Tokyo Revengers

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]

Sano, Manjirou Main

Hayashi, Yuu Japanese

Ryuuguuji, Ken Main

Suzuki, Tatsuhisa Japanese

Hanagaki, Takemichi Main

Shin, Yuuki Japanese

Matsuno, Chifuyu Supporting

Karino, Shou Japanese

Baji, Keisuke Supporting

Mizunaka, Masaaki Japanese

Mitsuya, Takashi Supporting

Matsuoka, Yoshitsugu Japanese

Hanemiya, Kazutora Supporting

Toki, Shunichi Japanese

Hanma, Shuuji Supporting

Eguchi, Takuya Japanese

Tachibana, Hinata Supporting

Waki, Azumi Japanese

Kawata, Nahoya Supporting

Kawanishi, Kengo Japanese

Kamei, Hiroshi Producer

Naya, Ryousuke Producer

Furukawa, Shin Producer

Itou, Hirofumi Producer

Reviews

Sep 18, 2021

TheUnholySausage

Recommended

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 annoying ... characters 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.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Nov 15, 2023

Harlock_Phantom

Mixed Feelings

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 well ... as 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.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Sep 18, 2021

SingleH

Not Recommended

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 meet ... anyone’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.

Reviewer’s Rating: 2

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