Review of Tokyo Revengers

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