Anime review: Tokyo Revengers
If you’re an avid fan of isekai anime, you would be well familiar with the plot: main character gets hit by truck-kun and transports into another reality. For someone like me, the isekai plot has got to be one of the most repetitive genres ever (please do not attack me for this) which is why I tend to stay away from it entirely unless the anime intrigues me like the rising of the shield hero, my next life as a villainess and in this case, Tokyo Revengers.
Written by Ken Wakui, at a first glance it seems like a rather generic isekai anime. But if you look closer, it’s about a notorious gang, Toman and our main character Takemichi, known as a crybaby to some, who is set on saving everyone.
Now from this point onwards, i’ll be reviewing this anime so if you have not watched Tokyo Revengers, please skip this article entirely. That is, unless you want spoilers.
The anime starts of with takemichi, the protagonist of the anime as a 26-year-old who lives an unsatisfying life. From constantly feeling inferior to his co-worker at work and then getting picked on by kids way younger than him, life is definitely not as great as his younger self thought. But just when he thought life couldn’t get worse, he’s pushed onto the train tracks one day and instead of truck-kun, train-kun is the one to send takemichi flying back into the past. While preparing for the oncoming train to hit him, he experiences realistic flashbacks of his childhood and is instantly transported back into the year 2005.
Waking up 12 years in the past, takemichi embarks on a journey with his childhood friends and fights with a group of older boys in hopes of beating them and becoming the top gang. At this point, I was wondering what on earth possessed a group of middle schoolers to think that they could take on a bunch of bigger and stronger guys without getting beaten up heavily. Unfortunately for them, they were sadly beaten up and definitely regretted their decision to go against a gang that’s stronger than 5 scrawny middle schoolers.
After a series of events like communicating with Tachibana Hina, his girlfriend from the past and meeting her younger brother Naoto, Takemichi then learns that in the future, both brother and sister gets caught up in the tokyo manji conflict. Takemichi learns that in the present, Tachibana Naoto was the one who saved him from the train collision and it was revealed that Naoto is now a police officer who enlists the help of Takemichi to save his sister. In order to to that, Takemichi must travel back in time to alter the past.
From this point onwards, the plot mainly consists of Takemichi going back to the past and trying to change the future with his actions. In order to do so, he must come into contact with Toman’s top leader, Mikey to stop the future meeting that would result in the conflict. Slowly, viewers get to see the childlike side of Mikey and his fighting skills throughout the episodes to come.
I won’t go into much detail, But what caught my attention in the first few episodes wasn’t Mikey, who most viewers were fawning over. Instead, it was Toman’s second-in-command, Draken. A close aid to Mikey and his best friend, the two were inseparable and everyone feared them. Pretty soon Draken became my first favourite character from this series. It honestly does not help the fangirling moment after knowing that Draken is voiced by Tatsuhisa Suzuki, who is also the voice actor of some of my other favourite characters like Shinya from Owari No Seraph, Makoto from Free! Iwatobi Swim Club and Takao from Kuroko No Basket.
While watching Tokyo Revengers, I was honestly intrigued and found myself wanting to find out what’s next. Before I knew it, I finished all 24 episodes in one sitting. Unlike any other isekai anime which involves the main character getting magical powers, Tokyo Revengers successfully portrayed the main character going back in time without any magical powers (unless you count time travelling) and the mafia together, making it all the more interesting.
However, there was one thing that I couldn’t place my finger on. Sure, the plot was interesting the way it was, but where were all the adults, especially the parents of the gang members? There were hardly any adults in the anime, which makes it all the more funny because there was no adult there to put those kids in their place. Some may say that having adults would be of no use since they were either oblivious to their child’s extra activities or the adults would be too scared of a bunch of middle schoolers to do anything. Additionally, it was personally a little confusing with all the time travelling at first.
But having said that, Tokyo Revengers is definitely worth watching, especially how exciting each fight scenes (again, i’m talking about Draken) are. From the interesting plot and characters to the opening and ending music, and backstories coupled with plot twists that would leave you on edge, it would leave you glued to the screen as you devour episode after episode of this spring 2021 anime. If you can’t get enough of it, read the manga (be prepared for it though) and have fun jamming to the op, “Cry Baby” which is available on Youtube and Spotify.
I hope you enjoyed this article as much as I enjoyed writing it! If you liked this article, be sure to check out my Jujustu Kaisen review.
Until next time,
rika ^~^
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