Story:
The story of Tokyo Ravens takes place in an alternate universe, that is rather similar to ours, except for the fact that there exist spirits and familiars. In this world there also exist Exorcists, who learn how to handle those spirits. They learn to summon them, exorcise them and even how to fight using them, for the sake of preventing a spiritual disaster. The main character is Tsuchimikado Harutora, a teenage boy that is part of the branch family of one of the most popular Onmiyou-Exorcist families in Japan. However, other than most others in his families, Harutora is not able to see Spiritual Power and thus can't become an Onmiyou-Exorcist like most others he knows. That's why he has lived a rather quite life up until now, simply hanging out with his friends Hokuto and Touji. That is, until he meets his old childhood friend from the main family, Tsuchimikado Natsume!
The Setting for Tokyo Ravens is rather interesting and even though this kind of supernatural thing is not really uncommon anymore, I do really enjoy those kind of shows! What Tokyo Ravens does really well is taking what it is given and turning it into something good! The show is really good at world building! Almost too good I would like to say...While the world is really well explained and it's potential is used really well, that has a certain price attached to it! The show takes way too much time fleshing out the world, that it could have spent on it's characters or bringing it's story forward. Of course this is not necessarily a bad thing, as this makes the second half even more enjoyable due to the really well explained world, but the first half falls flat due to this! The characters are uninteresting, the pacing is all over the place while it is still enjoyable, the first half of the show is mediocre at best. However the show does pick up quite nicely around half of the show! With the first really big fight starting, the show finally shows it's scale and just how badass it can be! From there on it seems as if I was watching a completely different show, as basically all the pacing problems get solved, the viewer is finally able to really get attached to the characters and the plot twists have a lot more impact that they used to have! Tokyo Ravens second half was one of the most surprising things that happened to me in this winter season and it even included one of the best episodes of this entire season! It got me surprisingly emotional, something that I wouldn't have expected from this show as well! However there is one thing that I am not completely content with and that would be the ending! The ending for Tokyo Ravens itself was rather good and did leave a lasting impression, however it did not quite end the way I wanted it to end! The ending doesn't really give any sense of closure and since there is only 10 Light Novels as of now, of which 9 got adapted in this TV Anime, there probably won't be any more too soon! However hope dies last and maybe we will end up having a second season at some point in time...
Characters:
The Characters for Tokyo Ravens mostly suffer from the same problem that I mentioned in the story, the first half! The characters I would argue, while still being the best part of the first half, aren't really well fleshed out! While the interactions are quite well written and I have to say that the more quite Slice of Life moments of the show definitely were my favourite parts of the beginning episodes, the characters don't seem to develop at all! It kind of plays out like Index, just not as bad!
Harutora at first is your generic Light Novel Main protagonist, that stands up for his friends and doesn't have much of a personality except that, but just as the story, Harutora's character gets a lot better halfway through the series. While I can't really reveal too much about that, due to spoilers, all I can say is that his character got a lot more conflicted later on. The second character to talk about is Tsuchimikado Natsume. She is the daughter of the Tsuchimikado Main family and as such has to go to the Onmiyouji-Acadamy in Tokyo, meaning she lives far away from her home. She also happens to be Harutora's Childhood friend and also due to the family’s tradition has to go to school pretending to be male. She is a rather quite character at first, but soon turns out to be pretty strong herself as she is really good at judging a situation and acting in the appropriate way. If I were to go over the rest of the characters in detail now, this Review would probably just take way too long, so let me just say really quick, that most of the characters are rather interesting to watch. They may neither be the most original characters of all time, nor the most well written, but the show certainly has a good enough cast to be enjoyable! The only other thing that kind of bothers me, is that while the Slice of Life character interactions seem to be really interesting at first, they get a little more generic later on. That may be caused by the show not really having that many Slice of Life moments anymore, but it still is something that bothers me. The longer you watch the Anime the easier it is to get attached to everyone. The Anime also has a huge cast of Side characters, that are all somewhat interesting and that I would love to see more about. However the Size of the cast itself prohibits the Anime from digging deeper into them. All in all the characters are flawed but likeable. It doesn't make the show a lot worse, but they don't really do a lot to make it better either.
Sound:
With the OST being done by Maiko Iuchi, the same person that did the Soundtrack to shows like Railgun, the OST was sure to be somewhat good. While it was not a masterpiece and nothing I would listen to outside of the show, it perfectly fit the show it was attached to. It mostly consists of quiet Piano and Violin pieces, mixed with some rather intense fighting themes. My personal favourite at this point is the track "Dairenji Suzuka", which plays every time Suzuka gets on screen in the early stages of the show, as the music makes her entrance really badass and fits her attitude perfectly!
For the Openings, both are rather good. Same as with the OST, they are not absolutely amazing and unskippable, but they set the tone for the show quiet nicely. While most people like the first Opening better, I personally do enjoy the second one just as much and honestly couldn't decide which one of the two were better. However, the animation for Opening Number 1 is a lot more interesting and the Direction does look a lot better! That said, the second one by no means looks bad, the first one just looks better! For the endings it basically is the same, while I did not like the first ending as much, the second ending ended up being my favourite song of the show!
Animation:
Tokyo Ravens has been produced by 8bit, the same company that also did Infinite Stratos and Aquarion Evol and has been directed by Takaoki Kamasaki, the director of "Is this a Zombie?". The Animation for the show is average at best. It's not really fluent and doesn't really have anything eyecatching about it. It is not abysmal, but it certainly is not good! I feel like the bad animation kind of makes the show a little less badass than it should have been and it really does not do a good job at complimenting the show! Another huge fault with the Animation of this show, is the CGI. It looks really out of place and honestly is some of the worst I have seen in quite a while. It is mostly used for some of the familiars and it really is painfully obvious.
Tokyo Ravens has been the Underdog of the season and by far the most surprising one to me in a while! The show has a good amount of action, likeable characters and a well paced story. In the second half that is! The show has huge problems at the beginning, but does solve them halfway through it's run. It may start off as a rather boring show, but the later parts are definitely worth standing through the first episodes! I would definitely recommend it to basically anyone that is into Supernatural and Fantasy Anime.
