Review of Tokyo Revengers

Tokyo Revengers is a time traveling shounen, although I would put the emphasis on the shounen part, as that is what it spends most of its time doing, anybody who compares this show to Stein's Gate is wrong. While both shows utilize time travel as central elements of the plot and story, Tokyo Revengers uses it as more of a backdrop to tell its story, it goes for less of a timeline insanity angle and instead just uses it to set up plot elements. While I personally find it fine, some people do have problems with it, which I think is kind of missing thepoint, its not trying to be steins gate, which obviously doesn't excuse any blatantly horrible time travel moments, but does mean that its not necessarily a bad thing that its time travel isn't used to make crafty puzzles for you to wrap your head around. Other than the time travel elements, it mainly flows like most shounen action animes, with it following the main character Takemichi as he goes back in time to work his way up through the Tokyo Manji gang to save both his childhood friends, and his own future.

The show consists of 2 cours, each of which is a different arc, the first half being the intro and Moebius arc (I guess its technically 2 but I count them as one since they are kind of short on their own), and the second being the Bloody Halloween. I personally preferred the first cour, which drew me in more and had overall better pacing in my opinion, but I enjoyed both. To put it simply, the story is not the most amazing thing in the world, but I still enjoyed it. The pacing isn't the best, especially in the 2nd cour, with things seemly taking forever. I didn't personally feel like nothing was happening, but I was kind of wondering "Alright lets get on with it guys." as the plot dragged on, it was less of a per-episode thing and more of an overall plot problem. For example, like half of the 2nd cour is taken up by one fight, it was a big and important fight sure, and it wasn't non-stop fighting the entire time, but it still was ~5 episodes of the same plot point. The actual story of these arcs is nothing too special, but I wouldn't really call it bad in any capacity. It's interesting, and filled me with anticipation for where it would go next (although it did take quite a bit of time to get there). It is fairly simple in structure, however it does have some great emotional scenes, and I wouldn't necessarily call its simplicity a massive detriment either. Sadly, the fights themselves aren't anything too amazing to gawk at. They aren't bad, more just average. What I like about Tokyo Revenger's story is how great it is at getting me invested. The first cour had me completely entranced and kept me very interested the whole way through, Bloody Halloween less so, but still a notable amount. That's probably what I liked the most about the story, it was just exciting and interesting, nothing more than that.

The characters are something that a lot of people bash on, and I think its mostly fair. Plenty of them are pretty tropey, like the main character. Others are uninteresting, like Naoto. And some are just forgettable, but I still think that there're plenty of good ones. Mikey is a bit of a trope, with his overall small and unintimidating appearance, but completely overpowered strength, but past that one trope I think he's a great character. He's funny and great to watch, especially with Draken, who is another one of my favorites. I totally can agree that plenty of the characters aren't the best in the world, but I think focusing on that does the really good ones a disservice.

The art is a mixed bag. A lot of people make fun of how nobody looks their age in the show, which is a very fair criticism, although it is mostly a problem with the characters in the past, as they all look fine in the future (excluding Takemichi). Their overall designs are done pretty well, with them all having a distinct and recognizable look that communicates their characters well. The main problem is the overall style, which doesn't always look the best. It's not the end of the world, but it is something.

This show also has a really good OP and an even better ED (the first one the second one was kind of bad and I was mad when they changed it especially because its not like the first ED was super 1st cour centered in its imagery) I just really wanted to say that.

Other than that I don't really have much else to say, just that I like this show and hope we get a second season.