Spoiler Shin vs Houken discussion.

[Owl Ki]

Here is a thread dedicated to the sole purpose of discussing the entirety of the duel between Shin and Houken.

If you have not read the recent spoilers or have not caught up to the current arc then
BEWARE; MAJOR SPOILERS WILL BE DISCUSSED IN THIS THREAD!!!

Without further ado, let the discussions begin. :smithnie:

Some tags for potentially interested individuals:
@Admiral Lee Hung @Patryipe @Den_Den_Mushi @Beerbottle @Guan Yu @DizzyBrows @ShinmenTakezo @Shanks @Hiragaro @Monet @Nidai_Kitetsu @Desolate Smaug @Xione @XTMF

 

[Patryipe]

I didn’t say that a paper cut would finish off Ouki or anything like that lmfao, only that injuries in a Kingdom are much more grounded in reality than other stories of this type.

Houken had a stab wound in his leg, meaning any power he could’ve leveraged from his left leg was nerfed by the pain and damage that his leg received.

He was stabbed through his left arm and lost fingers there, which for the same reasons above will affect how much of the force from his swinging Glaive his left arm can bare.

Kyoukai left him giant wounds around his torso, which will once again lessen his strength output.

To say “the problem with this fight is that Houken has shown no signs of limitation from these injuries” is just wrong because Hara has established that injuries like this do have an effect on the body, even if characters are capable of fighting through the pain to an extent.

Gyou’Un took a similar wound that Houken did, and his men remarked that it was a miracle that he didn’t amputate his own arm after that, and Gyou’Un wasn’t shown using his dominant arm in battle after such a wound.

To act like Houken wasn’t inhibited at all from almost identical wounds just because he was never shown on panel commenting on his wounds? That’s just weird to me tbh lol.

Houken injuries are small stuff even for Kingdom standards. Nothing to do with Gyou'un who basically lost his dominant arm.

Losing fingers, LOL. When Rinko lost fingers he basically powered up, that's how debilitating losing fingers is...

Houken after all these massive injuries.

http://sensescans.com/reader/read/kingdom/en/57/621/page/13

Reacting and blocking Kyoukay deep magic dance.

Shin injuries.

Ten saying he's struggling today

http://sensescans.com/reader/read/kingdom/en/56/604/page/5

Garo mocking him

http://sensescans.com/reader/read/kingdom/en/56/604/page/6

Shin himself saying he has problems

http://sensescans.com/reader/read/kingdom/en/56/608/page/15

So from my point of view Houken was still in better condition than Shin, cause injuries aside Shin was also struggling with fatigue and hunger.

Had this fight been between fresh Shin and Houken I believe Shin could have win, but imho in the current situation Houken should have had the upper hand.

 

[Guan Yu]

shouldn't we wait for the chapter?

 

[Monet]

ok

this fight is the worst thing in kingdom ,to get how bad this is , if you compare it to a shonen fight like luffy vs kata , it was a one sided fight for almost the whole fight but at the end luffy bring sneakman and he become a peer/rival/equivalent to kata
but with shin vs huken it worse the one sided fight continued till the fight ended !! if it the
spear didnt break this zombie fight will ended with shin lose .



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[Blackbeard]

This was so satisfying to see after all these campaigns that the moment Houken was slain i heard this soundtrack in my mind immediately

 

[Elder Lee Hung]

This has been one of the most satisfying Kingdom fights for me. Like I said in the past, for me it’s an absolute joy to see Shin having reached this level of strength after spent years Hara organically powering Shin up instead of giving him asspull powerups left and right lol.

I think readers will always experience dissatisfaction when main characters reach the top tier level of strength, for some reason I think fans would rather cry bullshit than they would see characters attain the level of strength that they’ve been working towards since chapter 1 lol.

Narratively, Shin vs Houken has been set up for over 400 chapters now, and it thematically makes sense for Shin to be the one facing Houken in 1v1 combat right now, after Houken has literally killed multiple fan-loved characters who were all close to Shin in one way or another.

For me, this fight doesn’t necessarily belong in the same tier as something like Sei vs Ryofui (even though neither character in that confrontation even lifted a finger), as that fight is probably the best “fight” in, well, manga period lol, but still this Houken fight has so far been handled about as well as I could’ve hoped for lol.

If I had to rank it among my favorite fights in Kingdom, I’d say something like:

Sei vs Ryofui
Ouhon vs Earl Shi
Ouki vs Houken
Renpa vs Mougou
Tou vs Rinbukun
Moubu vs Kanmei
Shin vs Houken

So top 7? Lol

But it could go up or down depending on the finale

 

[DizzyBrows]

When it first got revealed that Shin killed Houken I definitely didn't know how to feel about it since I really did expect Houken to live through this and then get defeated in the final part of the Zhao invasion, but after some thinking on this I think it makes pretty good sense that Shin was able to defeat him here if you acknowledge that Hara himself doesn't consider the starvation a relevant factor anymore and possibly the spear wound he had been emphasizing for a while.

Overall though, I'd still place Houken > Shin martially. If you were to remove the history between the two and the past "revenge" weight that Shin has built up towards Houken, then Houken should by all means win the fight,

Been saying it though, Moubu > this bitch ass hermit Houken lmfao

 

[Desolate Smaug]

We all knew he was gon get cleaved. Some parts of the fights though were cringy. It gave me the katakuri vs luffy vibes. The final slash though was insane.