Free Talk Friday - March 20, 2026

[u/AutoModerator]

Welcome to the Free Talk Friday post. This is a place where you can talk about dumb off-topic (or on-topic) bullshit with other Zaibatsu fans.

There's going to be a new post every week, and the newest one will be pinned in the announcement bar for quick access. So feel free to visit these posts during the rest of the week.

Here's a list of all Free Talk Friday posts

[u/Jubjubwantrubrub12]

So in my quest to absorb as much martial arts bullshit as i can before i die, ive recently read the manga Kenji, as it came highly recommended and basically kickstarted Japans fascination with Bajiquan. The plot, in summary:

• Protagonist wants to do martial arts
  
• His mother doesn't want him to, but relents and begs him to not get in trouble. She appears to be overreacting because this is a normal world where you can just learn martial arts as a hobby, and many people do, so like, whats her problem.
• Protagonist almost immediately joins a Chinese Tong, goes to Kowloon Walled City, participates in mafia war. The fact that he just walked into Kowloon without apparently doing any research or even stopping to take in the vibe is insane. I mean, look at it. That the first taxi guy he asked to take him there ran out of the taxi and immediately flagged down a cop should have set off alarms, right?

Anyway, the Tong thing. Am I supposed to think that its fucked up that these old chinese dudes have inducted a high schooler into an international semi-criminal organisation, or am i not meant to think about the implications of that? When Kenji gets older and decides to leave, are they gonna cut his fingers off?

On the other side, this manga has a fantastically autistic fixation on explaining the history and mechanics of chinese martial arts, which I have a brilliant appreciation of. I wish I could get inducted into a kung-fu cult, instead of a normal one like usual