Tokyo Tribe 2

Ah, Inoue Santa you tagger manga-ka you!

This anime's story starts off about four episodes in, so the first few episodes are passable but it's still great to watch them. The story begins where the boss of Buppa's , the big gang boss above all of Tokyo's Tribes, son dies during a betrayal by Mera. The story originally revolves around Kai, the somewhat-not-really leader of the Saru's when his friend Tera is decapitated by Mera, another old friend of Kai's. The story from here sets off into the deepness of Tokyo's underground. From here on it turns into a somewhat WW2-esque story, I'd tell ... you the rest but I'd be spoling the story. The story for this anime isn't exactly novel, since it sounds somewhat like an old school Yakuza flick, but it's pretty new for the world of anime. The story kept me caputured for quite a long time and is definitely worth marathoning it. The only problem I could find is I couldn't really get into the characters. The only characters that get a big backstory are Skunk, Kai, and Mera.

The art for this anime is quite great, including great tones and shades. Madhouse did a great job of capturing Santa's artwork on the pages. The backgrounds seem like an urban wall and tend to stick out quite well. The big problem is they captured Santa's art TOO well. The lips tend to look awkward and the faces tend to look smashed at times. Still, this is a passable offense and doesn't interfere with the enjoyment. It's amazing how well they designed the clothes and how well they kept up with the trends...even if everyone wore the same clothes for the whole series.

The sound is EPIC. The hip hop in this anime is amazing, including songs by the Illmatic Buddha MC's. I seriously was digging the music and finding an OST for this anime is well worth it. There is a bad part. They recycle the music too much. It seems that I heard some of the songs more than 20 times throughout this anime. Not that recycling is bad, it's just that variety could have been better.

The characters are really vibrant and it doesn't look like there are any stereotypes in this anime. My personal favorites were Haseem and Secretary, but the problem is they didn't get face time. Hell, hardly anyone but Kai, Mera, Buppa, and Skunk got any face time. Tera is supposed to be very important in this series but he hardly shows up at all. The great part about this anime is that you will love or hate every character. This IS a good thing.

I really enjoyed this anime and marathoned the last 5 episodes today and this has officially gone into "MY Favorites". This review was completely unbiased and was based on a normal perspective. Let's wrap this up shall we?

Pros:
- Great music that really stands out from all the other anime.
- Amazing backgrounds with amazing shading and tones.

Cons:
- Faces look awkward.

This anime gets 9 "MERAS!" out of 9.

I'm not into rap and I can't say I care much for the whole "gangsta" style/ lifestyle. Neither am I a connoisseur of exaggerated character designs. Needless to say, I went into Tokyo Tribe 2 with a certain amount of trepidation.

IT PUT ME OFF AND PULLED ME IN AT THE SAME TIME. The first four eps were weak but intriguing enough to keep me going. It is grim, gruesome, and exaggerated, but with a grain of gritty reality too. The back story and character development is good. Plus there are a couple disgusting characters, both visually and ... psychologically, that make you love to hate them and shout, "Oh, just kill him!" at the screen. When I start talking to the screen, you know they've got me. (Part of me wants to know how Buppa got to be, well, Buppa . . . . and part of me doesn't. Shudder.)

There are no pretty people in this show. As stated, the character designs are stylized and exaggerated and all the women, with one possible exception, are trashy. Could it be that Tokyo Tribe 2 is more of a caricature of the "gangsta" style/lifestyle than it is a celebration? Hmmm . . . Ultimately, I'd say it is a bit of both.

There is enough testosterone driven machismo to power Las Vegas and its surrounds for at least a year - You got your territoriality, your colors, your honor codes, guns, baseball bats and katanas, cars, and essentially disposable females. Death, with a couple exceptions, is highly trivialized You also have young men maturing the hard way and friendships that somehow manage to endure.

The last four eps go way, way over the top with gangs wearing nazi uniforms and a guy driving a tank through downtown Tokyo and wearing a samurai helmet. Made me think of Sengoku Basara for a split second or two and in a good way.

If you are into rap you are going to love the sound track. I found it well engineered and very effective. There were a couple non rap cuts I'd like to get my hands on, one being a percussion piece featuring what I think was bongos.

Voice work was excellent. I'm not sure but I think Inoue, Kazuhiko, the voice of Natsume Yuujinchou's cat, Madara, aka Sensei, Nyanko, is the same as that of the slimy little character I kept talking to the screen about.

The backgrounds were wonderfully detailed and motion flowed well even in the most frenzied action scenes. I could have done without the cyborg-golem-thingy though. Seemed a little out of place but no big deal.

From the music to bloody action to women whose sole role is that of sex slave or servant, this show is definitely targeted at a young male audience . . . of which I am neither . . . and I liked it anyway.

If you are looking for something out of the ordinary, this is it. Go in open minded and be prepared to be appalled and enchanted all at the same time.

When i found this anime i was really expecting a lot, because is about street gangs, not Yakuza or other Mafia (i like them by the way), i think is the only one that i have found with this theme, the U.S. like street gangs that i wanted to see animated, but i was really disappointed on how the things were presented, it was interesting but i wasn't hook to it and the story was disappointing because of the plot holes, the things that didn't make sense and because the anime didn't took itself serious.

Story
First off, i got to point out that this should be ... tagged as supernatural, because falling from a building and landing like it was nothing and then scream like if they were going to transform into saiyajins or being run over by a train will do nothing to a human being (and those things are really decisive on the story and were a let down for that) or guys that acts like superhumans and never die, those things should be considered supernatural right?...The story is about gangs with 2 MC, Kai and Mera who in the past were the best friends and for some reason one hates the other, and the other doesn't know why, but this is clarified in the end after giving the same flashback over and over, the story for the most part doesn't make sense, there are a couple of rape scenes that i thought were unnecessary because the 2nd one didn't make sense if you pay attention what Don said to her, there is mutilation but because of the half cartoony style of the anime neither of that didn't have an impact on me and what happened to the girl at the end? you don't know, it was a mess, but in general it wasn't that bad, it was just fair if you take the bit good pieces and put them together.

Art & Animation
The art style was disappointing, it had a cartoon vybe to it with a combination of the anime style and i didn't like that because i couldn't take serious the dramatic parts, or those big ass lips that looked ugly but the drawing wasn't bad, it was fine.

Sound
I was expecting good music coming from this, and the music was freestyle hip-hop and even if it was repetitive i just liked 2 songs, the OP and other backround song and they kind of reminded me of that serie from Cartoon network Street Football, the voice acting was ok, overall was fair.

Character
There was some development on the characters, but the fact that we don't get to know them, or feel a real attachment to them, then you're not going to have an impact if something happened to them or care about them at all, i was interested a bit for the main 2 Mera and Kai but because i wanted them to take on Skunk that little piece of s**t, he was annoying af, but i think that's his role, annoy you and he's succesful at that, so overall was fine.

Enjoyment
For some reason i got a good enjoyment from this, i liked the idea of the anime despite they couldn't make it work like they wanted, i wasn't bored but sure i didn't like those plot holes or those actions they took and didn't make sense, it was good enjoyment but i was expecting the anime as a whole to be much much better.