Reviews

Feb 23, 2017
Tokyo ESP is focused on the struggles of high school student Rinka Urushiba and several others who are granted esper abilities from mysterious fish that enter their bodies. While making sense of their unique predicaments, Rinka and her comrades have to deal with an enemy organization trying to organize an esper resistance against humanity by using the mysterious fish to force people into becoming espers.

My thoughts on this series as a whole are a bit mixed. The series starts out like Berserk and Ga-Rei: Zero where you are tossed immediately into the main conflict of the series without any buildup before the second episode takes events before said conflict starts off to show how it got to that point. I've started to get irked when titles pull this type of plot structure off because it risks turning off first-time viewers of the series who have no clue what they are in for. But setting that gripe aside for now, the second episode and onward do a great job for the most part at establishing its characters and building up its plot to show the characters reacting in varying ways to gaining their esper powers. Established characters have their motivations explored for how they utilize their newly acquired esper powers and why they protect or oppose humanity utilizing them. The series also explores the origins of the mysterious fish that grant espers their power and how this knowledge is being abused by the enemy esper organization. In addition, the animation for the series is quite impressive with highly-detailed scenic shots and character designs, as well as fluid and smoothly animated action sequences that are a treat to see in fights that break out between espers and/or military and police forces.

Setting aside praises, the series does come with its fair share of issues. Being based on a shounen manga series, the idealist bent that many titles of the demographic have in presenting their characters has a bad habit of coming up quite often throughout the series. This is quite notable with our series lead, Rinka, who seems single-mindedly interested in upholding justice and being a hero, which makes her character seem two-dimensional and hard to connect with as a result. The series also gets in the bad habit of seeming to get a bit too preachy and heavy-handed with the whole "being a hero" belief in opposing the enemy esper organization at large. Not helping matters is also the inconclusive ending as another enemy appears to enter the conflict with little established about them and still being at large, a typical issue with many anime given the title's manga source material was still ongoing at the time Tokyo ESP began airing in Japan.

Overall, Tokyo ESP decent plot structure and buildup in focusing on how its major characters respond to gaining esper powers and what side they will take against an enemy esper organization, that gets somewhat marred by the typical idealist bent that many shounen titles fall into and its inconclusive ending. Still, it is a decent sci-fi action/ drama title that is worth tracking down if such titles catch your interest.

Note: Pay attention to the start of episode 1 and you'll catch a cameo appearance from Ga-Rei Zero's Kagura and Yomi. For those not in the know, both Tokyo ESP and Ga-Rei Zero are made by the same mangaka, Hajime Segawa.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
What did you think of this review?
Nice Nice0
Love it Love it0
Funny Funny0
Show all
It’s time to ditch the text file.
Keep track of your anime easily by creating your own list.
Sign Up Login