Houken and Chougaryuu both died immediately from this exact injury, Keisha went out in about a dozen seconds from a similar injury and Mangoku achieved an at best 30 second conversation with Shin with a similar injury. All of them were certainly incapable of fighting any further after such a blow.
Nah you’re playing with perception too loosely here. We don’t technically know that Houken and Garyuu died instantly from such wounds, we only know that they passed out from those wounds and for all we know, their bodies continued functioning for several minutes before their ultimate deaths.
And I certainly wouldn’t describe Zenou as “capable of fighting” from the few spoiler panels I’ve seen. I would describe him as being conscious and capable of exerting one last desperate, all-out burst of strength in defiance of his momentary death, but I’m not expecting him to pick his mace back up and keep fighting lmfao. That would be some shit.
Like I said, I’ve seen animals take gunshots to the head and live on for several minutes. I once saw a raccoon get shot in the head, and then several minutes later when the guy who shot it went to skin it (thinking it was dead), the raccoon flared it’s claws and started swinging claws at him. This was after minutes of a gunshot wound to the head where the animal was lying completely still. We assumed it was dead but it wasn’t and still was able to defend itself in those circumstances. This is how I see this Zenou moment. He is a savage animal on the brink of death, exerting his last ounces of strength before his body ceases to function.
The fact that Houken, Garyuu, Mangoku or who else blacked out shortly after such injuries while Zenou did not, speaks to how much of a savage animal Zenou is. This is a moment meant to make us understand Zenou’s character on a deeper level, illustrated much more effectively than some 1v1 imo because now we can clearly see what a monster Zenou is deep down in a very visceral manner.
How is martial Generals confronting each other a contrived concept? Like would it really have been all that contrived for a martial General to confront Zenou to stop him from reaching Riboku? Or for other characters to confront each other as what usually happens in this manga and what happened anyway with the likes of Futei Vs Ringyoku? Was there anything stopping both a brutal and some 1v1s from happening?
We
did see this though. We did see a martial General confront him when Jyoukaryuu confronted him. Zenou was already wounded by that point because the men he had faced up to that point figured it was probably a good idea to pepper the giant screaming man-hulk with arrows before confronting him personally: which makes perfect sense.
And I’d love to know how Hara could’ve drawn a more brutal 1v1 than what he drew with Zenou and Jyoukaryuu here lol, this shit was brutal af.
Also, "outside of his defeat"? What, you mean outside of when the dude was actually active onscreen, he was impressive? Lol.
Aight fair point I see what you meant lmfao. Kochou did slay multiple Shuma with a gaping neck wound and no backup which is good enough for me really, Kochou historically was not a hugely important Great General so in hindsight it was unrealistic for Hara to draw him as a 3GH level commander anyway.
Hell, you didn't seem to happy about the result back then either.
Cut a guy a break lol, hindsight is 20/20 and opinions change. I also remember initially hating Hara’s motivation for having Kanki behead 100K Zhao, but in retrospect I’m fine with that now too and I love Kanki’s characterization that we got this arc.
Come on, really? Arrow wounds are enough to make Zenou physically weak enough to get stalled by fodder troopers but a halfway bisection that goes through at least one of his lungs doesn't stop him from having enough strength to singlehandedly (literally) crush a High Tier's skull after several minutes of bleeding out?
Yes. I don’t understand the issue with that? Zenos was so weakened that the swarms of Zhao soldiers were too much for him to get through to Riboku in the timeframe he had, I don’t understand the issue with that? He still broke Bafuuji’s arm in one blow did he not?
Shouldn't that be more reason for these Generals to be the ones around to protect, bleed and die for Riboku? To give Riboku some personal loss against fighting Kanki? Shouldn't that give us some actually meaningful deaths?
What? I mean, if that’s what Hara was going for this arc then sure but clearly that’s not what Hara is going for right now. This is almost like asking why we didn’t get a Kansaro backstory this arc. Like, it’s not time for that yet? If ever? I don’t understand why it would be necessary to do this right now, especially when Riboku’s ultimate story is not climaxing right now anyway.
Feckin Gaku Ei got a far more memorable and meaningful death than this guy.
I mean, what’s more memorable is subjective lol, but Gakuei’s death served a very specific purpose, to show the level that Shin had reached at that time, being able to one-shot a respectably strong General.
Jyoukaryuu’s death also illustrates a purpose, to show what a savage motherfucker Zenou is.
Zenou consciously holding that thing in place should have been an immediate alert that he was alive. How would he even be holding it? By tensing his giant gaping wound? Lol.
See, this is the most confusing part of your post to me. On the one hand, you say this:
JKR's entire role is being the muscle of whatever force he is attached to. He isn't much of a tactician by his own admission.
But on the other hand, you say this:
Besides, isn't logical to go confront the still active even if supposedly minor threat than to sit pointlessly for several minutes next to a dead one?
So in the exact same post, you go from
“Jyoukaryuu isn’t exactly a logical tactician type commander, why would he hold back from charging into Kanki’s HQ?”
To
“Jyoukaryuu standing by Zenou is extremely illogical and a dumb move, this makes no sense.”
It seems to me like Jyoukaryuu making decisions that make no sense should exactly match the way you are portraying him, no? Lol
I think the reality is that Jyoukaryuu is certainly not a dumb brute, he is not a tactician sure but there’s a difference between not being a tactician and being a dumb commander.
Jyoukaryuu is smart enough to know that him charging into Kanki’s headquarters in these circumstances is completely unnecessary, so he doesn’t do it. He is watching the battlefield to see what moves he needs to make next (if any) before making them, assuming Zenou is dead when Zenou is in fact a monster who is still alive. He tries to pull his Glaive from Zenou and fails, probably just assuming that Zenou has yet to fully die and decides to leave his Glaive in until the life has drained from Zenou, but also not seeing the need to attack him again given that the wound he just took was so grievous.
I don’t see why that’s so unbelievable, lol
