictions and simulations were accurate and insanely fast. All done in advance. The wait didn't take long as he begged Poseidon to allow him to fight.
Well, he wasn't answered. Poseidon was just waiting for him to step within his range. Using a three-foot-long Bizen Nagamitsu, conjured through Volundr with the second eldest Valkyrie sister, Hrist, Kojiro lunged forward and swung the heavy blade.
The first strike failed to hit Poseidon, who effortlessly dodged and prepared his trident. Due to the weight of the drying pole, as other blade experts call it, Kojiro seemed to have left himself open for a critical blow. But, if you aligned with what physics dictates, you're in for a shock.
The Tsubame Gaeshi, a technique invented by the world's greatest loser himself, intends to miss on its first blow. But as soon as the opponent mistook it as a “chance,” Kojiro completes the move by switching the direction of the blade, from downward to an upward slash.
Instead of getting skewered, Kojiro cut some of Poseidon's hair, which caused their gazes to meet.
Finally, Poseidon looked a human into the eye for the first time.
Humans that pushed themselves to the height of perfection
Poseidon vs. Kojiro Sasaki Fight Begins
Instead of waiting again, Poseidon advanced, and everyone was in awe. With great decisiveness, the god released the Amphitrite, a shower of trident jabs against the underdog mortal.
Kojiro Sasaki responded by dodging every single strike, which made us think of Adam and his speedy reaction. Goll thought the same and asked.
From here, Brunhilde explained to the younger Valkyrie how Kojiro Sasaki simply already knows where every single strike is going before it arrives, because he ran this exact fight, or something close enough to it, eighteen times in his head a few minutes ago. Most fighters in this tournament would need pure speed or pure durability to survive that kind of assault. Kojiro doesn't out-muscle it or out-run it.
By this time, a thousand different attacks and a thousand outcomes were already prophesied. With this “fastest prediction” ability, Kojiro evaded every single attack from Poseidon's first wave.
Audience Reactions
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| Best fight reaction goes to: |
We love how we see Loki's fangs every time he smiled in excitement and how Hermes helped a struggling Ares understand what's happening. All while Odin's gaze seems stuck.
Still, it was Aphrodite who gave a lasting, human-like comment. How she said the word “virile old man” implied that there's a hidden meaning to it.
Battle-wise, Ares's comment gets the award: “We're unknowable!”
Then he continued with the obvious: “Then that means there has to be something wrong with all of the people here!”
While his realizations are late, he's got the right words for all that's happening. What we liked most is: “These humans that push themselves to the heights of perfection… Why are they all so impossibly…?”
Loki stole the scene and completed what Ares should have said quickly: “Why are they so impossibly, unbelievably exciting?”
Yes, you're pleased with what humanity can do, yet you want to wipe us out.
Finally, we heard that whistle again before Adamas breathed his last, and reactions changed from all sides.
Generally, this is one of the fights where you get the most satisfying reactions, which is certainly something you can easily predict. On one side, you got a revered God, feared by most. Then, on the other hand, we got the real underdog. No army like Lu Bu, no origins like Adam. Both gods and humans are in for an exhilarating fight, though it all depends on whether the human would be able to keep up.
Yes, after the whistle, we all asked where all those predictions had gone to. Poseidon moved incredibly fast and pierced Kojiro Sasaki's side, drawing first blood.
Then we heard someone commenting how Kojiro turned from “big fish to small fry”.
Really, Heimdall?
If that's not enough, we hear the gods cheering GOG (God of Gods), which we found to be extremely annoying. Poseidon felt the same, so he gave them the look of death, and they all stopped.
That's the only time I cheered for him.
When the exchanges continued, Kojiro found himself getting pushed deeper into the ocean, figuratively. Poseidon unleashed torrential trident pierces. While Kojiro could still dodge, the only thing he could do was that. Still, the gods respected his capacity to be able to last that long, as his Senju Musou predictive ability seemed to be allowing him to step over to the realm of gods.
The reactions were priceless. Aphrodite compared Kojiro Sasaki's Senju Musou to infiltrating the mind and was asking how deep Kojiro can “penetrate.” Yes, we're looking forward to more from her.
Then, the Valkyries were once again seen desperate for the human representative and their sister, as Poseidon, able to trick Kojiro Sasaki with a fake-out, shattered the trusty Bizen Nagamitsu blade.
The God of Gods vs The Greatest Loser
“I surrender,” is something Kojiro Sasaki would have wanted to say. He'll take the loss as a learning opportunity, then come back looking for another opponent after he defeated Poseidon in his mind.
But the stage he's standing on is entirely distinct from any other death setting he had ever stepped on. The world's greatest loser must battle to the death, and this time, with a burden far bigger than his prowess.
But with no weapon, just like Lu Bu, he just needs to hand over his head. As Ares deduced, the old man is over.
SHIKASHI…
There was a flashback, and we just know that this struggle isn't over. In fact, it might end in a way we didn't expect, after all that build-up on the god and the way the series of events undermined the human's mastery in the face of a formidable entity. The fight has started showing elements absent from the previous matches.
Kojiro asked Poseidon a lot of things a god might have missed.
No, he rubbed them all in his face!
How Poseidon didn't get tired from swinging his blade all night, training until sunrise.
How the god didn't shed tears of solemn gratitude for someone who made him stronger than before, because he has always been strong.
How he missed the feeling of admiring a foe so much in the heat of battle that you won't mind dying.
How Poseidon missed standing up for a single thing all his life.
Then there's Re-Volundr.
Hrist, the second Valkyrie, was earlier shown to have dual personalities: the trembling one and the thundering one. This quality unique to her allowed Kojiro Sasaki to get a second form of divine weapon. Now, he's wielding dual blades, the Niten Ganryu.
After that, we saw Brunhilde commanding Kojiro Sasaki like a Pokémon with the screaming, “I choose you.”
Despite the words played and the fact that the swordsman can still fight, Poseidon did not waver. He still called the mortal a lowly worm and proceeded with Chione Tyro Demeter.
In this fight, it's like every human swordsman battled Poseidon as Kojiro Sasaki borrowed their techniques to attack and defend. Musashi Kishimoto himself said that Sasaki isn't showing knock-off renditions of their sword-fighting styles, but all of them lived in him, making these moves more perfected versions of the original, only a true Number One Under the Sun can do.
“Bleeding like a raw steak.” Heimdall made a blasphemous description of how Poseidon looked after Kojiro was able to cut the god with his attacks. You better pray that humanity wins this round, or else.
Medusa Alope Demeter, an enhanced and even deadlier version of Chione Tyro Demeter, filled the stadium. As Poseidon turned the match into a test of strength to render Kojiro's Senju Musou useless, all you could see was a dome, which was actually formed by insanely quick trident storms raining down on Kojiro Sasaki, who once again felt like he had fallen to a far deeper trench after he thought that he was already at the bottom.
But after souls teamed up to encourage a comrade on the frontlines, Kojiro Sasaki finally became decisive.
His Senju Musou evolved into Manju Musou, an ability that could predict even millions of possibilities. This allowed him to finally get close to Poseidon and do what his heart wished for.
Kojiro Sasaki wanted to claim his first win!
And the first head he cut was of a god!
We saw Poseidon lose one of his hands, then the other. No matter how he picked his trident up, it was all in vain.
The gods on the podium responded in silence. Now that they've seen Poseidon's essence dissipating, they knew this was no longer the same game they played for eons. They could really die if they got too cocky and let one human blade slip through their vanity.
The God's Karma and The Loser's First Win: Final Thoughts
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| Impaled doughnut, yes, but we don't see this character design getting cut into pieces. |
“A god needs no armies. Nor to resort to betrayal, for a god is complete. That's how it has always been. We have embodied perfection since the beginning of time.”
This was respectable. But he continued:
“Why show thanks for the irrelevant?” Poseidon uttered these words after Kojiro Sasaki asked why he's all feisty over the crowd cheering for him.
On top of that, we couldn't forget how he called other gods earlier in the fight:
“Shitstains.”
And how he called Kojiro Sasaki before he hit the ground:
“Little fish.”
What happened in this round is the ultimate display of karma. We don't believe it to be a supernatural force, but more of a consequence that hits heavily if you act smug or with explicit arrogance.
Because of the underdog-finally-rises element and the karmic cycle hitting a god, the round where humans finally snatched the victory from the hands of gods is highly satisfying. This made us think that both Lu Bu and Adam had to die for this very moment.
OTAKU FANTASY HOT TAKE:
Despite many others who can't get over Kojiro Sasaki's victory in Reddit discussions, insisting that Poseidon is far too strong, which we believe is true, we also believe that the win has been earned and justified. The Record of Ragnarok anime and manga do not need to be too literal in the fights.
It can easily be assumed that, with how Poseidon sees himself as a complete god, and how taking a series of blows diminishes or threatens his god title, he lost his cool and fell to the Manju Musou trap. If only he stepped back and did the fake-out tricks he was surprisingly capable of, as shown earlier in the fight, he could have won.
But what he did was:
- Stayed where he was standing when Kojiro Sasaki finally closed in.
- Didn't take into consideration that the human had far more limited stamina than he does. If he turned this into a battle of endurance, he could have outlasted his opponent. We saw how Kojiro Sasaki almost dropped at the end before he could leave the arena.
- Fought at a miserable stance and range, falling to Manju Musou + the winning move, Souenzanko Banjinryoran.
The show gave us enough good seconds to savor Kojiro Sasaki's win. We saw Brunhilde choking Gohl with her boobs, the swordsmen bursting into more tears, humanity shouting in joy on their first win, the smaller gods with their mouths agape, and the podium gods who were muted but incredibly upset.
Kojiro Sasaki's design is actually a badass depiction of a loser. The misery is not overemphasized. He still has that protagonist vibe in him, which also overlaps with a typical anime old mentor's charisma like Genkai. But no matter how we connect him with any characters, Kojiro Sasaki held his own, despite not having the beautiful or handsome face of typical OP idols we have now.
Meanwhile, Poseidon continues to be a hated character, because there's no redeeming quality to him. The Greek Gods were furious about the outcome, but only because they share the same cell as the fallen god. This tells us that the show immortalized a really good character, and they are not afraid to do him ugly even if he has that shining design which Kojiro Sasaki lacks.
Another commendable thing is how the story made Poseidon's reputation feel completely earned. It staged that haunting question in the minds of an insider watcher:
“After all this build-up, how the hell can humans win this fight?”
The exchanges of words did not get past our cheesy meter. They were executed properly, at the suitable time, and in the right amount. There's no ground-shaking drama. What we got is a story of triumph from humanity's perseverance and yearning for greatness, which is surprisingly enough to fill our eyes with tears.
However the next match shakes out, Record of Ragnarok keeps proving the same underlying point, fight after fight: strength doesn't always look like strength, right up until it's far too late for the other side to do anything about it. Adam looked like the chosen one and lost. Kojiro looked like a walking punchline and ended a god's night in one motion. If this tournament has a thesis statement, that might be it.
Want to see this fight play out on the page? The Poseidon vs. Sasaki Kojiro match runs through Record of Ragnarok, Vol. 4 (VIZ Media) — grab a copy on Amazon here. (As an Amazon Associate, Otaku Fantasy earns from qualifying purchases.)
Final Verdict:
Battle Intensity: 8/10
Character Hype: 10/10
Story Execution: 10/10
Surprise Element: 10/10
Animation: 8/10
Poseidon vs. Kojiro Sasaki Fight Overall Score: 9.2
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