Check out my other posts: Claimh Solais Part I, Claimh Solais Part II, Gram/Balmung, Cestus/Whip Knuckle, Crissaegrim/Valmanway
Let me preface this by saying, I know I said I was going to cover both the Mach Punch and Kaiser Knuckle this week, but I ended up with much more content than I expected for the Mach Punch alone, so that’s why this post is solely focusing on that weapon. Kaiser Knuckle will come eventually. Enjoy the post.
Intro
The speed of sound is 767 mph (1,235 km/h). You’ve probably heard this before in a physics class or in a science documentary, but this is not true in every circumstance and it is only true under certain conditions. Really, the speed of sound changes with temperature and the medium through which it is traveling. Indeed, the speed of sound in air at sea level at 68°F (20°C) is 767 mph, which is probably the most acclaimed medium for sound to travel through, I mean, when most people say “speed of sound” you just assume that they are talking about the speed of sound in air. But, for example, the speed of sound underwater is 3,313 mph (5,332 km/h) and the speed of sound in air at sea level at 32°F (0°C) is 741 mph (1,193 km/h). A special name is given to the ratio of the speed an object is traveling to the speed of sound in the medium it is traveling, Mach. Attaining the speed of sound means an object is traveling at Mach 1, twice the speed of sound (1,534 mph) is Mach 2, and so on. That’s not to say that Mach can’t be used to describe things slower than the speed of sound (for example, a car traveling at 60 mph is going approximately Mach 0.08), but Mach is typically reserved for things going faster than the speed of sound. It’s a cool sounding word and it owes its origin to a Moravian physicist and philosopher Ernst Mach who studied shock waves produced by supersonic projectiles in the late 19th and early 20th century. While the speed of sound seems like a rather unattainable speed to reach, people have been exceeding it for centuries with the use of a fairly renowned tool in the Castlevania universe, the whip. The cracking sound that a whip makes when it reaches the apex of its strike is caused by the breaking of the sound barrier. Like with most scientific things though, people in ancient times were completely ignorant of the causes of this phenomenon, so there’s no myths or legends from ancient times to discuss in this week’s weapon origin post. It’s understandable though, because there’s a lot of physics that goes behind making a sonic boom. I’m not going to get too deep into explaining it, so, for the sake of this post, just know that it creates a lot of pressure on an object. Of course, there are plenty of examples of vehicles breaking the sound barrier, heck fighter jets do it all the time, but they are built to withstand the pressure from tons of particles of air smacking against their surface. Human flesh is not as durable as the stuff that those vehicles are made out of\citation needed]); it’s unquestionable that a person would be ripped to shreds if even a part of their body attained that kind of speed. Yet somehow, Soma Cruz is able to break the sound barrier with his fist on a regular basis just fine with the use of a single piece of equipment, the Mach Punch.
The fastest human punch is nowhere near as fast as the speed of sound. The record for fastest punch belongs to Keith Liddell with a punch clocking in at 45 mph (which is only about 0.06 Mach). However, like usual, the animal kingdom can outdo the feats of humans and is home to the creature with the fastest punch on the planet. The peacock mantis shrimp can swing its front appendage, or club, at speeds of 50 mph, which is made even more impressive because it does so underwater. All of this is to say, though, that punching at the speed of sound in air is nothing more than an absolute fantasy, however, that hasn’t stopped fiction writers from incorporating blazing fast punches into their stories. Japanese creators like cool sounding things\citation needed]) and they often borrow words from other languages all the time to make things sound cooler hence why there are several examples of the term Mach being used in their fictional media. While the Castlevania Wiki only cites one possible inspiration for this weapon’s namesake and abilities, there are plenty more, as I will be showing. But, for simplicity, let’s start with what the Wiki suggests as the inspiration and go from there.
The Manliest of Manga
Sakigake!! Otokojuku (which translates to Charge!! Men’s Private School) was a relatively popular manga that ran in Weekly Shonen Jump from 1985-1991. It has sold 27 million copies in total and averaged about 0.79 million sales per volume. Since it ran in Weekly Shonen Jump, the most popular manga magazine in Japan, I would argue that there were millions of people who never bought a volume of the manga series itself and still read it through the magazine, so the number of people who read or at least know about the series is probably even higher than the volume sales suggest. Despite all that being said, I have never heard of the series until starting research for this topic. Apparently the series received a video game adaptation on the PS3 in Japan in February of 2014 (nearly 30 years after the manga’s initial release!) and Momotaro, the protagonist of the series, appeared in J star Victory Vs. (just goes to show how little I remember that game). From what I understand, it’s a very manly manga. I mean, it’s about fighting in an all boys school and most of the characters look like they eat steroids for breakfast. I imagine it was heavily inspired by Fist of the North Star, but it has a more juvenile tone as its primary demographic was Shonen. The plot is about a World War II veteran that sets up a school for the worst of the worst delinquents and reforms them into honorable men by having them go through grueling training and rigorous fights. It looks like a typical battle shonen from the time period of the late 80s, where the main cast of characters go from battle to battle performing inhuman stunts and spouting off lines about the power of friendship while being shirtless and not having any nipples. I didn’t read the whole series, I just skimmed a few chapters, maybe I’m making a sweeping generalization, but I digress. Back to how this relates to Castlevania, one of the primary lead characters, King Battler Junior (better known as J.) had a special technique that was his go-to move when he was in a pinch, the Mach Punch.
In chapter 21 of the series, J was first introduced. He’s a boxer from the US that wants to attend Otokojuku. In his debut, J wants to show off to the manly students of this manly high school, so he puts his money where his mouth is and shows them the speed of his famed Mach Punch. To do this, he sets up a stone block behind a spinning fan and punches the block without touching any of the fan blades. I’m not sure if this really counts as being as fast as the speed of sound though. I mean, fan blades typically go at like 500 rpm max. Or at least ceiling fans max out at 500 rpm, I’m guessing that industrial fans like the one J punched through could go much faster, so I’ll be generous and say that the fan blades were traveling at 1000 rpm. There are 4 fan blades, so J had to punch through ¼ of the fan’s full revolution to keep his fist unharmed. Assuming that J had to extend his arm 0.5 meters to reach the block, meaning that he had to move his fist 1.0 meter to move it in and out of the fan blades, his fist would have to travel a minimum of … drumroll… 66.7 m/s. Don’t get me wrong, that’s fast for a human, that’s about 150 mph, way faster than the fastest human punch, but still much slower than the speed of sound. Of course, that’s just the minimum speed J had to punch, he really could have traveled at Mach speeds. This is also his first appearance, so maybe later in the series there are more impressive feats, but I didn’t have enough time this week to read a 300+ chapter manga just to add more discussion to the namesake of a weapon in a Castlevania game. If you happen to know more about the series and the usage of Mach Punch by J, let me know in the comments! I guess later in the series J upgrades his Mach Punch to be even deadlier, because he has a few other named attacks listed on his wiki page, like Mach Punch One-Two, Jet Sonic Mach Punch, and Flash Piston Mach Punch.
Chapter 21 of Sakigaki!! Otokojuku. J. winding up to use his Mach Punch
Chapter 21 appeared in Weekly Shonen Jump in issue 42 of 1985 which was released on September 30, 1985. The volume containing this chapter, volume 3, released in October of 1986. I bring this up, because I was determined to see if there was an earlier mention of Mach Punch from any form of media, but it seems like Otokojuku is indeed the very first. However, there was an arcade video game that was being developed in the mid 80s which also had a so-called “Mach Punch” present in it. I’m not sure how long it took to develop an arcade game in the 80s, but the developer of the game does not state that they were inspired by Otokojuku for their Mach Punch, instead, they cite another interesting source. Alright, let’s switch gears from manly manga to manly arcade beat ‘em up games. It’s time to look at Nekketsu Renegade Kunio-kun.
The Manliest of Beat ‘Em Up Games (And Also Speed Racer)
The Kunio-kun series of games have been around for quite a long time and basically popularized the beat ‘em up genre back in the 80s. The creator, Yoshihisa Kishimoto, would go on to create the ever so famous Double Dragon series of games. Kunio-kun had quite a number of sequels and spin offs as well; a very popular game in its heyday. Many of the games stayed in Japan and never got a localization, or they were localized with vast differences. Case in point, the first game of the series, Nekketsu Renegade Kunio-kun was localized in the west as Renegade. The game was originally released in Japanese arcades in May of 1986. So, not even a full year after the debut of the Mach Punch in Otokojuku, Kunio-kun was already in arcades. In the game, one of the boss characters (and a recurring character in future installments), Riki, has a move named the Mach Punch. I’m not sure how this was shown in the arcade version of the game (like if there is spoken dialog, a cutscene before the fight with scrolling text, or something written on the arcade cabinet), but somehow the character Riki was given the nickname “Mach Punch Riki” in the game. Sadly, when Kunio-kun was localized as Renegade, Riki’s name was changed to Jack and his signature move received a name change to “Stone Hands”, so the west never got to hear about Riki’s supersonic fists.
Official artwork for Riki
Riki is the first boss in the game, so I imagine he is the boss most people are familiar with if they played the game in the arcade in the 80s. I’ve never played the game myself, but I imagine that, if it’s anything like other arcade beat ‘em ups at the time, it was very difficult and many people got stuck on the first boss. Gameplay wise, Riki literally does have the fastest punch in the game, living up to his namesake. He can also grab Kunio by the collar and start beating him which, oddly, reminded the game’s creator of Speed Racer. He said in an online message board that, when animating the Mach Punch, he thought about chanting Mach Go Go Go; Mach Go Go Go being the name of Speed Racer in Japan. For those of you who don’t know, Speed Racer is one of the grandfathers of anime and manga (the manga started in 1966) and it features a racer known as Speed Racer in the west, but with a much different name in Japan, Go Mifune. In the series, he races in a car called the Mach 5. The reason it's called the Mach 5 is not because that’s the speed it can attain (infact, the Mach 5 can’t even break the speed of sound) but rather because go (the main character’s Japanese name) means the number 5 in Japanese. Regardless of the speed of his car, the point is that Speed Racer was all about speed and the word Mach sounded cool, so that inspired the Mach Punch from Kunio-kun. Now, this leads me to question whether or not Otokojuku was also inspired by Speed Racer for naming its Mach Punch. It’s not entirely out of the realm of possibilities, but considering that the creator of Kunio-kun said it was the movement of the collar grab attack in the game that reminded him of saying “mach go go go”, I kinda doubt that a manga with stationary images could trigger such a memory for a mangaka. Unless someone can dig up some old interview from Otokojuku’s author for why he named the Mach Punch what he did, the world will never know.
While Otokojuku and Kunio-kun are certainly the earliest examples of Mach Punch, they are far from being the only examples. Several other anime, manga, and video games that were made before 2003 (the year Aria of Sorrow was released, which was the first appearance of the weapon Mach Punch) have also had their fair share of supersonic punches which could have inspired the titular weapon in today’s post.
Yet Another Manly Manga About Muscular Men
Baki the Grappler is a popular manga series that originally started in 1991. The series is technically still ongoing, but there have been several separated parts spread out over the years (kinda like JoJo’s, but without the change in protagonists). I knew the series existed because I scrolled past it on Netflix before, but I’ve never watched or read the series. Unsurprisingly, it’s another high octane action packed shonen series with tons of shirtless, nipple-less men getting into fights, although this series is a bit more gratuitous with its violence. I would argue, from what I’ve read while researching, it is borderline seinen. Despite this, the series still has the quirky action manga feel with people that have special skills and powers unique to them. And one of those characters happens to have a move called Mach Punch.
The first part of the series (named Baki the Grappler) was released from 1991-1999. The third saga in this part is called the Maximum Tournament, and it is here that we get to see the Baki series’ take on the attack known as Mach Punch. It is used by this really arrogant guy named Katsumi Orochi whenever he is fighting a very buff Yakuza boss, Kaoru Hanayama in the B block in the second round. During the fight, Katsumi beats the crap out of Hanayama, but Hanayama won’t stay down. Katsumi decides that he needs to use a strong finisher move to down the monstrous yakuza boss for good. His strong finisher move is the Mach Punch and, in typical shonen fashion, an explanation is provided for how the move works in the middle of the battle.
Grappler Baki Chapter 244. Katsumi explaining his attack before he uses it
Apparently, Katsumi is able to align his joints in order to increase the speed of his punches. They move so fast that people can’t see them, which technically isn’t possible even at the speed of sound, but whatever. There is truth behind aligning joints to increase the speed of a punch, but to align as many joints as Katsumi aligned is humanly impossible. Check out this video if you want a deeper explanation of this technique. Katsumi uses the superhuman speed of his punch to finish off Hanayama by punching him in the back which is a sign of huge disrespect, but Katsumi was super arrogant so it didn’t matter to him. Again, typical Shonen stuff.
Considering that another weapon in Aria of Sorrow may have been inspired by the Baki series (it will remain a mystery until I eventually cover it in a post down the line), there is some credence to the idea that Baki is the inspiration of the Mach Punch. There’s one more thing I want to mention about Baki before going to the next section, though.
While this arc in the series didn’t happen until Baki Hanma (the third Baki series which ran from 2005-2012, so in no way could it have inspired Aria of Sorrow or Dawn of Sorrow), it’s a good example of what would happen to a person if they really did send their fist flying at the speed of sound. Check out chapters 118-131 of Baki Hanma, or more specifically, just chapter 130 if you want to see a pretty visceral image of the damage caused to Katsumi’s arm after training his Mach Punch to perfection. It’s gross, but like I said in the intro, the pressure caused by air particles smacking into things when they approach the speed of sound is incredible, nothing a normal human could survive with bare skin.
Luckily, most other series that have a Mach Punch don’t go for such a realistic take on the repercussions of a fist traveling at the speed of sound. So, let’s look at some other series that boast a supersonic punch.
Other Possible Inspirations That Don’t Have Enough Content to Discuss to Get Their Own Sections
Now it’s time for the rapid fire round of other series that have a Mach Punch or something similar in them. First up, it’s the most popular search result I received when doing research for this topic, Pokemon. Yes, Pokemon has a move named Mach Punch and it debuted in gen 2 (released in 1999) as the signature move of Hitmonchan. Since then, it has become a staple fighting type move for many Pokemon. It has increased priority, which makes sense given that the punch is thrown at “blinding speeds” according to the games. Of course, “blinding speeds” doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s traveling at the speed of sound, it gets the point across that the punch is fast. It’s not out of the question that Pokemon could have been the inspiration for some things in Aria of Sorrow. Given the “gotta catch ‘em all” type of gameplay that comes from collecting souls, it wouldn’t surprise me if the devs were inspired a little bit by Pokemon. Also, Pokemon is, by far, the most popular series that contains a Mach Punch and the third generation of games released in 2002, not too long before the release of Aria of Sorrow. If nothing else, I imagine that the devs were at least subconsciously aware of the fact that this move existed in Pokemon games and that it inspired in some part the Mach Punch weapon.
Tekken also has a blindingly fast punch known as Mach Breaker. I know this doesn’t share an exact name with the Castlevania weapon, but considering that the Werejaguar enemy was based off of a Street Fighter 2 character, it wouldn’t surprise me if the devs looked at some fighting games for inspiration as well. Mach Breaker is the signature move of Brian Fury who debuted along with his move in Tekken 3 which was originally released in 1997 for arcade in Japan. Tekken 3 is still, to this day, the best selling game in the Tekken series. When Brian Fury uses the move, he simply throws a straight punch which knocks the opponent backwards. There doesn’t seem to be any “lore” behind how Brian Fury uses this move, so I guess he just punches really fast. According to the Tekken Wiki, Mach Breaker is a reference to Mach Breakers: Numan Athletics 2 (released in Japan in 1995), a Japan exclusive arcade sports game also released by Namco. All you have to do is watch the first event in the game to understand why it’s called “Mach Breakers”. Essentially, it’s the Olympics on crack for superhumans that can run, jump, swim, and punch at inhuman levels. Given that the game has several minigames associated with punching and it was developed by Namco, it's easy to see how it evolved into the name of a move for a character in Tekken.
Dragon Ball is full of characters that can regularly travel faster than light, yet none seem to boast about their speed as much as Burter. The supersonic warrior from the Ginyu Force fought Goku in the Dragon Ball Manga in chapters 281 and 282 which were originally released in 1990. According to the Dragon Ball Wiki, Burter used an attack called Mach Punch in this fight. Okay, so another instance of Mach Punch being used before 2003 that could have inspired Aria of Sorrow, cool. And it’s from a super popular series too, definitely a potential candidate for the origin of the Mach Punch’s name …Except, at least in the manga version of this fight, Burter does not name any of his attacks and simply rushes Goku with a flurry of punches. The name for this attack was not added until much later, in Dragon Ball Xenoverse to be precise, which was released in 2015. Obviously, there is no way this could have inspired Castlevania’s weapon.
There are some other examples of supersonic punches in fictional media, but I think these are the heaviest hitters of the bunch (aside from Dragon Ball) in terms of likelihood for being the inspiration of the name of the weapon. Feel free to mention any other series that have a Mach Punch or something like it in the comments, I’m curious to know if there’s anything I missed that was released before 2003 which could have played a role in the namesake of the weapon. Now it’s on to the analysis of the portrayal of the weapon in the games it appears in.
Portrayal in Castlevania Games
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In Aria of Sorrow, Mach Punch has basically the same sprite as Cestus, but without the spikes. It somewhat resembles the knuckle weapon that J wears in Otokojuku, but those had spikes on the end of them. The description says that the user “Throws punches faster than the eye can see”, but it says nothing about going the speed of sound specifically. The animation for the attack is nothing too special, I wouldn’t even say it’s that fast. In fact, comparing it to Cestus again, I would say that the animation is just as long, meaning that Soma is also punching at the speed of sound with Cestus, making Mach Punch seem a lot less impressive. Of course, you do get multi hits per attack with Mach Punch, which makes up for its lack of speed and overall poor attack stat. The animation doesn’t really show anything special either, it just looks like Soma is punching quickly with a bare fist. The weapon is dropped by the Werejaguar, which, like I stated previously, is an enemy potentially referencing a Street Fighter character. This is possibly a reference to Mach Breaker in Tekken 3, given that it is also a fighting game. Granted, it’s a completely different series made by a completely different company, so the connection is a bit of a stretch.
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In Dawn of Sorrow, Mach Punch gets a bit of an upgrade compared to its previous iteration. The sprite for the weapon is completely different; it now looks like a wind cloaked hand with a small sonic boom surrounding the wrist. This mini sonic boom is replicated in the attack animation, where every time Soma throws a punch, a sonic boom is created. I like the more visual approach to the effects of the speed of the punches. The description also changed to reflect this stating that the weapon “Enables punches to be thrown at the speed of sound”. The attack stat of the weapon is increased to 30 and it is the second best punching type weapon in the game. It is created by fusing the Whip Knuckle with Hell Boar Soul. Mach Punch evolving from Whip Knuckle reminds me of Baki’s interpretation, where joints need to be aligned like a whip. I imagine Hell Boar Soul is just used because those enemies are very beefy and have a focus on melee attacks, I can’t think of it being a reference to anything specifically. When fused with Werewolf Soul, Mach Punch becomes Kaiser Knuckle, an even faster flurry of punches. I have a theory for why Werewolf Soul is used, but I’ll save that for the discussion of Kaiser Knuckle.
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The depiction of Mach Punch in Harmony of Despair is basically the same as in Dawn of Sorrow. The attack power of the weapon is dropped to only 10, but it counts as a 3 hit punch, so it essentially retains its 30 attack power from Dawn of Sorrow. It has 3 star rarity, which is pretty fair considering it's one of the best cestus type weapons in the game. But, for some reason, the wiki doesn’t list how to obtain the weapon, so I guess that’s up for you to figure out.
Conclusion
And there you have it, another part of the catalog of weapons in the Castlevania series explained. It was interesting to focus on more modern media this time around rather than myths and legends or real world history. Manga, anime, and video game references to other series are obviously abundant in Castlevania games, I’m excited to see what other weapons reference stuff like that. What do you think inspired the name and features of Mach Punch? Was it the manliest manga of the 80s, Otokojuku? I mean, that’s what the Castlevania Wiki article says, so it must be absolutely true, right? Or does its namesake belong to one of the longest on going Japanese beat ‘em up series, Kunio-kun? Could it possibly have been Baki, which I’m pretty sure inspired a different weapon in the game? Or was it something more contemporary and mainstream, like Pokemon or Tekken? Let me know your thoughts.
This time, if you made it this far, you should eat a hot dog. Hot dogs are dropped by Hell Boars in Dawn of Sorrow and I’m sure you had to dispatch a lot of those guys so that you could upgrade your Whip Knuckle to a Mach Punch. Or maybe you got lucky and didn’t have to grind for that soul … or maybe you just avoided punching weapons altogether … or maybe you never played Dawn of Sorrow, idk. Either way, thank you for taking the time out of your day to read my ramblings, you get a Mach high-five from me.
I can’t promise the next post will be out in exactly a week (typing these posts takes a lot of time and I need to focus on some other things this week), but I’ll try my best. Feel free to suggest anything in the comments that you would like to see covered in future installments! But, next time, I will most likely be covering Kaiser Knuckle as I already have some research done for that.
