Tokyo Revengers
Studio: LIDENFILMS
Genre: Action, Drama
Streaming: Crunchyroll
Life isn’t great for Takemichi Hanagaki – he lives in a messy apartment, working a part-time job in a store where he’s berated constantly and even the local kids bully him. It wasn’t always that way he admits – he hit his prime in middle school but after that… it all went downhill. It’s a familiar story and pretty relatable. He seems generally ambivalent about everything – even hearing about the sudden death of an ex-girlfriend on the news does little to really break him out of his slump. Fate takes matters into its own hands however when he is unceremoniously pushed into the pathway of an oncoming subway train and Takemichi finds himself suddenly pushed back in time to his middle school heyday. Caught on the very day where his fortunes back to alter for the worst, he decides to try and do what he can to save the life of his then-girlfriend from her future death.
The premise sounds familiar, huh? There are definitely shades of another acclaimed anime series, Erased, with the time travelling and the protagonist’s goal to save a girl who later died. That’s where the similarities end, however. Compared to the mystery and drama of that show, this one is much more action-orientated, not shying away from showing the violence of the gangs who feature in the story. We get right into the action almost immediately with Takemichi’s return to the past happening before we’re even five minutes into the episode. From there we’re introduced to his friends, his lifestyle as a delinquent, and the harsh consequences of this when his group goes up against a group that absolutely demolishes them. It’s a wild ride developmentally for Takemichi and we see him go through many different emotions such as regret, guilt, loss, and ultimately, resolve. I won’t spoil the ending but there is a good little twist at the end which sets this up to be a longer-running series with more complexity to it than would first seem.
Art-style wise the anime looks bright and shiny with clean designs although personally, I wasn’t too fond of the aesthetics of the series. Something felt a little too off and cookie-cutter about the animation in the series to me. I did appreciate the relatively unique designs of Takemichi and his little group of friends as they’re all very distinctive and memorable in their own right. Music-wise nothing in particular really stood out for me but I really enjoyed the anime’s opening which was shown at the end of the episode (even if there were an awful lot of hints towards future events spoiling it a bit). There’s an odd tendency to the comedic also which goes against the darker themes at times – Takemichi in particular is the prime culprit of this, pulling ridiculous expressions that fit more in One Piece than the more mature show Tokyo Revengers is aiming to be. It brought me out of the atmosphere a little which is a shame as this series does have a lot of good things to recommend it. I can’t say I truly warmed to any of the characters in this episode but there were definitely some interesting interactions between them and as this anime is slated to be a two cour series, lots of time to develop them further hopefully.
The manga for this series has pretty high reviews (currently sitting at a cool 8.37 at the time of this review’s writing on MAL), and whilst the anime airs on a very packed day of the week and so competes with a lot of the season’s other big hitters, Tokyo Revengers is definitely one to keep an eye on. The anime shows a lot of promise and if you’re into more action-themed dramas with a bit of mystery, it’s definitely one I’d recommend checking out.
Tokyo Revengers
There are echoes of Erased in this time-skip anime but it's very much its own thing, with lots of character drama and action.
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