Friday, June 17, 2022

FIF#163-Tokyo Revengers

Takemichi Hanagaki is crushed to learn that his Middle School girlfriend, Hinata Tachibana, has been murdered by the Tokyo Manji Gang.  When it seems like his dead end life cant get any worse, Takemichi finds himself shot twelve years into the past.  Now back in Middle School, Takemichi makes a radical decision that changes the course of not just his life, but others as well.  Soon, Takemichi realizes the gift he has been given and decides, against all odds, to change the past to save Hinata and ensure he has a more promising future. 
 
Tokyo Revengers is a title I’ve heard thrown around for a while…in fact I thought it had come out well before 2021.  I didn’t even know what the story was about.  Sometimes, going into a title that way yields the best experience, like how it was for me with Your Name (didn’t know anything about it going in and came out having seen one of the greatest Anime films id ever seen in my life).  Did the same thing come out of my going in blind approach to the first episode of Tokyo Revengers?  Well…it might not be a priority title for me in the end but I’ve gotta give it props, I certainly didn’t expect what I saw.
 
The last thing I expected from Tokyo Revengers was for it to be an Anime involving Time Travel.  I thought maybe it was something like a hybrid of Jujutsu Kaisen magical fantasy fare maybe with a hint of a darker 90s esper edge.  But Time Travel, color me surprised.  It certainly elevates a story that starts off kind of forgettable with yet another down on his luck protagonist meeting out a rock bottom existence.  I like how Takemichi barely ever focuses on the fac that he’s somehow traveled through time and is instead mapping out details as he goes.  It’s one thing to focus on “How did I get here” and “How do I get back home”.  It’s another to just go with the flow and eventually reach the “I might as well try to change some things” conclusion.  I was actually wondering if the first episode would end with Takemichi deciding to stay in the past permanently and just roll with whatever comes next, avoiding bad decisions and trying to keep Hinata out of danger.  But then you’ve got a clever loop hole with hand shanking being Takemichi’s method of Quantum Leaping (ok I know that’s not how Quantum Leap works but how often do I get to reference that one?).  It makes me curious just how the act of Time Traveling will work in the present as opposed to the past.  Hopefully it doesn’t involve Takemichi being pushed in front of fast approaching trains.
 
While Takemichi has already made sizeable changes to his timeline and that of Hinata’s family, Hinata’s still dead, which gives us our main mission for Tokyo Revengers.  Though…I might pass on this one just for now.  There wasn’t anything wrong with it and the time travel element did pique my interest.  At the moment though, there are other titles I might want to focus on before coming back to see if Takemichi might be successful in his mission.  Let me be clear though, never said this one sucked, it’s actually better than ok.  Maybe when and if I come back to it, it’ll be better than that.

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