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.
