Takemichi Hanagaki's second year of middle school was the highest point in his life. He had respect, a gang of friends he could count on, and even a girlfriend. But that was twelve years ago. Today, he's a nobody: a washed-up nonentity made fun of by children and always forced to apologize to his younger boss. A sudden news report on the Tokyo Manji Gang's cruel murder of the only girlfriend he ever had alongside her brother only adds insult to injury. Half a second before a train ends his pitiful life for good, Takemichi flashes back to that same day 12 years ago, when he was still dating Hinata Tachibana.
After being forced to relive the very same day that began his downward spiral, Takemichi meets Hinata's younger brother. Without thinking, he admits to his seeming death before flashing back to the past. Takemichi urges him to protect his sister before inexplicably returning to the future. Miraculously, he is not dead. Stranger still, the future has changed. It seems as though Takemichi can alter the flow of time. Given the chance to prevent his ex-girlfriend's tragic death at the hands of the Tokyo Manji Gang, Takemichi decides to fly through time to change the course of the future.
[Written by MAL Rewrite]
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Comentários
SingleH
Even if you ignore the snail’s pace, the five minute recaps, and the shitty slide-show animation, this show is just dumb and bad. Spoilers ahead. Fans of shounen anime do themselves and their favorite new seasonal show a huge disservice when they label it as being “different” or unique, because when this ignorant praise catches the attention of anyone who has seen more than a few dozen anime, those people are immediately disappointed the second they see it. It’s often said the worst thing you can do to a series is overhype it, because when it inevitably turns out to be utterly mediocre, it won’t meetanyone’s expectations. Tokyo Revengers is not only unexceptional, but it’s painfully generic and boring as sin, and since its production values are shoddy as shit, you’ll never be able to pull a Demon Slayer and use cool fights to excuse bad writing, because it usually just looks like garbage. Nothing about its plot or characters can stand up to other shows in the same genre which outdo it in every way, because there are better anime with delinquents, time travel, or somewhat retro designs. The character designs are not only hideous, but they just don’t make any sense. Our twenty six year old protagonist looks no different than his middle school self, and his middle school peers look twice as old as he did when he was twenty six. And, yes. I didn’t mean to so quickly brush past something that ridiculous, but this really is a show about time-traveling middle-school delinquents.
If you’ve hung around the anime community long enough, you should be quite familiar with the wannabe intellectuals who’ve taken upon themselves a mighty crusade against shows like Steins;Gate which they deem to be less intelligent than the average viewers does. I use Steins:Gate as an example because it’s about time travel, and shows about time travel are the number one target for people like this because, just in case you didn’t know, time travel doesn’t actually exists in real life. With enough theoretical pseudoscience on their side, your average keyboard warrior can dismantle even the most carefully constructed piece of fiction centered around time travel. The planning of Steins;Gate is shockingly thorough, and the concepts it uses to excuse its scientific elements which may not make perfect sense in real life is seriously well-researched, but since it is ultimately grounded in theory, anyone with enough contrarian spirit shouldn’t have too much trouble poking holes in its plot. Tokyo Revengers makes this effort look like a complete joke. The series makes no attempt to be logically comprehensive or take into account the timeline or butterfly effect, and when it first introduced its time travel mechanics, I could’ve sworn it was trying to be funny and parody Erased. But no. It’s actually taking itself seriously, and that’s fucking sad.
It’s quite a common thing to complain about whinny, wimpy protagonists in anime. From the classics like Shinji Ikari to the modern horrors like Izuku Midoriya, anime made for teenage boys is filled to the brim with crybaby losers who you just want to shut up and do the thing, but in the case of shows which are actually well-written, the main character’s awful attitude is typically corrected, and they soon learn to grow up. The show which immediately comes to my mind when talking about this is Eureka Seven. Renton Thurston was universally hated at the time that show was airing, and to this day, people are still getting fed up with his bullshit and dropping that show early on. However, Renton undergoes an incredible character arc in that show, and by the end, he is a truly capable, respectable young man. I would argue Eureka Seven is still a bad show for different reasons, but that’s neither here nor there. The point is: character development makes a story worthwhile. In Tokyo Revengers, any praiseworthiness shown by Takemichi is impermanent. It’s an anime based on an incomplete shounen manga which is built to go on forever, getting dragged out until people stop buying it, and while I’m sure it’ll end with Takemichi being somewhat less of a pathetic little bitch, that is not the case by the end of these torturous twenty four episodes.
The setting, despite being the real world, is absurd. I’m not the first person to point this out, but nobody looks or acts like they’re realistically supposed to. These kids are supposed to be fourteen years old, and yet they look and act like professional mobsters. Anime is notorious for never showing parents, but this show takes that meme to the next level. Both the teachers and the police are presented—if at all—as being completely unable to stop a bunch of little boys from wrecking havoc. Remember how the setting of Kill la Kill was built around satirizing highschool anime, and how the students ran the city whilst the adults operated completely at the behest of the student council? At times, this show feels like that, only it’s not satire. It takes itself 100% seriously and expects you to do the same. Any attempt to make the story feel grounded is squandered by the characters’ goofy costumes, haircuts, and tattoos, and any attempt at high-stakes drama is laughable. The Power of Friendship; Talk no Jutsu; using Kirito’s “sheer willpower” to overcome the impossible; constant deus ex machina; WAITING FOR YOUR DYING FRIEND TO FINISH MONOLOGUING INSTEAD OF CALLING A FUCKING AMBULANCE; this series contains every awful shounen trope you can imagine, and watching it all unfold is as cringeworthy as you can imagine.
Thank you for reading.
TheUnholySausage
Time travel, the most overworked setting of every sci-fi show to ever come out. It’s such a simple concept on paper yet extremely difficult to execute properly in any medium. Most time travel shows follow two paths. They either shine brightly and is remembered by people as a revolutionary piece of media such as Terminator or Back to the Future, or is over hyped and falls into the pit of mediocrity and is forgotten by most people. Tokyo Revengers unfortunately follows the latter of these two paths. If the word “Overhyped” had a picture, it would be the Tokyo Revengers poster. A show filled with annoyingcharacters and a story with enough plot holes to make a sponge seem like a plain surface. The story follows our mc travelling back in time to save his girlfriend from her demise. It’s your classic cliché romance setting with a time travel aspect, which if explained carefully and presented properly, could be a hit of a show. Unfortunately it fails in both regards. It starts off pretty strong but pretty quickly loses its focus.
The initial problem is the time travelling aspect in this show which isn’t explained properly. The mcs actions while time travelling has serious consequences on the very people he is trying to save, but the seriousness of that is barely expressed as you see him make abhorrent and ridiculous decisions. The time travelling aspect is barely touched upon and nothing is properly explained. The story also plays out safe, it kills off characters meant to be killed off, and doesn’t force the mc to make a difficult choice. There’s no sacrifice that has to be made. It ventures in a straight, risk less line towards its goal, which doesn’t work as the whole point of time traveling is to create conflicts due to changing events of the past to the established future. We have barely any information on the time aspect, which leaves the story with too many plot holes. If the main theme remains convoluted, then the story is on a fast track to failure.
The risks of infiltrating and living a delinquent lifestyle, mixed with the perils of constant time travelling could have been an extremely intriguing plot, filled with suspense and tension if executed properly. Unfortunately the mcs the most unlikable person to ever exist since Kirito. The plot holes gets you more and more disjointed from the story the further you watch. The show drags out a lot in the closing arcs, the pacing gets rough as some scenes that required more details are tossed aside. Characters make ridiculous and extremely stupid decisions which doesn’t make sense. “Appointing a member of the gang you just fought with as your captain” the thought itself should be enough to make you realize it’s a bad decision.
The romance in this show just doesn’t work. We have Emma, she’s bland as flour. There’s nothing about her that makes Takemichis efforts in saving her worthwhile. She’s established as your classic, super likeable waifu character. In the show we rarely see her coming out of her shell or showing any signs of development. Her delusion towards Takemichi is unjustifiable. We get no coherent reasoning as to why she’s so accepting of him, even after all the shit he does. In the future she says how Takemichi hurt her, but then proceeds to express her love for him like bruhhh that isn’t how shit works. It goes vice versa too. Takemichi was an adult when Hinata died. Why is he this envious in saving the girls life whom he hasn’t interacted with for years? A mentally 26 year old guy crushing over a 14 year old is creepy to begin with, even without that, his whole dilemma towards her makes no sense. The romance in this show is horrible, super cliché and bland, with characters taking and doing ridiculous stunts in the name of “love”. There’s nothing to appreciate about these characters, let alone putting this much effort in saving them.
In the later arcs of the show, we see a lot and I mean a lot of unneeded conflicts and fights. Now don’t get me wrong, that’s probably the most enjoyable aspect of the show, but it’s so unnecessary and completely splits away from the main goal of the show. We see some unneeded conflicts arise due to a lot of really stupid decisions. Some conflicts could have been solved if the mc was efficient enough in using his brain as he is using his fist. It’s really messy plot wise, but super entertaining otherwise. The ending couple of episodes is honestly the most entertaining mess I’ve watched recently.
Now let’s get to the worst part of the show, the MC. Pathetic, whiny, displeasing, and aggravating. Every synonym of the word annoying can be used to describe him. He to me is like the modern day Kirito, annoying for a completely different reason. The whole aspect of going back to the past to change the future is complicated, and one needs to be intelligent and make the right decisions. Unfortunately our mc does none of those. He cries, uses himself like a punching bag, and has the most action over words type of attitude I’ve seen. He is extremely unlikable. He goes against every trope of a shounen protagonist. There’s no redeeming factors about him. He is meant to be a kid, but he plays that role a bit too well, so much so that there’s not even a hint of maturity coming from him. His whole persona revolves around making big goals then failing to fulfill them. Id honestly prefer a mute, personality less hentai mc than blonde crybaby Kirito.
Onto the good characters. Draken and Mikey. There probably the most likeable aspects of the show. They go against every trope you think of when you see the word “Gang member”. We see this initially when they apologies to the mother of a girl who was a victim of a gang violence. It sets them apart from your classic gang member ideology, and the more time passes, the more you see these two characters come out of their shells. Definitely the most entertaining and likeable characters from the show.
Other characters such as Kazutora, Chifuyu and Baji each have their roles to play, especially in the ending arcs of the anime. You don’t get as attached to them as Mikey or Draken due to their arguably short screen time, but they’re entertaining to watch nonetheless. Kazutora and his dive into insanity is intriguing. He choreographs his plan to kill Mikey as a scapegoat to justify the actions of him committing murder in his past, is super stereotypical yet really entertaining. His actions leads to the ending arc of the anime being something out of the Yakuza games. Fight after fights, completely unnecessary but extremely entertaining.
Other characters like Naota, Hinata, and Emma gets left unexplored or paid much attention too. Naota’s meant to be a super smart cop and shit, but has the least impact in the show in any ways. The first half of the story revolves heavily around Hinata, but she herself doesn’t contribute much to the story itself. Her character doesn’t go against the basic anime waifu tropes. She simultaneously feels like a person and a robot. These characters could have been integral to the story, but were unused and unexplored which made them pretty forgettable and sometimes extremely redundant when it came to having an impact on the story.
Coming to the art aspect of the show, it’s extremely mediocre. It’s visually eye-catching, but the more you get into the plot, the more the art style starts getting almost painful to watch. The characters look like they’re going through a mid-life crisis in their teens. The art style cannot clearly depict the characters ages at all. Adults look like overgrown children, and the actual children look like they hit puberty in their mother’s womb. The blood and gore in the uncensored version looks comical, and honestly less intimidating and more hilarious. The art in this show starts off as a high, but gets mediocre as you start relating it with the plots. It’s not enough to go bleach your eyes, but enough to reconsider putting your eyes through the pain of watching this lobotomites in every episode. The animation is no saving grace either, it’s definitely no Jujutsu Kaisen, and pretty sub-par often times, with enough still frames to give food wars a run for their money. But considering it’s a pretty new studios, it has done average with what resources they had. All in all, Tokyo Revengers was the Cyberpunk 2077 of anime, extremely hyped up and disappointing results.
Now, is Tokyo Revengers a bad show?
Objectively, Yes
Personally, Fuck No
The series being a big ball of messy plot, weird looking characters and unnecessary action makes this show fun. Just like how Cyberpunk was fun cause of its glitches, TR is fun cause of its convoluted plot and absolute abhorrent looking characters. It’s entertaining watching the cliché filled romance of the show. You realize that it’s stupid as shit and boring but that’s what’s entertaining. The last arc for me was amazing. I barely understood anything, I just enjoyed the constant beating up, blood gushing out of everyone while they give a friendship speech, and it was entertaining as hell. I can only describe it as the visual representation of Jamie Vardy’s “Chat shit get banged” tweet. It was an entertaining experience for me for a completely different reason. I do wish that the show would have been a lot more leaning towards conflicts being solved with proper decision making. This show is pure brainless fun. Apart from the mc being annoying enough to make you want to tear out your eardrums, every flawed aspect of the story was extremely amusing for me, and added more amusement to the show. Definitely would implore you to give this a shot if you’re bored. The show will make you scratch your head while simultaneously entertaining you with its awful yet entertaining, super convoluted, overtly dramatic, disproportional looking characters, and boy I enjoyed every second of it.
Gween_Gween
Tokyo Revengers is a decadent shallow manufactured collection of frames. Featuring one of the most abhorrent main anime characters that I had the displeasure to watch, the series is an aggravating disrespect to the viewer from beginning to end, without any sense of connection to anything resembling human behavior set in a world where the latest update of human intellect didn’t hit yet to let a set of pathetic intent of emotional baits flow. Born from the delusion of what coolness and edginess could fare in the human reality, the anime hits you throughout all its runtime with an extravagant spice of dishonesty and lackof care to provide anything more meaningful than hormonal screaming.
*During this review I will use spoilers because of two reasons. The first is that to illustrate the dishonesty and disrespect I need to use them, the second is because I don’t see any purpose of watching this. *
To start to understand why this anime fits all the description above, I will explain a little the premise of it. The anime starts in a seemingly similar form to other stories that have been done in the past, with a loser guy that gets transferred to the past after being broken by the news about her ex-girlfriend. This character was strangely incapable of believing her eyes, which is normal, I wouldn’t either. And then, after a series of events, he had an epiphany, to change the past to save his most loved ones with the help of a friend, which leads him to learn more about the background of gangs and the characters involved in them.
This seemingly straightforward and easy to manage formula to propel drama and action in a delinquent setting started to evolve episode after episode into a pathetic excuse of disjointed highlights and impactful moments that could make an impression in the viewer, not setting anything else as a substance that could redeem the lacking execution, creativeness, and power of them. The set of shallow cardboard characters that started to interact with our MC that have been integrated sequentially through the plot and the convenience of our hero are nothing but an excuse to create more of these apex of excitement, to generate a twitter clip with a cap saying “RT if you cried to this”, or to show the stylistically pleasing characters in a badass moment that would serve well as the profile picture of a rebellious teenager after being scolded by her mother because of his falling grades in math. Arc after arc the fellow manga readers hyped what would happen next, and my dumbass trusting them got underwhelmed every time.
The anime and story itself don’t serve any other purpose but virality through a mix between straightforward stupid and over the top drama, low quality action and scenes that could grant the ever-growing society of solitude screenshots of the most intense moment to post in a page. And honestly, just honestly with the deep of my heart, I have no problem with that. I have watched plenty of anime that are meant to be nothing more than a product that can sell correctly, I have even given good scores to some of them because they are self-aware of it, which is then the problem with this? The problem of this is that everything around it is as pestilent as a garbage dump, as pointless as an anime review, as worthless as the Venezuelan currency.
To explain the motivations about the claims above I would divide the review in four points that construct such argument. The first point that I would attack is the coherency and consistency of the characters, or, in this case, how many times the decisions of the characters have no other reason but pushing forward the hype, trending topic moments instead of giving us texture of their psychological statement and decision-making, instead of telling us who they are.
In this case I would gladly say something positive, Takemitchy should be awarded with something, Takemitchy should be recognized by everyone for a single feat, and it is being the dumbest and most useless time traveler in the history of media. While watching this a colossal annoying amount of question marks starts to pop. How, a person that is fighting continuously against a strange force, could have the same proactivity as the western governments during the pandemic. How, a person that is 12 years older than his own body, could act with the same level of reasoning as some full of hormones teenagers that have no foreshadowing about the consequences of their actions. How, a person that is 12 years older than his own body, didn’t learn a single thing through those years and can’t even manipulate a teenager into doing something. How, a person that is 12 years older than his own body, can’t come up with a plan to get above kids that are also pretty much the bottom barrel of human intellect by default, and probably into mental disorders because of the amount of head trauma that they have suffered. How, a person that have a literal detective working with him, can’t do anything but the most straightforward in the box planning that could one ever imagine, a plan that not even a pre-teen would think that could work correctly based on all the antecedents that the own anime presents us.
All these questions could only lead to one answer, the only reason that could justify the set of incoherent decisions that our beloved MC and his buddy Naoto take. The truth is that Takemitchy and Naoto are pretending to care about Hina, but they secretly want to write a biography about Takemitchy that could be a best seller in Japan, so they need to act dumb to provide more action and insight about the youth gangs. This line of thinking is motivated by the fact that there is no way that an adult wouldn’t involve the cops or any third party in this conflict, there is no way that an adult can’t convince a group of people about his judgements by having knowledge of things that would happen next, there is no way that an alternative plan that doesn’t involve fights can’t be done by their perspective, even using money to do such.
Can’t they see the future events? Why do you need to risk everything to the last second? Why would you plan something that have a potentially deadly outcome, while also knowing that you are a useless piece of crap that doesn’t do anything but cry the moment you hit the conflict and narrate what is going on to the spectator? Are you just forcing yourself to create a believable and interesting character development instead of solving the conflict? This incoherency could be overlooked, fine, but it is just a telling about how disrespectful this anime is towards the people who watch it. The behavior is then just justifiable if you don’t trust and respect the capability of the viewer to be able to fill realistic alternatives and understand basic human behavior. Anyways, continue, this alone doesn’t deserve a 1.
The second issue is that not only the characters actions are incoherent and have no resemble of basic human behavior, but the worldbuilding and the apparent rules that are subject to each of them are also as incoherent. To exemplify this, lets remember that certain character for some reason survived several hits to the head that could pretty much kill you or leave you unconscious in any kind of semi-realistic setting, like the one presented, let’s remember that this happened two episodes AFTER another character died because of one hit that didn’t even have the same level of momentum. Is it then to believe that some characters are not subject to the constraints of human body? Is strength linked to the hardness of our skull? I guess that we can’t really tell with the things that have been shown as of now, but I highly doubt so, I don’t just highly doubt so but, like the incoherency of the characters decisions, incoherency about the rules of the universe of the anime are just there because of disrespect, laziness, and the search for hype, virality, drama, misery, and thrill, and they are the norm of this anime.
The same could be said about the time travelling mechanic, which is nothing but a device to propel drama and misery to the main character through retroactively reminding how worthless he is. Nothing more than a device to kick the story and create moments that would just create tears in highly gullible people. My reasoning about time-traveling being anything a cheap device to create drama and conflict come from two facts. The first is that the main character can’t take advantage of the mechanic because he is as dumb as a bag of rocks, the second is that the time travelling itself is just nonsense in terms of consequences related to the actions of the main character in the past and completely incoherent to the present. And why do I say that there is no way that the mechanic is coherent? In the first episode our dear main character said that his life completely changed after being humiliated by Kiyomizu, he supposedly left the town because of such event after graduating, which is kind of sad, right? Life altering circumstance, I would have killed myself. Shake hands with the next worst detective of Japan, came back, Naoto next to him, his life should be as miserable because the affair wasn’t resolved yet, we can trust such thing happening honestly. Then, we get to him solving the affair, he didn’t have to deal with the consequences of Kiyomizu being above him, he shouldn’t have left the city after graduating because there is no reason for that, his relationships dynamics changed completely because he is now involved with some shady guys, and he came back. To the same exact point. Ok. Naoto remembers the apparent changed past too. Ok. No problem, we can deal with this with some mental gymnastics, like two different timelines collapsing to Naoto conscience and Takemitchy travelling between those timelines. Remember that in both cases he was unconscious during the time travel in his current timeline, so there is an apparent real time present change. Then, his life change even more, now he is buddy big buddy of Mickey, he came back to the present, and the point of respawn changed to his workplace, his life was completely the same as before, but Naoto wasn’t there, same work, same life, but he wasn’t unconscious. Same life as before as he solved the affair with Kiyomizu, same life as before he was friends with Mickey, same exact life as before he saved Draken. I hope that you can follow what I meant to say by this. The three time-travel events can’t coexist in the same universe. You can always generate a line between two points, but if the other point is in the other side of the plane you must completely bend the function.
And this is the case here, one event contradicts the other by default, should we accept such with a happy face? That is what people told me, but I’m clearly not happy with that. All this inconsequential storytelling, these contradictions that build bigger and bigger episode after episode could just go through your own capability of being ashamed if you don’t trust and respect the capability of the viewer of watching critically what is going through the screen. Anyways, continue, this is not enough to give this anime a 1. Intellectually offensive, but can something else be going on, right?
The third point that makes this highly chaotical, barely correlated anime a piece of garbage is how every event that happens is presented, the abhorrent execution. As we can tell, Takemitchy is a bitch, a coward, a good for nothing, a weakling, a chicken, a yellow-belly crybaby. He doesn’t do anything; he is a worthless piece of crap that doesn’t deserve our pity, he even tried to cheat on her girlfriend and kissed a minor. The plot doesn’t even respect or build its own rules and it is heavily disconnected from human behavior. Ok. That could still provide something decent, right? We could have moments where everything flows together, intense sequence of events that link each other to don’t let our eyes get out from the screen.
No, it isn’t the case, it isn’t the case because every single plot point, every single event is complemented with some mental asylum level of expositions or over the top predictability. That exposition could came from Takemitchy narrating what is literally happening on our screen every single fight scene, that exposition could be that dumbass Kazutora reminding us that the writer doesn’t even pretend to make a psychologically broken and delusional character and instead made a Pokemon-like dialogue so people who didn’t receive enough oxygen in their birth could understand that his head is twisted and make dumb memes about it, that exposition could be Naoto explaining what literally happened in the past to the MC because he can’t even deduce how to change his pants after getting them dirty with pre-ejaculate fluid from kissing a minor with his 26 years old virgin brain.
All these events are nothing but disrespect to the capability of the viewer to get the plot, nothing but the intent to appeal to the lower common denominator and creating something as wide as possible while highly decorating these flaws through bombastic trash to watch fights, incoherent shouting, and hype badassery with guys without shirts, dyed hairs and tattoos. And it sucks to watch, it sucks to watch because it converts a lot of time into white noise that could have been easily prevented, it sucks to watch because it is made for people who are scrolling through their friends instragram stories while watching this, it sucks to watch because it just reminds me of those cheap soap operas that you watch while cooking some high-level spaghettis with ketchup. Fights and points that could pretty much be summed up in 5 minutes are prolonged to 20 minutes just because they don’t trust and respect the capability of the viewer to understand the shallow mess of the plot that have been presented.
The fourth and last point is also maybe the one that offends me the most because it talks volume about the people who watch the medium and the respect to the creators, the main offender for how it has been defended by the ones who love this anime because of their low standards and nonsensical overly positive thinking, and this is the animation and art. I will tell you no false truths, the animation sucks. The animation is subpar, below the average that have been the norm in anime of even low budget studios, and it also doesn’t try to innovate in anything. Hell, we don’t ever have to go that far in the past to get a point of comparison, Super Cub is an anime made from a small studio that was pleasing to watch just because they did what they could, the story is meh, the direction, fantastic. Kageki Shoujo is an anime that is pleasant to watch because the motions are correctly executed when it is needed, the design is not KyoAni levels, the fluidity is not of the level of Shaft or MAPPA, but it is beautiful to watch because they poured their hearts on it. This is not the case here, not at all.
The animation of this anime is horrendous to watch and a complete disservice to the overall experience too, and rabid manga readers accept such too, which should tell volumes about the amount of copium that some people must take to defend this. Static backgrounds of people in fights, character motions that are extremely choppy if they are not the same one-dimension directional motion that they do all the time, deformed facial structures and body figures, use and abuse of the same face angles, lifeless color palette, use and abuse of slideshow like montages, use and abuse of translational camera movements. We could excuse some of them in the lack of resources and time, but then, why would you create a storyboard that can show all this flaws? They do because they don’t trust and respect the capability of the viewer of discerning those flaws. Because they can get away with this because of the morbid mentality that equals criticism with attacks. Critical thinking is what moves everything forward, you are doing no favor if you don’t give feedback.
Now, those four points are enough for me to call this a 1. I didn’t learn anything from this anime, the anime didn’t provide anything new that I haven’t watched before, the anime didn’t have any positive message that haven’t been told to the infinity and beyond in other anime, the anime didn’t try to go deep into anything, the anime didn’t explore anything of substance, the anime didn’t provoke anything human on me.
The anime is just a collection of moments, a set of scenes that could be packed into a set of TikToks every Saturday to get thousands of likes, the anime is just delusion, a violence glamorizing fantasy. The anime could pretty much be a parody of its own genre, and then maybe it could work. Takemitchy could pretty much be a parody of the most pathetic MCs that are present in the medium, and then maybe it could work. The time traveling nonsense could pretty much be some next level irony about how most of the time there are big holes when they implement such mechanic, and then maybe it could work. The problem is that the anime is always serious about his own self, it is not an anime that works in disrespect to itself that could portray a critique to the medium. It is an anime that works in disrespect to the viewer, to our capability to think and critique, that explores the possibilities of mediocrity and how much it can get away with while being successful. And maybe they did their experiment right because this was highly successful with all its downfalls. And maybe they did their experiment right because people who defend this anime tells those who critique to not think, do they deserve respect then?
The question would be, why should I care then? Why would I waste my time explaining the lame point of view of someone who didn’t turn his brain off while watching this, who for some reason believed the always wrong source readers and expected to see something that deserves my attention? I think that the issue with this mediocrity is that it leaves space to more mediocrity.
I think that the issue to not entice thinking is that it promotes less thinking. I think that the issue with shallowness is that it promotes a vapid culture. And I think that what we should strive for is to get away from that, to get pieces that could stand the time because their inherent value is there and deserve so, that could serve even without the social trending, without the viral phenomenon, that could exist and prolong themselves in the future and when the next generation of people watch these shows they won’t think “Damn, those fuckers had such bad taste”. Tokyo Revengers hype will decay, people will forget about it, but the overall mentality will perdure, and that is what I meant to portray here. What I meant to do by giving this a 1 and writing this review is just to call out this behavior, to tell them that fun things are not meant to be also dumb and incoherent, that there is always an underlying message, intention, emotion behind the frames that are given to us through the media player, because they have been done by a human, by one of us, and to capture what they wanted to do is the most beautiful aspect of consuming what the others do.
That incoherence and disrespect to the audience should then have no place to stand, because it is dishonest, and to my belief dishonesty is one of the ugliest concepts that one could face, one of the ugliest because it emerges from the sense of getting away of consequences, from the sense of mutual understanding and respect, from love to the ones that are out there, from community. And you shouldn’t get confused, when I meant that it is dishonest, I don’t mean that anyone involved is completely at fault of every sense of dishonesty here. The animators and the ones that do the production are not at fault at anything but the fact that they were given conditions that couldn’t suffice a good production, the writer is not at fault at anything but his own incapability to make something better, I can’t attribute malice to anyone individually because it would be dumb to do so, I don’t know any of them, but I can do it as a whole, as the entity called Tokyo Revengers, because when they saw this and they said “Hmm, it is alright, keep doing it” an act of dishonesty was conceived, because I can’t really think that people who dedicate their own lives to the medium would think that this is correct.
Human emotions transcend through honesty and attachment to reality while the exposure of time kills the essence of virality
Peace, Gween
Harlock_Phantom
Honestly this would have been a really solid series if the protagonist wasn't so painfully unlikeable. Story wise it's fascinating. A person with a limited ability to time travel using that ability to change past events to protect loved ones in the modern day is a great concept when used correctly. The tight limitations of Takemichi's abilities are brilliant in terms of drama as there's no "reset button", if he fails in what he sets out to do then there's no do over which makes the sense of danger feel far more genuine. The gang warfare elements are also well done. The tensions between organisations as wellas personal loyalties and relationships are fairly well established. Though some story elements do fall a little flat, some animosities carrying more weight than seems necessery.
The majority of characters are interesting. Mikey and the founding members of Toman are probably the strongest in terms of characterisation and it is really difficult to not sympathise with these kids.
Takemichi's friends could have been developed a little better and Hina, Naoto, and Akkun honestly feel like they only exist as plot devises with no real substance. It's a shame but it's not really that easy to care about these characters but I'm going to assume that's due to the number of major characters making it difficult to build on every one of them.
Takemichi, our protagonist, is probably the worst character in it, though. Where other characters may not make much of an impact due to simply not being built upon much, Takemichi is just simply unlikeable. He comes off as obnoxious and kind of gross to an extent. He's a 26 year old man who ends up back as his 15 year old self and is probably the most immature of the teen era characters. His obsession with being a virgin is just annoying and it genuinely feels like he doesn't really bring anything to the plot. Most of the time he stands there screaming and something or someone else steps in to deal with the situation then Takemichi gets all the praise for doing absolutely nothing.
A lot of the comic relief moments feel kind of lazy,relying on crude humour or misunderstandings which overall aren't that funny to me personally but humour is subjective so that's not that big a deal.
The animation style is decent.
If the show was just a gang story that focussed on Mikey and Draken it'd probably be more to my tastes personally but you can't win them all.
ShadowTasos
The plot for this anime was written by a 14 year old. I cannot explain why it's so bad in any other way. Tokyo Revengers has an interesting plotlline: the main character goes back in time to try and stop the murder of his ex-girlfriend (and some other, less important characters') in the present. It's similar to that of Erased, which is why some people have compared the two - but such comparisons are simply insulting to Erased. The most interesting part of such a plotline is how the main character will use the information he obtains in the present to change the past. This show seemsto understand that, as to its credit, it spends a decent amount of time in the present, with the main character and his accomplice in time travel (the younger brother of said murdered ex-girlfriend) looking for information that can help them prevent these murders - which is the most interesting part of this show. They formulate a plan based on that information, and then the main character goes back in time... only to ignore or completely forget said information and act like a total idiot.
No, seriously. Tokyo Revengers is an extremely frustrating watch because of this - events will begin unraveling around the MC in the way that he KNOWS will unfold and lead to said murders, and it's within his power to prevent them. Alas no, all he does in this show is just scream and cry (literally!) until events just kind of magically resolve themselves because someone was impressed with how hard he cried or whatever. There's no sense of progression in the plot as a result, things just kind of happen and the MC is just there for it.
Staying with the plot for a bit, I'll be brutally honest and say that the writer who wrote this just cannot write. I would normally comment on the pacing for instance, but no such thing as "pacing" exists here -- event A doesn't lead to event B and so on. As I mention previously, things just kind of happen, and there's very often no logic why A happened and how that led to B. The plot just wanted B to happen, and the writer couldn't write a scenario that plausibly leads to it, so B just... happens, and it's very jarring to watch.
Now some of this could be explained by the fact that the characters in this show (at least in the past segment, where the majority of events we see take place) are 12-15 years old (the writer's mental age tbh), i.e. children, and children are illogcal creatures. But no, the show is completely inconsistent on that front - these children (who are riding bikes and beating up adults at age 12, lol) are portrayed as deeply mature in one scene, then in the next scene some inexplicable nonsense happens and you're thinking "WTF did I just watch?"
All in all, I really struggled to finish this show, which is uncharacteristic for me. There's usually SOMETHING that's decent about every show I've ever watched, something that I can enjoy about it, but there was no such silver lining to this cloud. The art is mediocre, the animation is atrocious, the music is bad (cool OP, but cool music starts playing out of nowhere while the MC is crying or something asinine happens, lol). This show is a disaster through and through, and I only give it a 4/10 because the time traveling premise was very interesting and I kept hoping it'd be utilized better later on... alas no such luck.
I'd recommend that you stay away from this show unless you're really starved for time travel "mystery" plotlines or you really like the "Japanese delinquent" aesthetic, which was honestly just butchered in this show anyway.
MozillaFennekin
“Both sides lose somebody. Somebody dies, somebody goes to jail.” --Kid Cudi “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA” --some goofy mf named mitch or something idk Tokyo Revengers is an anime about middle school kids, but they’re actually RUFF N’ TUFF DUDES who spend most of their time punching people, riding motorcycles, and punching other people who also enjoy punching people and riding motorcycles. Given such a gritty subject matter that is rarely touched upon in shounen anime, it’s pretty clear to see why there’s so much hype for this series. And I certainly respect that. But in reality, the display of violence and conflict in ToRev is comical, to put itnicely. To put it meanly, it’s a mafia anime for children. Every conflict in this series begins and ends with characters punching each other, and other characters scream so often that Ear Revengers would’ve been a more appropriate name.
A lot of the screaming is done by our boy Takemitchi. I wish he was Takenoutoftheshow. *pauses for pre-recorded studio laughter* His entire character is that he has regrets about things that happened in his current life (if that wording threw you off, we’ll get to it later), he gets scared by everything, is in constant disbelief at every element of his surroundings, and is constantly FUCKING SCREAMING. Many assume this MC has a special power of time travelling, but no. His power is yelling to draw attention to himself, where every other character in the show can only express confusion and then go along with it like a practical joke.
How anyone takes Takemitchi seriously is the biggest mystery in this anime. He yells at people to try and get his way, he’s too cowardly to hit anyone and too weak to deal any damage anyway, and whatever he does is motivated by time travel reasons, so nothing he does comes off as logical to other characters. Instead they just say “well he’s a nice guy I guess” and keep him around. If these middle school biker gangs were realistic, Takemitchi would be accepted into the gang as a joke, then have him go on a “secret mission” that ends with him getting raped by a beaver or something. No one in their right mind would actually give him the time of day, but I guess no one in the show is in their right mind because they get punched all the time lol
It’s Talk-no-Jutsu and Power of Friendship taken to incredible degrees, two of the most picked on tropes in shounen anime. These aren’t automatically bad tropes; a lot could be said about one’s way of reasoning and motivating others. Takemitchi doesn’t have the charisma or intelligence to do either of these things. At best, his screaming and whining is so childish that others get lifted up by thinking “Ha! What a dumbass!” Seldom does he have any real consequence on anything happening.
And not to mention, this dude has to express shock and disbelief at EVERYTHING in this series. Even twenty episodes in, when an all-out gang war has been set up for episodes--this being some days or weeks in anime time--he enters the battle like “Wow! I can’t believe this is actually happening!” It doesn’t help that when something occurs within his general vicinity, the camera has to keep cutting to Takemitchi’s look of surprise, as if we need a reminder as to how he feels about something.
While we’re at it, the other goofy shounen trope this anime has is the comically old-looking “middle schoolers”. Not that I really care, it’s just funny seeing some dudes be like “i had a rough childhood” bro you’re like 12 you ARE a child ☠️
But a bad main character can be made up for with a good supporting cast, right? To an extent I can see the potential Tokyo Gang:re has with its characters not named Takemitchi. The two that get the most screentime, Mikey and Draken, are practically the best characters by an objective margin. Mikey has a childlike demeanor that doesn’t go too far and stands out among the rest of the cast, and yet his goofiness doesn’t go too far for me. His calm presence mixed with some weird complexes he has are genuinely fun. His sidekick, Draken, comes off as genuinely tough compared to everyone else, with a strict personality that clashes wonderfully with Mikey. Plus his design is the one in this series that properly rides the line between cool and ridiculous and I actually like it.
Others are just acceptable, albeit forgettable, save for Hina Tachibana--nice to see she’s doing well after everyone fucking hated her in Domestic Girlfriend--who goes slightly above and beyond the token gf that need protecc. Her sweet, innocent and girly character is fine enough for a boys’ series, but the moments where she stands up against danger and acts like a bad bitch were surprisingly good.
It’s likely thanks to these characters that Tokyo Revengers doesn’t end up being completely miserable to watch. As eye-rolling as some parts of it may be, little of it was particularly disastrous. Perhaps the key to enjoying this anime fully is embracing Takemitchi, like how people say Black Clover is good because Asta has character development or something. Is that a good comparison? Do y’all like Black Clover? I’m out of touch with this generation, I’ve been too busy listening to obscure music artists like Hideki Naganuma and Lil Nas X like a fucking asshole.
But now we’ve finally come to the Snorlax in the road. Because it’s TIME!!!! to TRAVEL!!!!!!!!!! Into the section where we talk about time travel in this anime. It’s a very straightforward concept: Takemitchi returns twelve years into the past, but can travel forward back to the present day by shaking hands with some dude. What’s interesting is that time moves forward in both timelines simultaneously, but unfortunately there’s not anything done with this concept so far, other than seeing the present day change as a result of what Takemitchi does in the past. Honestly I don’t care too much about the time travel because, at least in this stage of the story, it doesn’t seem like much of a story concept.
Maybe I could be more harsh about that, but the only qualm I have for now is that, like seemingly any time travel series that isn’t actually sci-fi, the TT isn’t used smartly. Since time moves forward in both timelines simultaneously, it would make sense for Takemitchi to be in the past during the day, then check the present day overnight so that he can consistently live both lives. It’s a notable drawback that his life in the timeline he’s not present in is run on autopilot, so maximizing the time between both makes the most amount of sense to me. But like I said, Revengers isn’t really here to impress with any of its high concepts, just to have dudes punch the shit out of each other.
The real Snorlax on the road, or rather, the colossal 800-pound dump it just took, is how Tokyo Revengers is presented. I’m sure some will defend this lovely adaptation by saying “well it looks better than Ex-Arm!” as if we give humans accomplishments for having ten fingers. Bad art and animation can often be summarized with buzzwords like “cheap” and “low-effort” (sorry to you folks at Lidensfilms who probably made like 200 yen off this whole show), and my buzzword for this art style is: lifeless. Dead. Unresponsive. Shots often linger uncomfortably long, a problem that’s exacerbated by an unhealthy amount of still-frames. Body animation is often stiff and awkward, a death knell for an action-heavy series. When characters hit each other, the animation is slow and lacks weight, like moving around a couple of layers in Photoshop, or they just have a still-frame of someone getting hit and then slowly sliding across the screen in one direction. Then, they’re further marred by gross and sometimes excessively-loud noises of flesh splashing. Characters have un-detailed faces that often look deadpan and unemotive, and the designs aren’t much to write home about either. Even the background art lacks any personality when there could be potential for some of the rugged settings of some episodes, such as the junkyard in the Bloody Halloween arc. All of these problems run deep and go beyond what one would normally blame on “budget”. Who really knows what happened, but sometimes, things just suck.
Occasionally the OST has some highlights, but a lot of the best songs are played over, and over, and over again, like there can only exist one song for an emotionally uplifting scene, one for intense action scenes, and so on. Maybe it wasn’t as repetitive as I remember and more of the general style of hard rock-driven orchestration blurred everything together. Who knows. Either way, it wasn’t bad, but it didn’t leave too much of an impression. The OP is okay. The vocals have a nice singalong melody throughout the whole song, but nothing else about the song interests me. I fuck with both the ED’s, though. The first ED is kinda like a smooth mixture of soul and city pop that cools you down like a good ED typically would, but then some amped guitars crank up the energy to get you hyped at the end. It’s hella good. The second ED sounds like Silversun Pickups but if they weren’t fucking shit. I wish the drums and bass, or really just the entire instrumentation lol, was louder because it kinda sounds like a weird moany dude groaning over fuzz. But it’s a cool song anyway.
Anyway, usually I end reviews with some sort of summary but generally speaking I write these things on the spot and have no idea what I’m doing so I don’t know what I just wrote actually. Tokyo Revengers Not Good I guess. Tell you what, I’ll come back and fix this section in twelve years. Now for a joke, what happened to the swastika in the title of the manga? They removed it so that you could not see it.
Story: 4/10
Art: 2/10
Sound: 5/10
Characters: 4/10
Enjoyment: 4/10
Overall: 4/10, ranging anywhere from a light 3 to a strong 4.
LordSozin
I went into Tokoyo Revengers for the delinquents. I wanted to see the intricacies and inner perspectives of being a gang member. I wanted to see how they think and operate. Well, it’s safe to say that I only got crumbs of it. Instead, what I got from this anime is about a 26-year-old man in the body of a middle school kid running around crying and whining about his incapabilities and lamenting for a girl he dumped long ago. To that, I couldn’t care less. Welcome to Tokyo Revengers. A 26-year-old who got his life fucked up from his times of being a delinquentnow lying in his squalid apartment eating chips and working in a shop to clean the dust off the shelves as a job. On his way back to his filthy apartment, he was pushed off of the train station, practically murdered, and got transported 12 years into the past. It is here where he’s tasked to save Hinata, the girl he dumped, from being killed 12 years into the future. The biggest obstacle to this task is to stop Toman, the gang he was part of, from going evil. And the sole trigger of Toman turning into a pure violent and cruel faction is the eventual installment of Tetta Kisaki, who was the catalyst for corrupting Mikey.
The problem with this narrative is that Kisaki is presented horribly as a threat to the series. He’s first shown as this cruel-looking delinquent with a ton of experience and knows how to manipulate others to his will. When we first met him, the narrative made us believe he had already devised his evil deeds. That Kisaki will slowly unravel the intricacies of turning Toman evil. That Kisaki will provide the needed tension for the series. But the series does none of that. Kisaki was forgotten as soon as he was introduced. Instead, what we got from Kisaki is that he’s just another edgy and angsty teenager like so many others in Tokyo Revengers. This becomes even more ludicrous to see when the narrative kept insisting on the importance of Kisaki even after the first arc, where he isn’t even prevalent anymore.
Another issue with the writing is Takemichi. He isn’t the type of protagonist that pushes the story. He’s just there. If he’s given a task, he’ll do it. If he’s caught in a horrible situation, he falls into this pathetic state of inner monologuing about how bad his current situation is instead of using his head. If things went south, he charges straight at the problem like an idiot. There are no steps of planning and executing his desired goals. It doesn’t help when he also whines about every bad thing that has ever happened to him. There’s nothing that makes Takemichi grounded to reality. There’s nothing that makes him likable as a character. There’s no progression to his way of thinking and how he adapts. But what bothered me the most was how the characters in the show touted Takemichi for his minuscule contributions. The series assumes that the viewers won’t see through the obvious problems of Takemichi and, by having others praising the main protagonist would be enough to sell his hard will. Takemichi is written worst than a shounen protagonist that we have seen. And frankly, he’s just uninspiring to watch as a character.
Because the series doesn’t delve anything more profound into the world of delinquents, Toman as a gang feels shallow. It’s just a group made of high look-alike kids following equally uninteresting, unimpressive kids that looks cool. Mikey and Draken are, to put simply, bland--just like the rest of the cast. Mikey looks cool. He has a kind heart and is capable of turning evil when the right buttons are clicked. However, when Mikey does turn evil in the future, as Takemichi has supposedly stopped it from happening, we don’t get to see the process. He’s just evil. All this is to play up the drama that feels empty. There’s nothing to take away from Tokoyo Revengers. The series doesn’t have any particular subject that it wants to tell and express that could’ve made itself stand out.
There’s no animation in Tokyo Revengers. The studio behind Tokyo Revengers anime simply took the manga panels, colored them, and called it a day. Fights and certain character moments that were supposed to have brought out emotions to the viewers were left unsatisfied due to stillness and jarring animation. When watching the anime, there’s also a noticeable amount of camera shots that pan away from the scenes that took place. The Tokyo Revengers’ plot and its involvement of delinquent lured people in. The first episode sold people because of how the show presented itself: A brutal, cool, and aspiring show. However, as the series progressed, it became bluntly clear that Tokyo Revengers was made to be edgy due to a lack of appealing writing and its lousy direction and animation.
Score: 4/10
Kyuped
Most overrated bullshit of 2021, with trash story and cliched garbage characters. [MIGHT CONTAIN SPOILERS] First of all, the story. Guy goes back in time 12 years back from the present. After doing so, does gang fights to change the future & prevent the death of his gf. Not original, but if done right I might enjoy it. But guess what, I didn't. The show is repetitive. Every time a stronger and bigger gang members gang up the MC, all he does is cry about how weak of a person he is, waiting for someone to save his ass. The MC cries EVERY EPISODE, like every noexaggeration. Heck, even the concept of time travel isn't even well-explored. There's also so many times where Takemichi hints to other characters that he knows the future, but they act as if it were normal. This doesn't make any sense. It seemed like the author forgot/did not care to add elements of realism towards the show.
The characters are cliched and generic. MC is your typical crybaby shounen protagonist, and some might say that's okay as long as there's development. But guess what, no development. Throughout the entire season, Takemichi went from crybaby to crybaby. But the worst written character in this show would be Kazutora, his reasoning for him to hate Mikey was utterly bull shit. Like tf? he was the one who murdered people yet blames Mikey for it? LOL? And the other characters are just either bland & generic or retarded.
Art & Animation:
It seems like the art & animation time traveled back in time too.
1. Some scenes had deformed characters.
2. Slideshow animations
But then again, art is just personal preference.
Sound:
Average, nothing memorable.
I didn't enjoy the anime, forced myself to finish it; just because people were saying that it's "one of the best anime of 2021". Which clearly isn't.
Overall: Steins;gate with crybaby MC, average generic unlikeable characters, trash plot. 3/10
I have come to the conclusion that most of the shows (most, NOT ALL) nowadays that are rated high, are overrated. Seems like the people who rate these kinds of shows high are just the normies who've just started watching anime during quarantine.
RebelPanda
Déjà vu. The dictionary tells us déjà vu is an unpleasantly familiar feeling. Tokyo Revengers made me feel déjà vu because it is the latest of many overhyped shounen adaptations with nothing to offer except for animation. But this adaptation of a multimillion-dollar franchise has the unbelievable audacity to look like it was animated on a shoe-string budget in the early 2000s. Its utterly unremarkable story about middle school gang wars is only worsened by sluggish pacing and ugly art. Two middle school gangs wrapped in a turf war lead to the murder of an innocent person—one man has the power to prevent it all. Takamichi isa 26-year-old loser with no future. After finding out his middle school crush died in a car crash, he’s given a chance to challenge fate. Mysteriously, Takamichi is granted time travel abilities. He to a fixed period, 12 years ago. Upon reaching the past, he collides with two angsty teens playing dress-up as gangbangers: Mikey and Draken. The President and vice president of the leading gang responsible for his ex-girlfriend’s death. There are two sides to the middle school turf war—Tokyo Manji Gang, a band of tough-as-nails bikers who value loyalty and honesty above all else. Secondly, the Black Dragons, known for their belligerent behavior.
After his first foray into the past, Takamichi is sent back to the future™, where his life has suspiciously continued. He finds out his past alterations carry over in the present, such as a new scar on his hand. How the time travel mechanics work in Tokyo Revengers is left to our imagination. There’s hardly any logical consistency, and that’s the bare minimum. To travel between time periods, Takamichi has to shake hands with Naoto, the brother of his deceased girlfriend. For what reason? How does this work? Don’t think about it. When Takamichi returns to the future, the past Takamichi does not recall anything that happened. While Takamichi is in the past, he is shown sleeping in the future upon his return. Other times he reappears at different locations doing mundane daily activities. The time skips beg many questions: Does the past Takamichi inhabit the mind of the present one? The young version of Takamichi loses his memories; how does that affect his relationships with his girlfriend and the Tokyo Manji gang? Exploring these questions would make for a much more compelling and intelligent show. It is better not to think about the time travel mechanism of Tokyo Revengers because the more you do, the less it makes sense. A logically tight anime like Steins;Gate utilized its time travel element to tell a more compelling story, but it feels tacked on here.
The death of Naoto’s sister, Hinata, inspired him to seek justice alongside Takamichi. Assumably he utilizes his police power to track down criminals and map how they went from delinquents to a life of crime. Naoto’s purpose in the story is primarily as a plot device to assist Takamichi. Secondly, to motivate him to keep fighting. Namely, he slaps some sense into him after he has one of many emotional breakdowns. Speaking of which, this guy cries a lot—Takamichi puts every other crybaby shounen protagonist to shame. His frustratingly immature personality makes any potential investment in the show a difficult task. He is the kind of character who gets his lunch money stolen, beaten up, and shoved in a locker on the same day. Rather than coming up with rational solutions, he gets his ass kicked, blames himself, then metaphorically cries in someone’s lap until the problem disappears. The times he stands up for himself are few and far between. Weak and emotional character traits can make great protagonists. But rather than intervening, he is usually a helpless bystander—this defeats the purpose of traveling back in time. This man is 26 years old, yet 15-year-olds constantly outsmart him. Although he knows what will happen in the future, he only uses that information to say, “Hey, look, I remember that guy from the last episode!” The anime adapted two out of the five arcs, so Takamichi has time to redeem himself. Are you willing to struggle through an additional mediocre 24 episode season? I’m not.
Though he grows to care about the Tokyo Meji gang members, Takamichi is driven to save Hinata. That must mean she’s a pretty great character, right? Or is she just a damsel in distress with a personality as deep as a puddle? She is more like a carrot at the end of a stick used to move the plot forward. She exists to add stakes, not to be a nuanced character. The occasional romantic moments between Hinata and Takamichi (in the body of a teen) attempt to be touching and heartfelt, but they come off as concerning. Remember, he’s 26, and she’s like 15 at most. Thankfully, her relevance is next to none, and their romance is mainly written off later. Despite her importance in the plot, Hinata has the least screentime out of every main character. Lack of character development is an issue that extends to everyone; the Tokyo Manji kids are thinly drawn archetypes. A few of them have aside backstories to give us an explanation of the gang’s origins. Draken and Mikey get the most screentime, and they’re two of the best characters in the show. Draken has sympathetic reasons for staying by Mikey’s side and wanting to protect him—there’s palpable tension when he is in danger. Mikey is a loose cannon because of traumatic experiences the show touches on in his backstory. I wanted to see more of them. If only their characterization wasn’t forgone in favor of uninteresting plot development. Ultimately Tokyo Revenger’s most vital point of writing was its wild Jojo’s-esque characters, but begrudgingly it is a plot-driven story.
I’m thankful the anime’s tone stays pretty consistent. There’s no misplaced comedy to worry about, unlike Demon Slayer and its contemporaries. If anything, Tokyo Revengers can create a tense atmosphere; dramatic orchestral music plays during emotional moments and guitar riffs during tense confrontations. Dr. Stone’s excellent soundtrack was composed by the same musician… but the similarities are a little too plentiful. There’s not enough nuance to Tokyo Revengers’ OST. Frankly, it lacks a distinct or memorable identity and is another annoying source of déjà vu. The use of foley combined soundtrack is what makes the fights feel impactful—the squelching of a goon getting slugged sounds visceral. The sound effects enhance the atmosphere, but the art ruins it completely. This anime looks like it was created in 2005 and sent to the future along with Takamichi. Even up close, the characters’ facial proportions appear poorly drawn. Whenever there’s a group of people on screen, they look laughably warped. If you’re familiar with studio LIDENFILMS, you’ll recognize their work. They cut corners as often as possible.
For a show that strives to be believable, its dialogue is melodramatic to the point it’s unintentionally funny. The gang members have superhuman strength that’d make them more suited to Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure. In a different show, that’d be badass, but it’s difficult to suspend my disbelief when a 15-year-old takes down a guy twice his size with one kick. Their hyperbolic personalities fit their young age, but middle school students look much more youthful than these guys. It’s not like they are living in the inner city. Unless the screenwriters cut out background details, they seem privileged enough. Seeing kids put on tough-guy appearances is cringe-worthy. Although, the voice actors do a fair job of conveying the faux machismo of each middle school boy (most of which look and sound like they’re 25 years old).
Seeing the dozens of middle schoolers rumbling in the streets of suburban Japan constantly made me wonder: Where the hell are their parents? Does no one see these kids are trying to kill each other? There is no one in this mid-2000s setting except for children. There are no parents, no police, not even an ambulance to pick up the kids bleeding onto the street. Excluding Takamichi’s family makes him less relatable and believable. Do his parents not care that he comes home bruised and beaten every night? If they do, show us more.
Tokyo Revengers has an enticing premise: Go back in time to save your friends from a life of crime, despair, and early premature death. The show wastes half of its runtime on childish playground brawls following thinly written juvenile gangbangers. No doubt the complete lack of animation is to blame for the mind-numbingly boring Bloody Halloween arc.
DigiCat
To say this was a pleasent surprise would be the understatement of the century With animation that at times looks like it came out of a tamagotchi and an artsltyle which might take some getting used to, i avoided this anime like the plague untill i got it for MAL secret santa Well now i can confidently say this has landed on the list of best christmas presents ever received What Tokyo Revengers might lack in aesthetic is made up for 10 fold in the story it tells The mystery elements are extreamly well done keeping you hooked episode after episode making it near impossible not to binge it Andalthough it's not the most character driven show it still does a great job illustrating what's behind each characters motives and behaviors and aces in their developement, there is not one member of Toman who plays a role in this series you won't be able to care for and/or connect to
Marinate1016
If you could go back in time and change anything, what would you do? It’s a question and concept as old as humanity itself, yet it constantly appears in media time after time. Why? Because it’s integral to the human condition, we constantly want to change our mistakes or do something we didn’t get a chance to. The fact that we can’t, is what makes life some meaningful. Every encounter, every action counts. Despite it being an old concept, Tokyo Revengers does an excellent job of presenting it with a rather unique twist. The MC being able to time-travel via connection to his deceased exgf’s brother was something I hadn’t seen before and really enjoyed. The gang warfare and logistical management of a gang aspects were fun and original. While at times the story is far fetched and kind of unbelievable, it has a lot of fun moments that allow you to overlook that.
Personally, the idea that 12-15 year olds can run criminal empires without their parents knowing or law enforcement intervening is laughable at best, subpar writing at worst, but it’s anime. Who cares. At the end of the day, we just want stories that provide entertainment and allow us to escape. Tokyo Revengers has that in spades. Once you make it past 15 year olds looking like 25 year olds and 25 year olds looking like 14 year olds, you’ll find a really interesting supernatural time travel storyline. The biggest highlight for me was the strategic mind games between the MC and the antagonist. It felt a bit like a chess match. I like the fact that the MC lacks any real powers or strength of his own and instead has to rely on his ability to form relationships with people from totally different walks of life in order to change the future.
The show can be a bit slow at times. There’s definitely episodes over the two cours that feel like nothing much happened, but it’s often in an effort to build up future events/arcs. The action sequences are…. pretty bad to say the least. The climax of the series(final 4 episodes) really looked like a slideshow at times. I’m not sure if it was because of the pandemic or not, but the studio really dropped the ball during the Bloody Halloween episodes. That said, there’s really not a tremendous amount of action in the show. It’s mainly mindgames and exposition, which I don’t mind, but if that’s not your thing you’ve been warned. There’s a few fights, but the focus is on the story and the MC’s growth.
Tokyo Revengers grew on me week after week. For the first 4 weeks, I was pretty uninterested, but of course kept watching. As the plot began to unfold and things became more clear about the antagonist, I got more absorbed into the anime. It eventually became one of my most anticipated of the week. By now, TR has surely become one of the biggest shows of the year, and honestly for good reason. I think it’s one of the few shonen series to deserve the hype it’s got. An underdog loveable MC that makes you want to root for him and a mysterious time travel ability, along with some edgy gang banging teens is a pretty cool combo.
Tokyo Revengers gets 8 out of 10.
Gregory_Senpai
I’m starting this review off up front by saying that “Tokyo Revengers” is, for me, a 10/10 series, but I’m a big softie when it comes to anything unique. I tend to score things a bit on the higher side, so, for you it may be an 8 or a 9 (if you like the same kind of things I do), but I want to be up front that I think this is a great anime and that it absolutely must be seen. I’m putting this at the beginning of my review, because I’m going to sound pretty mean about this anime a bit later,but I want it to be known that it’s very minor stuff, mostly dealing with visual elements, and doesn’t change the fact that this series deserves near perfect marks for its originality, story, and characters, and by no means does the visual side detract from any of that. This was not a bad adaptation, it just wasn’t a legendary one.
Premise is cool. Time travel + Delinquents. If you’ve got any interest in seinen/shonen, that should be enough to get you to watch it and also enough to keep you from asking too much about the plot, or reading up about it online. Once you KNOW that the series is about time travel (which is NOT a spoiler), you know that you shouldn’t research too much, or you risk ruining it for yourself. This series delves heavily into dealing with disappointment, regret, and facing the failures of your past; I believe these are themes a lot of people can relate to. I certainly did. If I had the chance to go back in time, there’s a lot of stuff I would do differently…
Disclaimer: if you’re the type of person who has to have an explanation for how time travel works…
Maybe sit this one out. Not every plot device needs to be explained up front, and we don’t get one here, and if that’s gonna be what you’re thinking about the whole time while you watch this anime, don’t bother with it. I daresay, this one’s not for you. Since I’m saying this, you clearly understand that I’m not the type to get hung up on stuff like, “bUt HoW dOeS hIs TiMe TrAveL wOrK?” BS. I can suspend disbelief, realize that this is sci-fi, and just roll with it. It worked in “Boku dake ga Inai Machi” and it works here. Honestly, what I found much harder to believe was that these were all 13-14 year olds kicking each other’s butts and riding motorcycles all over the place with not a single parent in sight, especially with Japan’s strict traffic laws. The “past” of this is 2005, not 1985. I definitely don’t recall things in Japan being like that at all when I was living there, just a few years later, but, let’s set that aside as well (for the sake of the plot). I loved this series on a conceptual level – the characters seemed fresh, the story put an original spin on the typical time travel premise, and the plot was twisted enough that I had no idea where things were going, leaving me absolutely gob smacked at the end.
Now, I haven’t read the manga yet, but I’ve seen quite a bit of the art. I thought it was amazing. To be frank, the anime failed to live up to what the manga put on the table, and I can make that judgement based entirely off of skimming through panels in the first few volumes.
All of my complaints about this show come down to visuals, but they’re extremely shallow complaints, coming from someone who has become jaded by bad adaptations and hastily produced garbage.
As far as “Tokyo Revengers” is concerned, the cinematography wasn’t bad; it was normal. The Director behind this didn’t do a bad job, by any means, but he’s a relatively new face. At the end of the day, I’d say he did a commendable job working on such a big project as this, which will most likely be a HUGE financial success, and is already the highest rated series by this studio of all time.
The animation quality, as a whole, wasn’t bad; it was normal. The studio behind this, LIDENFILMS has made a lot of series that had that, “commercially successful” feel to them, but lack when it comes to rating. They’re not out there making art pieces, and they’re not producing shows that can get sold on their sakuga alone. They make anime that look mostly average. From the visuals alone, you probably wouldn’t be able to figure out what studio made this. Very mainstream.
Art, background, fights. All the visuals were normal. They lived up to expectations. None of it looked phoned in, but at the same time, didn’t look like it was painstakingly crafted in some artisan way. There were no copy-pasted cars in any of the scenes, but there were also not that many shots bristling with life from the mid 2000’s shown to give us atmosphere.
It was all just… normal.
The visuals were all very standard, traditional, and popular, in that plastic, mass-produced kind of way. It feels weird to use this as an insult, but it had a very “seasonal anime” vibe to it. I’m afraid people won’t be talking about it years, or even months from now, even though they should be. It could have been an 11/10 anime that gets brought up in the same sentences as stuff like “Steins;Gate”, “Erased”, or “Evangelion”, but I doubt that’s going to be the case even if it’s trending on twitter after the finale. Watching it, I couldn’t help thinking, how damn good it could have been if it had been done with more “style” to it, because “style” is definitely what the manga has in spades. The manga art re-defines stylish, in a retro-future kind of way, taking your typical “delinquents” imagery and amping it up to a hundred. I would have loved to have a little more of that in the adaptation, which for me, fell pretty flat. In my head, when I think of delinquents, my mind goes to “GTO”, “Cromartie High School”, or “Slam Dunk”, and to the 90’s aesthetics. I think it would have been really cool to have seen something more along those lines, in terms of aesthetics, with the adaptation of this series.
To conclude in one really long sentence: “Tokyo Revengers”, the anime, was an absolutely unique experience that was adapted well enough that I won’t forget it, or take points off my review because of the animation, but not well enough that I’ll likely re-watch it, buy it, or add it into my favorites list; however, it made me interested enough in it that I’ll most likely BUY the entire manga, even if I have to import it directly from Japan because there’s no official physical release.
…
Which brings me to the P.S. to this review where I’d like to talk about censorship.
At the time of reviewing this series, which is just following the finale, there’s no print version of this available in the US. I’m not even sure if there’s an official English release in print anywhere. You can find the manga, digitally, to purchase easily enough, it’s right there on Amazon, available through Kindle & Comixology, among other places. Now, why this did not have a physical book, is something that baffled me thoroughly, and after discussing it with a friend on twitter, they suggested that it’s almost certainly because of the “problematic imagery” i.e. the “Manji” character seen blazing throughout, on the flags, and apparel belonging to gang of the main characters in the story . Or, should I say, it WOULD be seen throughout the show, if you’re watching the “Tokyo Revengers” uncensored version, and not the censored version that’s available through legal streaming sources, such as Crunchyroll in the states. The “Manji” is apparently controversial because uneducated people are too stupid to realize the difference between it and the Nazi swastika. One is a spiritually religious symbol, with thousands of years of cultural heritage. One is a white-power hate sign. I don’t usually get up in arms about censorship in anime, because usually it’s for one of two reasons: 1) nudity 2) blood and gore. Fundamentally, I don’t think having censorship of that kind of stuff is a bad thing, since modern streaming services put all the adult titles right there next to the kiddie grade stuff, making it just as easy to watch “Redo of a Healer” as it is to find “Reborn”, and that’s a mistake you don’t wanna make when you’re babysitting… I am, however, completely opposed to companies thought policing us over anime imagery, judging us to be too stupid to educate ourselves about the difference in a symbol’s meaning. It took me 30 seconds to navigate to shorinjiryublog via a quick google search to find a full on explanation of the difference in meaning between a swastika and the Manji. If you’re old enough to watch an anime about time traveling delinquents, you’re old enough to do that level of homework. So, big middle finger to whoever made the decision to censor this for western streaming.
NextUniverse
This is the Tokyo gang life. Yankee, violence, terrain, status, pride. One man sets out to take his re:venge Re:Zero style (we are running out of ideas) on this cursed life that harmed his future, and the futures are many others. Tokyo Revengers is a great shounen product. It is entirely unrealistic, whilst performing a realistic story. I see a few complaints about the logic in this world. Rule 1 of shounen anime: there are no rules, we're here to see madness break loose. Tokyo Revengers is a ridiculously biased story, shamelessly leaving burnt tracks of unbalanced plot points in order to get to the destinationit seeks, that is, this story which is based on infamous Tokyo gangs. So I find no point in complaining about something that (hopefully) is aware of its asinine power levels and time travel logic. In a narrative aspect, Tokyo Revengers is incredible at nailing everything it needs to do as well as it must for an audience of its kind to enjoy. Heartfelt moments. Tense scenes. Nakama power. It's all there and done well. Sure, Tokyo Revengers is standing on a dangerous plane, so it can be hard to take these attributes is presents as serious. It understands what it is but trespasses on the "big boy" land anyway. It is both concurrently serious and not serious. However, I find myself believing that the anime is indeed no different from other big shots out there like KnY and JJK for that matter, what all three have in common is the threat is indeed not something to take lightly, however, light-hearted moments are to be found all around in the anime. Ultimately leaving me with no reason to change any positive thoughts this anime had in relation to its starting theme. The writing is also pretty linear, there are no underlying secrets lingering other than those the plot specifically questions. There is also the consistency of the writing, never really improving or deteriorating any step of the way, in some sense, this may suck for those who want to see the anime "get good" at a particular point, unfortunately, that was never the case here, though, this may change with any future content this anime may have to behold. Overall, there isn't too much to say with the anime in terms of its story, it does what it needs to in the most shounen way for a shounen audience. It's true that the only originality that lies is within the actual theme itself (though not really), but that doesn't matter, at least, to the eyes of many before me, personally was pretty good for what it had for itself, and it was enough to keep me invested even with its love for tropes.
The characters are in the same boat too. Their logic, behaviour, actions, fall under the shounen tropes that reign over the anime. One thing Tokyo Revengers is amazing at, however, compared to other anime I have seen, is the somewhat elaborate detail behind most of its characters. The anime shows the origins of who these people are, and why they have come to be. In some sense, it may have been a domino effect for the anime being what it is with its also profound chemistry. Tokyo Revengers has amazing character chemistry which amplifies any heartfelt moments as the mutual relationships to the characters and those around them is real rather than manufactured, which is also the reason why this anime is realistic in that category, these are real (fictional) people going through real (fictional) events in their lives, and how they respond to it doesn't seem to be far fetched. Really good characters for that matter. I will touch on Takemichi a bit. I think he is a pretty good protagonist for the anime resides in. He has this aura to him that makes him feel as if anyone could be in his position, take up the same path as him, which in turn does make him feel like an idea rather than a person in himself, although, his means to push forward in battle, his means to push forward for his friends, and his mean to push forward to the right things in life gives him his own worthy acclamation to his name he should take pride in. There's also the "crybaby" side of him which is both annoying at times, though loveable.
The audiovisuals are crusty as hell, I can't really find myself describing it better than that. It's a stale relic, brought to life like Dr Frankenstein was in the studio animating himself, old pieces can only hold for so long without any further refurbishment. Whilst this is technically a baseline average for today, that can only be true for the artwork, the animation falters a lot which is a shame to see. Consistent still frames, cheap effects > animation, and choppy products, I can only imagine this anime would be a high-end shounen if it were for such technical faults. The same is somewhat true for audio, however, it wasn't as bad, in fact, I thought it was pretty good for the most part, it's just that the good parts didn't show up a lot.
So, that's that for me, I found myself enjoying Tokyo Revengers. In a universal sense, I would imagine most would enjoy it as well, assuming you are a fan of the shounen genre, this is something to watch. Sure, it would have been better if it had better sakuga and OST since generic shounen is heavily reliant on peripheral audiovisuals to live up to the hype surrounding it. But considering how the story was going, and how interesting it was at times, I find myself believing the majority will love this regardless of its fault in aesthetic.
I'd recommend this anime to most people looking for a good 'shounen' anime. But then again, most recommendations for this are literal relations to similar plot devices found in other anime (Erased, Steins;Gate, [time travel anime]). I have nothing left to touch off with tbh, so I will leave off here for now.
Also, these kids are in middle school lmao. It's crazy.
PandanLeafSan
Before we start, there are some slight spoilers in this review, so read it for your own risk. The Time Travel stuff can be mostly complicated. They're not entirely explained, so there's nothing to input on this mysterious genre. Tokyo Revengers is one of those shows fitting itself with the Time Travel aspect to change the future and prevent any menacing things from happening. Like myself as a watcher, I checked this out. From here the show was on a roll for the 1st half of the season, flowed nicely, nothing unbearable and entertaining. Nevertheless, the 2nd half became too much of a nuance anddismally presented.
Story (6/10)
The story is somewhat interesting. Trying to save someone you are deeply in love with, is a compelling premise and ideally, fascinate you for what it offers. The first half was actually decent, the foundation layout of the characters, plot twists and the other aspects are what got me attached to this series. I even liked Takemitchy as well (the protagonist). Became 8/10 at first, but oh dear, 2nd half was surely underwhelming. The Vanhalla vs Toman arc displayed the repetitive stuff and delivered the build up in the most poorest way that leaves a huge mark on my face. The problem with this adaptation is the directing. Directing in some cases can present shows with perfect originality and progression. Unfortunately, Tokyo Revengers directing was abysmally produced, for an example, censorship, impactful moments including Baji's death scene. There was something about this that drags the emotion and feels, in which I could not resonate with the characters and the plot.
Art (4/10)
Oh well, this seems disappointing. I'm not hugely impressed with the character designs. This is due to the fact they have pointy lips from side profile view point, which is quite questionable??? and the off-putting eyes, which caught my attention throughout the whole show. But at least the characters do have Drip though. I can point out that. The scenery layout establishes to be realistic and pleasing, which was a feature I liked. Unsurprisingly enough, the animation was average. There were moments where a character gets kicked in the ass and fly unintentionally in the air?? Like why? I know they could have worked on the animation thoroughly more.
Characters (6/10)
I'm going to admit this but I do like some of the characters like Baji, Chifuyu Draken and Kisaki. They have intriguing backgrounds, ideals and personalities, which is pretty gud. But oh no, this series's protagonist (Takemitchy). You guessed it, a cry-baby. Which naturally fits the theme song surprisingly. He's, even more, worse than Deku from MHA, as that dude contribute something. But back to Takemitchy, I can't believe he had to be an eyewitness throughout every single gang fight, which makes the character writing unappealing, and literally CRIES. At least there are some that are understandable, but 80% of most of them are noisome. This doesn't mean all characters are displayed as horrible, I wished Takemitchy's character writing was better with greater character development.
Sound (8/10)
The OP was alright (y'all know for the famous yodelling part lmao). The first ED was groovy and reminds me of IU's Coin a lot, whilst it's playing it at the end. But, the 2nd ED escalated so much better. Its funky, rock mood sets the overall tone of the show better, which got me exceptionally pleased. Now the OSTs. The composer, Hirotaki Tsutsumi nailed the score very well. Personally, it's forgettable but the main theme was the most memorable for me. Hell yes, I get hyped whenever this track appears. The voice acting was impressive and drives each dramatic moment very well, that's all I have to say.
Enjoyment (4/10)
There are some parts that can comedic and I can appreciate them from time to time. But, as I said before, Takemitchy's baby crying moments were bothersome and couldn't help myself but to resist every time he does that. Furthermore, the staby staby moments can be overdramatic and laughable. I also want to mention, about the voice acting again, since I discover one problem. There are characters that are 12 and are voiced by 25+ year old dudes, which makes it painfully confusing and jarring.
Overall (5/10)
It's a mediocre adaption with subpar animation, pointless logic and poor execution moments. It still remains a good flow on the plot and concluded with a settled and captivating cliff-hanger. I wished the directing was much better if S2 is in the production works.
Kervz
If you like rooting for a punching bag who is so dumb and ineffective that even a trained rat would perform 20 times better at resolving the problems faced by him, then this is your show. I had to finish it because my wife sat me through it since she can't leave a story unfinished, but when it was over she told me never to speak a word about it. Unrealistic because his choices are dumb beyond human comprehension, unlikable because of the poor emotional control. Sad because can't get things done for himself, even thing that he should. That MC should be considered anexample of everything that you should aim to never be.
Nothing more to add. Jesus Christ.
Bakugokatsuki09
as a lover of time traveling anime i would like to say this anime was my worst experience .this story is about to make people realize that delinquents are not LAME, but it makes it worse i ended up looking down on delinquents. the whole story is full of cliché and overreacting characters. i just wanted to drop this anime on episode 4 but as a lot of people exaggerated it so much i wanted to know when it will get better. i completed it with disappointment. this is predictable but at the same time it is not predictable. i predicted the story but realizedthat my prediction was better than the actual story. i have watched many masterpiece stories and they are masterpieces cause they are not at all predictable. the mc sucks, there is no character development at all, it even degrades. the mc thinks of solving the problems but he only THINKS, and does nothing. he never took the first step he needs to take as a protagonist who is 26 year old. he is 26 but his thinking ability is like a kindergarten kids, the whole story is just repeating again and again. even though he is getting marvelous power of time traveling he never made a difference. i think the mc is very lazy and regrets later. i really wonder where are their parents, teachers and Tokyo police. maybe the story would have been better if it had some realistic approach. not only mc but other characters also lack the ability to think. there are lots of anime which need recognition than this one, which are much better.
stella555
This is just wish-fulfillment fantasy garbage. Generic self-insert MC, blatant wish fulfilment, everything works out for the MC no matter how bad things get. Tokyo Revengers is poorly written trash. Its full of plot convenience, plot armor, and plot holes. Most fans are simply hyping it up because they're either 12 year olds who haven't watched many anime before, or they dont really care how good it is as long as the characters are yelling and shouting generic lines like "I'll never give up!" or "I'll save her!" "I'll never give up! I'll save you!" The dialogue in this anime is lackluster and doesn't require any thoughtor engagement. The characters will shout out emotional lines to get the 12 year old fans frothing at the mouths. Its ridiculous. The monologues are just empty lines said by the characters such as "Huh?" or "What's going on?" that dont add to the experience in any meaningful way.
The characters are trash. Every character is idiotic or braindead and are simply doing things to fit the plot. Baji literally stabs himself because the plot called for his death. Takemichi escapes a planned assassination attempt by going to the bathroom. Yes, a bathroom. To pee. That's how he survives a car crash that was carefully planned and executed by 2 killers who supposedly know what they're doing. What happened to following your targets and keeping a close eye on them? This show is constantly disrespecting each and every one of the characters, and that's just a shame.
This anime wasn't enjoyable in any way. It was so bland I had a hard time staying awake while watching this crap. Things were always predictable, as well as super repetitive. None of the characters were interesting or likeable.
2/10 - Dont watch this show. Save yourself the trouble and find something better.
Housri
Where To Start: This was a roller coaster from happy, sadness happy enjoyment lust all on 24 ep why u ask : the Characters were amazing , the animation was amazing , story could be better but overall one of the most fun and Enjoyment i had in years after jujutsu kaisen ofc the first epi's were doll boring but after it got into the story and the Character development i wanted to become a gang member u got no idea how much fun u are missing out ATM if i say it even surpassed one piece at making you wanna just pay and watch all theep in one day , i hope a new season soon in 1 year at best will make it a lovely time if it take too much it might kill it did not read the manga and probly will not im more of a animation guy but i would recommend it 8-9/10
Hunnyo
This is an anime that borrowed almost everything it has from other better shows: characters, story, humor, and even down to the script, wrapped neatly in a red bow, and tried to pass itself off as something original and unique. Story: Although the story isn't wholly original it should work on a macro level since it is interesting enough. However, everything falls apart once you see it under a microscope. The fantasy element doesn't make any sense. The butterfly effect of time travel comes and goes. There is the gigantic plot hole which was mentioned but they can't justify properly as to why the protagonist can't dojust that (of course the answer is "so that the plot can happen" *yawn*). Something convenient or far fetch always happens just to drag the plot forward. The humor is old school and is usually just repeating the same tired jokes and reactions from old shows without really deconstructing them or putting their own spin to it. Every progression has to be verbally explained, treating the audience like monkeys with ADHD. Narratively it is just a mess and felt like it was written either by an incompetent writer or a lazy writer (and I don't know which one is worse).
Characters:
Takemichi is that shounen protagonist archetype who has a hero complex but worse since he literally can't/won't do anything. He is too dumb to ever make any interesting decisions. He cannot even fix his own problems and they usually get fixed by luck or by other people, not because of his quick wit or abilities. When he does something that actually moves the plot he usually does it by accident. He whines and cries all the time. The plot happens around him more than he happens to change the plot. He thinks he is weak yet does nothing to improve his situation. He has no redeeming qualities aside from his time travelling ability which he does nothing to capitalize on. Side characters also felt like they were simply handpicked from other shows, dusted, rebranded, re-shined, and reconstructed to look different. Also, can we talk about how badly designed his "adult" character is? Apparently, aging for him only means his hair getting black.
Settings:
The world of Tokyo Revengers is a ridiculous one. It's a world where adults are mostly extinct. Teachers only exist inside the classrooms. The parents and the police only show up when it is convenient to the plot. This is a world where consequences don't really matter. You can beat the hell out of anyone as long as you don't kill them. Violence is almost always the answer and being "strong" and a "great fighter" puts you on top of the societal food chain. With the setting (Tokyo) as part of the title you would think that the world would be at least grounded to the actual city of Tokyo but nope. In fact, you could even change its title to any other place in Japan and no one would notice the difference.
Conclusion:
Tokyo Revengers could have been a great show but they completely blew it by taking the easiest way out of every narrative setbacks. The protagonist is inefficient, dumb, and annoying. The setting doesn't raise any stakes and realism only comes and goes to serve the plot.
3/10
