Content Warning: Sex, Blood, Gore, Transphobia
What’s it about? Kenji is no ordinary rooster—he’s humanity’s feathered defender! So naturally, when strange creatures invade Earth, he doesn’t go to the coop: no, he strikes a pose, fluffs those feathers, and lets out a fearsome caw before diving into battle!
We start off with, I shit you not, a mother and child talking about eating chicken skewers in a world where a ROOSTER is their ultimate hero. It’s tongue in cheek—or perhaps tongue in beak—and kind of immediately sets the tone for the world of Rooster Fighter, which features an array of CGI monsters in one of the ugliest looking shows this season.
But worry not, because there’s a flying hero in town to make it all better—enter Rooster Fighter, a tough-talking piece of poultry with Super Saiyan powers, and I’m gonna be real, that’s kind of all this premiere is. He fights demons, then moves on to fight another demon. That’s kind of Keiji’s thing. That’s really all this is.
Well, okay it’s also got a banger opening that tries to make this into One Cluck Man, only…sigh, okay, we’re gonna break down my issues immediately.
I think someone’s god is testing me because what the fuck did I just watch? Did one of you pay an Etsy or Tiktok witch to curse me, because I’m feeling it after this premiere. Forget having to witness chicken sex twice: that’s not even the worst thing you’ll endure because honestly, this is straight doo doo from start to finish, and that’s not because I’m simply a hater. No, in fact, I’m a hater who gets paid to critique, and critique I shall.
I knew the moment the first monster was a monstrously fat three headed woman we were in for trouble, because the way we connect fatness with monstrosity is always alarming. It also just isn’t easy on the eyes and honestly, the concept/twist of a rooster who fights is just not enough to get me locked in. It’s perfectly fine as parody, but I think this form of subjective humor feels closer to an anime abridged series, and I’ve never found those funny. Still, I can put aside my own sense of humor and still understand the appeal even if I think this is a bad series.
That wasn’t the most alarming issue: it’s the blatant transphobia that this episode ends on.
You see, mixed into the goofy story of Keiji’s life as a migratory bird who can strike a bug from the sky with a single rock, mingled into a world where demons manifest from humanity’s emotions, blended with the story of a rooster who just wants to slay, is a demon who is rendered so hideous that the humans who see their body (which is rendered as a trans woman’s body in the way that only JKR would render a body) are VOMITING explicitly from seeing someone who doesn’t fit a binary standard of presentation. The demon flashes everyone, revealing feminine secondary traits, and begs others to look at them only to be immediately killed. Wikipedia currently uses the word “transversitite” and “he” to describe the demon. I’m going gender neutral because we don’t get anything past sexual inappropriateness and VOMITTING.
It is horrid and mean and the use of that word alone makes it clear the cruel nature of this “joke.”
This, above all else, ruined a premiere that I was barely able to get through because it’s an exhausting and hideous joke that feels monstrous in a manga from 2021 and an adaptation of said manga in 2026. And I want to mention that I watched the dub and hearing the “joke” cliffhanger ending in English just reminded me that my body is a source of great humor to others, and that just sucks. I don’t have better words, it just sucks.
I am decidedly not the one, nor the two, nor the three—I really didn’t enjoy this premiere. In an anime where a rooster demonstrates his Chad-ability as the central joke, there are so many other jokes that could have been made. And to its meager credit, Rooster Fighter does make some jokes that are technically humor. It’s just that it ends on such a cruel and demonic note that even if I’d been slapping my knees and busting a gut, I’d still be left with the thought of, “This anime stinks!” given the final demon we encounter.
In a world of action shonen, don’t be Rooster Fighter: hell, don’t even watch it. Literally go put your eyeballs on anything else. In fact, just go rewatch One Punch Man: that’s a better version of all of this.
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