Togainu no Chi

In the wake of a third world war which left Japan in ruins, an organization known as Vischio seized control of Tokyo and renamed it Toshima. Taking place in its back alleys are battle games known as Igura, overseen by the Vischio, in which contestants battle and bathe in each other's blood to earn the chance to go up against its tournament's king, Il-re.

Igura is not the only fighting tournament around; Bl@ster is a similar yet vastly different game since it prohibits murder and the use of weapons. The only way to win is by knocking out the opponent. Akira, a young man isolated from his family, is known to be undefeatable at Bl@ster. However, his life on the top is shattered when he is accused of murder. Unable to prove his own innocence, all hope is seemingly lost... that is until a mysterious woman named Emma appears and offers him a chance. Now, to regain his freedom, Akira must participate in Igura and ultimately defeat Il-re.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Shiki Main

Midorikawa, Hikaru Japanese

Akira Main

Toriumi, Kousuke Japanese

Rin Main

Fukuyama, Jun Japanese

Keisuke Main

Sugita, Tomokazu Japanese

Nano Main

Yamazaki, Takumi Japanese

Motomi Main

Ichijo, Kazuya Japanese

Gunji Supporting

Taniyama, Kishou Japanese

Kau Supporting

Kiriwar Supporting

Konishi, Katsuyuki Japanese

Arbitro Supporting

Okano, Kousuke Japanese

Iwakami, Atsuhiro Producer

Kananiwa, Kozue Producer

Maruyama, Hiroo Producer

Hosokawa, Osamu Producer

Reviews

Jul 13, 2021

Kindy_

Recommended

This review is kinda biased. I played the original game and even own some figures of the characters. And I must say that I had so much fun watching this.

Let's start with the story
A story of a multiple stories visual novel is always hard to adapt in an anime format. But here ? It was great. They tooks scenes from each characters routes, changed a few things and it made sense. They also added new scenes (mostly around the end) that go well with the flow of the game.
It's maybe still a bit complex, I wished they spend more time explaining the situation of Akira ... when he was still a bl@ster player and more time on the ending.

The art is the thing I can't stand up for
The art is very inconscistent from one episode to another. I must say that aroud half of the anime I kinda liked it. But at the start and especially the last episode it was bad. The last ep was easily the worst of them. I don't know if they fixed it in the dvd release but since I had the Tv version I couldn't tell. It was so bad I didn't managed to follow the action, they also re-used the same animation many times. Another problem I had was the brightness of the anime, or the lack of it. Somes scenes were in total darkness, it was horrible to follow
But it doesn't mean it's all bad ! I loved this design of Arbitro and the designs of his 3 dogs, they had great movements and were just better here. Some fights are nice too
But one thing was innacteptable in the version I watched. They cut out the gore. I especially came to see blood gushing from everwhere, like the games. But I was so wrong, and that's sad. The speciality of Nitro Chiral is to make gory BL VN. One scene that was censored was one of the visions of Akira which is from one of the bad ends of Keisuke. The one where he has the guts of Akira in his hands. I was so disappointed.

The best apect of the anime is next, the sound
I cannot say I wasn't impressed. First thing the opening, you know it's good when you didn't skip it in all 12 episodes. Rose-hip bullet by granrodeo is just so good. Next thing the background music, very good. Sometimes a anime has such high-quality BGM that you start to notice it and tell yourself "hey I like it". And that the case here. Very fitting.
Now for the icing on the cake, the voice acting. Dare I say it's better than the game ? Heck yes ! Starting with Akira. In the game he was kinda emotionless and there were too few times where he showed emotion. Now the feels are more presents and we can see how much his seiyuu improved. I liked his performance in the anime, much more than in the game. Next Rin. His voice was perfect in the game and it's still perfect. Motomi, Shiki and Keisuke were the same than in the games, solid voice acting overall.

Time to speak about chracters
Nothing to say exept they were more or less the sames than in the game. Akira had a big glow up character-wise and Arbitro was perfect. I love so much this version of Arbitro. We also saw more of Gunji and Kiriwar, which was good because they are so fun to see arguing.
And spoilers, I was so happy when Keisuke finally died, I hate so much this character

You could say I had a great time
One thing I must say is that the game is heavily censored. The scene where Akira see a guy fucking a corpse is cut, the blood and gore censor was very present.
So was also the sexual censor. When Akira is attacked by three dudes, they started sexually assaulting Akira before slurping his blood. They not only removed the shoking scenes but also every notion of romance. If you're going to watch this cause it's tagged "shonen ai" DON'T. Akira and Keisuke are just two bros, Rin is a little touchy and that's all.
Personnally I don't mind, somes scenes in the game were kinda hard to watch (Keisuke I'm watching you) so to just focus on a action, mystery with a touch of gore show was not bad, 18+ elements were not so present in the game anyways. It's more of a 15 and up kind of show, not like the 18 and up rated game.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Sep 21, 2024

Total_Saikou

Mixed Feelings

Listen, I am coming to this anime as a die-hard fan of the Visual Novel, and I am willing to play defence against any detractors. It is an incredibly well-written vn with many hard-hitting action sequences, intriguing themes and a good balance between tragedy and heartfelt moments. The anime, however... Well...

Let’s talk about the things I liked first. There are some nice sequences, particularly during the fight scenes. They're very hard-hitting and keep a good balance of stylishness and realism. Shiki's in particular were very captivating, I can tell that my little emo princess was lavished with most of the budget <3 I also like ... the small design details like the eyes being drawn with additional detail (eg. w/cupid’s bow and red waterlines), the stark lighting choices/use of light and the neon red blood. It complements the edgy style just right. And of course, if Nitro Chiral is involved there will be a bumping soundtrack. The tracks definitely help sell the dramatic tension (and the release of said tension) and grittiness of the action. It’s a huge plus that I really appreciate because 99% of the time IDGAF about movie/TV soundtracks…That’s how good it is, dawg. There are alterations to the story to fit for time that I liked, especially how they integrated Nano as the narrator so his mystique and characterization still occur in small fragments that slowly fit together, like in the VN. They also added some fan service, not the BL kind but like extended action sequences and new fights that didn’t happen in the VN. This is Togainu no Chi, so of course I do like seeing men beat the shit out of each other. As a fan, I felt serviced.

Now for the bad. The animation is just straight-up bad at times. The characters are off-model A LOT, to the point where their derpy, detailless faces are genuinely distracting during scenes trying to convey emotional gravitas. It pans to buildings a lot, even during fight scenes which detracts from the action. There are odd stylistic choices like Dutch angles and fixed camera angles, to the point where I thought to myself “This would be so much better as a normal and boring shot-reverse-shot”, which is… Oh boy. It’s also lit way too dark in like 30-50% of the scenes to the point where you can barely see what’s going on. I understand what they were going for but it’s too much, they need to lighten up a bit (lol).

Because the plot is slowly unfurled bit by bit over multiple routes, the anime’s fast-paced treatment of it gets a bit slapdash at times with inconsistencies and omissions that I imagine a newcomer might get confused with. Don’t get me wrong, the plot was simple to begin with, but it was better-paced and more in-depth in the VN. And don't get me started on that non-ending in the anime. Seriously. What they did to my boy Nano was...! >:/

All the characters end up becoming really Flanderized, though to differing extents. Rin gets the brunt of this with a lot of dialogue that develops his character being cut, while Keisuke is more or less the same albeit portions of his backstory were cut for being too homo for TV (lol) (I say lol in a very sad, painful way btw). Shiki remains a villain and never has his mayadere arc, which wouldn’t be a problem if his character wasn’t a mayadere… You know, a cold, unflappable, prideful villain who only changes after developing an attraction to the MC. And even then, Shiki only sparingly lets down his guard every once and a while to show how much Akira means to him. He is the most subtle yet admittedly weakest member of the cast, so inherently sexual (not sexualIZED, there’s a difference) to the point where cutting out the S/M master/brat dynamic he has with Akira doesn’t leave much left to him.

The problem with the anime adaptation is by removing the different endings, the themes and character development don’t hit nearly as hard, or even at all due to this. They write themselves into a corner with this and have to scrap all of the route-specific character development since they simply do not have the time to dedicate character development between all the characters and Akira. Especially since a lot of it leads to love… The biggest problem with removing the L in BL is that TnC’s themes heavily centre around love and stripping it out results in, rather predictably, gutting the story’s thematic consistency and hard-hittingness. How the hell can Keisuke’s route, which shows that it is better to choose forgiveness over violence and revenge, ever hit as hard without showing Akira’s tender affection come to surface when he realizes that he was so close to losing him? How can Motomi’s route show Akira the dangers of his toxic masculinity and help him learn to process his emotions and trauma if it doesn’t show him holding Akira close, and the sexual tension that results from this? I could go on but I think you get the point.

This results in Akira lacking the depth he develops in the VN, which is a travesty. He is one of my favourite characters of all time BECAUSE he is an emotionally stunted young man who starts out as dismissive and distant, but is forced to confront his emotions due to the shock and trauma of his environment, and what happens between him and his new allies. He is forced to be vulnerable. He takes damage. He is traumatized. He is stressed. He is tested. He cracks. And despite it all, he chooses life, forgiveness and love. His growth is greatly influenced by what each romantic interest in the route has to teach him (whether literally like in Motomi’s route or perhaps a trial by fire like Rin) which makes him best appreciated in the grand, holistic scheme of things when you’ve been through every route after like 30 hours.

You’re probably wondering why I left a mixed review instead of a not-recommended one… Well, it’s because as a supplement to the VN/Manga, yeah, I felt very fan-serviced and privileged to see the written action sequences come to life. On the other hand, I felt like there had to be a better way to adapt the series than this, given all of the negative changes and flaws. A newcomer would probably see this anime as a meandering, plothole-ridden schlockfest filled with one-note characters. TL;DR If you're a fan, the anime can be fun if you turn your brain off and enjoy watching your husbandos slap fight each other. If you aren't, you will not like this at all.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Nov 10, 2016

damanique

Not Recommended

I came to this anime expecting BL, and instead found a lot of misery, death, bloodbaths, more misery, senseless character deaths, quasi-existential yammering, more death, more blood, and a feeling of dissatisfaction and pointlessness.

I haven't played the BL game or read the manga and I suppose I should have checked the reviews before watching this so I could have avoided this exercise in anime-watching masochism.

There is literally no emotional pay-off to watching this. At all. The good guys don't win. The bad guys don't lose. The bad guys also don't really win. Nobody really wins or loses, everything is miserable. The one character development ... arc that had a little potential gets cut short (haha... ha..) with some more senseless death. I keep trying to care about the characters, but the anime won't let me; it doesn't give me any reason why I should. Most characters are either apathetic jerks, ~mysterious~ figures who know more than they let on, psycho killers, or just dead. Did I mention there is a lot of death?

I kept watching this because I suppose I kept expecting things to somehow improve and for there to be some kind of point to all this, but I think maybe Togainu no Chi the anime is intended as an exposure of utter nihilism. Everything sucks! Nothing really matters! As the annoying narrator keeps reminding us of, it all just goes to hell anyway, post-apocalyptic Japan is terrible, and don't drink anyone's blood, kids.

If you are still thinking about watching this, just don't. The soundtrack is kinda cool. That's about it. I want my 288 minutes of time back. I haven't been this disappointed and depressed by anime since Le Chevalier d'Eon and at least that one taught me something about French history.

Reviewer’s Rating: 3

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	Poll: Togainu no Chi Episode 12 Discussion ( 1 2 3 ) tsubasalover - Dec 23, 2010	131 replies	by SuperAdventure »» Jul 7, 6:29 PM
	Poll: Togainu no Chi Episode 9 Discussion ( 1 2 ) tsubasalover - Dec 2, 2010	60 replies	by SuperAdventure »» Jul 7, 3:11 PM
	Poll: Togainu no Chi Episode 7 Discussion ( 1 2 ) nightrays - Nov 18, 2010	62 replies	by SuperAdventure »» Jul 7, 2:11 PM
	Poll: Togainu no Chi Episode 5 Discussion ( 1 2 ) tsubasalover - Nov 4, 2010	57 replies	by SuperAdventure »» Jul 6, 6:14 PM
	Poll: Togainu no Chi Episode 4 Discussion ( 1 2 ) tsubasalover - Oct 28, 2010	77 replies	by SuperAdventure »» Jul 6, 5:41 PM