First, let me quickly sum-up the plot of this anime, and why I think it could’ve been a great show: it follows the story of your average male protagonist who hasn’t achieved much in his life and realizes how much full of regret he is when he learns in the news that his one and only ex-girlfriend was killed by a gang. He discovers afterwards that he has the power to travel exactly twelve years back into the past and decides to change the events of that time to save his girlfriend and allow himself a better future. I was quite interested in the beginning: although I am not a fan of time-travelling, I was intrigued to see how the protagonist would overcome his fears and fix his past regrets, and the setting of delinquents caught in gang rivalries is something that I often enjoy.
To this story’s credit, there were a few elements that I thought were well executed:
- First, I liked the way the protagonist realizes that he must fight his past fears in order to improve his life, and although he is quite afraid to face the reality surrounding him, he makes a real effort and manages to bring a change through his actions.
- I liked how the anime showed the several layers of delinquency and criminality, from the low-ranking victims forced to serve more powerful brutes, to charismatic and powerful leaders who have real plans and influence.
- I enjoyed the soundtracks and character designs.
Unfortunately, there is a much longer list of points I didn’t enjoy personally, and I’m going to list them here:
- Some characters felt a bit bland, despite their promising start: for example, Mikey is the leader of the Toman and is immediately presented as an important main character, who wishes to give a new era for delinquents. Although it is an intriguing point, it is never really explained what he means with that, or what his motivation is. In fact, we don’t know much about him at all other than the fact that he is really good at fighting and cares about his people. It wouldn’t be a problem if the mystery was kept to let other characters shine, but the other characters felt the same: the main antagonist is purposefully mysterious, which is a respectable decision, but all the main characters feel quite boring; except for Draken who was given a short backstory, we never learn how they got into delinquency, or what their motivations are, other than following Mikey.
- Following the issue with the characters, there is the lack of exploitation for the themes that could’ve shined in this anime: delinquency is a complicated issue, where teens get involved for tons of different reasons, but it is often linked with society. In this anime, we almost never see how society impacted these characters even for the protagonist: we don’t even see his parents, his perspective of the world around him.
- The fights are really over-the-top for me: I can get myself captivated by a typical shonen protagonist who takes one punch after another and gets up afterwards by his strong will if it happens in some magical world or if his bodily constitution is protected by some superhuman strength, but in this anime, it is never justified, and it just feels odd to me. The characters often get beaten to a pulp, but many get back up if they are determined enough, and few suffer serious physical consequences from their actions: that’s not how it works in real fights.
- The pacing is awfully slow, and it feels repetitive: the protagonist always thinks that he has solved his main threat and returns to the present, but then realizes that there is a much bigger issue and must return without much preparation.
- There are characters who feel abandoned or simply used as narrative plot devices for the protagonist: his initial group of friends isn’t much developed after the first few episodes, but what annoyed me most was his girlfriend whose name I forgot since she was the perfectly bland female character; we don’t even know how they got together in the first place despite the protagonist stating that his past self was a bit of a looser, and she is a bit like an obsession for him: They broke up years ago and he almost even forgot her before hearing about her in the news, but somehow she is the main person to save in this whole story even though she doesn’t do much narratively apart from that.
How I rated the elements of this anime:
- Story: 05/10. It had a good premise, but it was painfully dragged out.
- Art: 06/10. The art was fine, I enjoyed the character design of some characters such as Draken or Baji.
- Sound: 06/10. I enjoyed the soundtrack, and the voice actors did a good job.
- Characters: 05/10. This was really a middle-ground for me, and despite the potential of some characters, from what I was given to me in this season, there wasn’t any character I really grew attached to.
- Enjoyment: 04/10. It was entertaining enough, but the pacing didn’t help.
- Overall: 05/10: Very mixed feelings, but mostly disappointment because of the bad pacing and characters.
