Tokyo卍Revengers
Tokyo Revengers

Edit

What would you like to edit?

SynopsisBackgroundAlternative TitlesPictureChapters/VolumesPublishing DatesRelationsTypeExternal Links  

Who needs time travel when the solution to everything is gang fights?

Tokyo Revengers is a story with a spectacular premise… that is promptly squandered. That's what makes it so frustrating to read: it entices you with aspects that are truly unique; aspects that give you a glimpse of tremendous potential – and then devolves into run-of-the-mill shonen schlock.

The time-travel mechanic, detailed in the first few chapters, works in a novel way: Takemichi, the protagonist, can only travel exactly 12 years back in time, and from there only exactly 12 years forward again. While he's in the past, time keeps progressing in the present (with him ... in a comatose state), and while he's in the present time keeps progressing in the past. This means that if, say, someone dies in the present (or sometime in the last 12 years, for that matter), he can travel back and set things right – but if someone dies in the past? Well, then there's no traveling back before that and fixing it. This is a fantastic way to ensure that there still are stakes – something most other time travel stories could learn from. And indeed, a lot of the intrigue comes from there! Sadly, though, that's about the extent to which Tokyo Revengers explores its premise.

Though the manga hits a high point in around volume 3-4, with Takemichi following the central conceit of retroactively saving his girlfriend, going back in time to diagnose and tangibly solve problems – I truly felt that it was great for a few brilliant chapters there – it loses its footing afterward, and becomes an entirely different story. A palpable loop emerges: go back to the present, see that things went wrong in a different way this time, go back to the past, and… oh! There's a new rival gang, the existence of which has never been mentioned before, and conveniently enough, they're the source of all the problems this time! I guess the only thing to do is fight them. Even when the present offers an interesting plot hook – “this character grows up to be a psychopath; you need to make sure he has a better youth” – the result is invariably the same: “actually, that was all because of this new rival gang.” In this way, Tokyo Revengers deftly nullifies its own premise to become a bog-standard shonen manga where fighting the villain of the week is always the answer.

It's a terrible shame that a manga with such a stellar premise, such fantastic art, and such undeniably heart-tugging moments should falter so utterly, but falter it does. Coupled with an motley crew of other sizable blemishes – new characters keep being introduced at far too rapid a pace for you to care about them, the deuteragonists are forgotten about; barely appear through large swaths of the story and receive little to no character development, the manga's view of women is on the further end of “iffy”, and its morals are out of whack (“sure, he's a psychopath who indiscriminately beats people bloody, but he's not a bad guy!”) – Tokyo Revengers ends up being largely an exasperating, unenjoyable read.

You don't read stories like this because of their groundbreaking qualities; you read them because they can be so much fun.

*A spoiler free preview*

First, I'd like to point out that this is not a story about national socialists. The 卍 symbol in the series' name is a Buddhist symbol, manji. The original character of prosperity and good fortune has also become popular youth slang in Japan with an array of cool meanings, and regardless of its intended meaning in here, Tokyo Manji Revengers makes for one heck of a cool name.

Comradeship, bromance and bad blood - that's what gang stories are made of. If you're ... drawn to them like me, this one won't let you down since 99 percent of its characters are some sort of juvenile mobsters, gangsters and thugs. Our wimpy main character Takemichi is an ex-delinquent who discovers he's able to travel back in time and embarks on a quest to make things differently the second time around. As we can guess, turns out that changing the past is not so easy and can alter the future unexpectedly.

If you prefer you stories solid and logical...Tokyo卍Revengers doesn't have much of that: time traveling is like taking a taxi, outrageous plot twists just keep coming and sometimes there's so much going on that the story seems to forget what its primary target was. For those who don't mind, the story can be crazy engaging. I found myself slightly interested at first, somewhat immersed later on and at the moment I'm craving to know what kind of turn it's going to take next.

The more I have gotten to know all the characters, the more I've liked them. Our main guys are the Tokyo Manji Gang aka Toman, whose infernal conflicts and struggle for power against other gangs lay the foundation of the story. Takemichi is the kind of phlegmatic character who has to discover his guts and resolve in order to take action in the middle of all the fighting and scheming. Being a cry-baby, the butt of all jokes and chronically clueless, he's still a sympathetic character who has made me say time and time again "That's my boy!". Also, his puppy love with Hina is the sweetest.

What I really like about the art is how much effort have been put into making different hairstyles, clothes and accessories and how great the characters look in their badass styles. In general, the art is good and fitting and simple enough to follow with ease even in the action scenes.

Despite the never-ending plot twists, Tokyo卍Revengers is actually a pretty simple story. Simple, and cool. The characters are already my bros and I'm interested in seeing how the upcoming scenarios are going to play out.

TL; DR
Tokyo卍Revengers is a railway engine which prefers the journey over destination, gradually accelerates and takes random routes at intersections. Recommended for people who like bad boys, ass-kicking and getting thrown in the face by constant cliff-hangers and turns of events.

You could say that this manga is the combination of the delinquents genre and the concept of time travel, all in one: an unlikely combo which end up working beautifully. It is also about friendship, total bromanship, and the thick ties that connect these guys that go through fights and hardship together. Don't just read the manga synopsis and decide not to read this, it is much MUCH deeper than it so implies.

Story: 10/10
Wakui Ken has set in place a very solid story structure within Tokyo Revengers that continues to carry the plot at a steady cadence, never letting it fall into monotony. There ... is always a direction, and Hanagaki always has a motive, or many motives at once. Although Hanagaki may know the possible outcome of an event, doesn't mean it'll always end that way and it doesn't mean he knows how things got to that point. The two timelines of the past and the future are comparably interesting for different reasons. Every time Hanagaki travels to the past he has a motive and a plan in order to fix the future, and every time he travels to the future he has an expectation and a hope that his actions in the past changed something. However the twist is that whenever he leaps, the past's plans and the future's expectations get turned on their head and he finds himself in a situation he never prepared for. This is what carries the character development of Hanagaki, and in turn the rest of the story. It's honestly a really clever setup, and I really thank Wakui Ken for using it so perfectly.

Also in Tokyo Revengers is a substantial amount of worldbuilding, but it's not really the kind that you might think. It's more like characterization, for the sake of giving the story more depth and weight. Wakui Ken builds up and develops the childhoods of these delinquents and the past histories that they have with each other. Honestly, I did not expect such heartfelt insight in a delinquent manga, but here I am caring a lot about this delinquent who runs a sewing club and the other who has a tough home life. The relationships between delinquents is fully fleshed out: you know who's best buddies and and you see it and you know it. You also get to see a lot of their families. The relationships between close people and the divisions between others is centrally what drives the push and flow of conflict.

Art: 10/10
The art is awesome. Each character has a very distinct character design; the shape of the face, the pupils, the hair texture, everything. It's quite crazy how detailed things can get. What I found to be especially remarkable is how the characters, who are drawn at different points in their lives (10 y/o, 14 y/o, 26 y/o) still look like the same person even their hair or their body structure is changed. Each of them are their own person, and Wakui Ken makes sure to assert this not only through their dialogue or actions, but through their appearances. I especially like how Mikey, Draken, and Hakkai look.

Character: 10/10
This might be the best part of Tokyo Revengers out of all. If the crux of a delinquent manga is disagreements between people, the people have got to be pretty interesting right? Well they're pretty damn interesting here. The personalities of these characters that Wakui Ken makes are incredibly nuanced and strangely subliminally complex. No-one is completely good or completely bad, and everyone is fallible to some degree. We not only get to see them at their greatest moments, like in beating up several enemies at once, but also in the worst moments of loss and heartbreak. We get glimpses into their pasts (as well as their possible futures!) and understand how they've become what they've become and why. And then, seeing how they change in reaction to Hanagaki's intervention, and watching as Hanagaki becomes the catalyst and the key, is an experience in itself. This is a breath of fresh air from other stories, in which the corruption of the self/mind is never even considered although it's something that everyone goes through in their lives. The honest conversation and the down-to-earth realness and imperfection that is simply human, that other mangakas might gloss over by explanation of creative liberty, are displayed in the forefront unabashedly.

Now, I have heard so many times that Hanagaki is a wuss, and that he sucks, and that's why someone dropped this manga. NO! The POINT is that although Hanagaki may not be the best fighter, and he may not be the most cunning, he has the most heart and he never gives up. In a way, Hanagaki is the foil to literally everyone around him. Surrounded by all these strong people, he, the weakest of them all, is just as great and perhaps greater, because he has chosen to make a change.

Enjoyment: 10/10
I enjoyed this very much. I love the pacing of Tokyo Revengers, first of all. The chapters are long and detailed, and multiple things happen in every chapter (which can be a tall order for many mangas). It's strange to think, but I like all the characters, no matter if they're good or bad and no matter what things they've done, because first and foremost they are portrayed as people with their own problems. I feel like if a mangaka has done that, they've effectively succeeded in creating an immersive work.

But as always, I end up with questions concerning the stability of the plot that I don't think have been answered. I don't think there are spoilers here beyond maybe the second chapter. How does Naoto always know when the timeline has changed? Shouldn't his memory also be altered when Hanagaki moves back and forth? What happens to Hanagaki in the past when Hanagaki moves to the future? What if he goes to the future or past while the other one is sleeping? And most importantly, Why, when Naoto shook Hanagaki's hand once, he immediately deduced that Hanagaki could move exactly 12 years into the past or future with a handshake, and specifically and only his? This is a strange assumption, because there could have been so many other factors going into this but they assumed something unlikely which became the premise for the entire manga. (which is still a good premise just not explained thoroughly).

Overall: 10/10
Yeah I know, 10/10 for all? Damn, that's pretty good. I'm not sure if you could call it a favorite of mine, since I'm not really thinking about this every day of the week, but it is pretty damn good. I don't think there's much that could be improved in Tokyo Revengers. It hits every beat on the mark, and exceeds in places where other mangas couldn't even wish to meet, whether out of ignorance or inability. I'm sure if you read this, you will have a wonderful time.

I heard this manga is getting an anime next year. I look forward to the next wave of fans who will discover Tokyo Revengers!

I will leave a few warnings here because I want anyone who starts reading to please not drop it.
- There are a lot of names. They're pretty unique, but they are thrown around in dialogue often so please don't forget them.
- Hanagaki is not a bad MC! He actually is pretty badass sometimes, and if you don't believe me just look at how integral he is in swaying the plot and the people. He can also fight for himself pretty well, it's just that he's being compared to insanely strong people.
- I think that the first / first few chapters may discourage some people. Please push through those! The Hanagaki that you see in the first chapter will never be seen again, and that's an ode to character development if I've even seen it.

The only Anime I enjoyed so much I couldn't wait for an adaptation and rushed all the remaining chapters till the end in 2 days. EVERY Character in the series has something to offer in terms of story, personality or combat skills. The biggest thing about this story is the heart. i really connect to Hanagaki and I see myself in him. He shows me what i've could been if I were more assertive, If I worked hard enough, if I cared enough to take care of my problems. I see each one of the Tokyo Manji Gang members as some of my childhood friends, ... I see Hina and remembering my middle school girlfriend, I look at Kisaki and think about the people I was envy about, the people that were targeting me, and how I wanted to destroy them one day. Each arc has god-tier visuals, well-written plot and nothing feels like a filler since it all comes together at later point and you get hooked by Wakui Ken all over again.


10/10 - my most favorite Manga/Anime of the decade!

Tokyo Revengers is one of those mangas that build up its story so high only to see itself crumble from the author's lack of verisimilitude.

Being a time leap story there are some fundamentals that every reader will be curious about: why is the main character time leaping? How is he doing it? When is he travelling to? Is the present affected by the changes in the past? Most of these questions are answered throughout the arcs and for most of the manga the time leaping is quite consistent and well explained on those fundamental questions. Except for the last arc, we do have learn new ... things about time leaping, but the the last arc goes against what was well established alongside those way over 200 chapters.

The story itself is fair, Takemichi goes through some trials in order to overcome his coward nature just to save those he love, and sometimes he goes way over any normal person would, his victories sometimes might feel undeserved, but he will bust his ass trying to get it, so at least it is not delivered in a silver platter to him. His character grows on you and many others in the story too - side characters and antagonists alike -, character development is well distributed amongst side characters and, up to a point, it is quite easy to remember all of them, in later arcs the amount of new characters introduced is too much - considering you are also keeping track of the "old" side characters - and they only appear in a few chapters.

The art style is a bit rough, but each male character has its own characteristics - female characters aren't that common in this manga, so it is fair to explicit what I mean - that will hardly make you confused on who's who, not only that they give off the "delinquent" image that bike gangs have in Japan. The action illustrated on the fights is nice, even though some fights end up being more fiction than reality, still they are well drawn. The scenarios on the other hand are not the centre of attention, I might be misremembering, but I don't recall nothing that stuck with me, other than scenarios that you would see in every slice of life.

In the end, the experience reading Tokyo Revengers is good for the first 200-ish chapters, the final saga with the Three Deities Arc and Kanto Manji Arc doesn't match the quality it has early on, whether by time leap events, new side characters and antagonists or the story itself. Those last two arcs have 71 chapters, I wished the third arc from the last had a better "ending" feel to it - so recommending people to stop there would make more sense and a feeling of closure -, but it has direct connections with the last two arcs, so dropping the manga without reading those arcs will feel like something is missing, still worth a read, even though the out come isn't in pair with the quality of early arcs.

Tokyo revengers is interesting. It starts off with an exciting premise; a seemingly naive, innocent guy who has to go back into the past to save his girlfriend. The story that follows as our hero gains courage and makes friendships that he wouldn't otherwise have if not for the time leap are narrated quite compellingly. These friendships and the MC's relationship with his girlfriend in fact form the heart of the story and we understand his desperation, his motivations and the reasoning for decisions he makes as the story progresses. The plot twists in the beginning were convincing, but somewhere in the middle, the author ... loses his steam and the plot twists seem start to seem contrived and introduced solely because the author didn't know how else to keep the plot moving forward. A great example of this is how, at the very beginning, we are introduced to who apparently is the main villain of the story, but then we move onto other small fries before the author finally pulls out another guy as the main villain in the very recent arc. There have been no clues about this new villain from the start of the story and yet we are to believe his background and intentions - why? Because the author says so in 2 chapters worth of background. The old villian is cast aside and we don't know why/how he is obsessed with the MC baring a couple of panels over 150 chapters. This essentially means there is no sense of brooding over the antagonist's schemes because of his poor development and this sense of fear is especially needed because that is what turns a good story into a great one.

The second protagonist - Mikey (who I believe could in fact be the antagonist of the story because of the author's tendency to jump between villains like he is playing football), and his relationship with the MC is interesting and the author creates a camaraderie between them that makes us believe that their relationship is reminiscent of the one Mikey had with his brother. However, Mikey's relationship with Ken is also very similar to his relationship with the MC, thus taking away the uniqueness. If I had to pick one relationship that seemed unique and written beautifully compared to a lot of shounen manga, I have to give it to his relationship with his ex-gf. The author narrates their relationship beautifully and we see why they care for each other as much as they do.

A minor complaint I have with this manga is the fact that the MC seems to never train and is a bit of a wuss, and usually I wouldn't have a problem with that, but, over the course of 150 chapters, I have yet to see him engage in a compelling fight. He is excellent at being the voice of reason and strives his best to endure in fights as much as possible, I just wish there was a training arc of some sort where he puts his best into learning how to fight. It seems a little ridiculous that we are to believe this guy grows up to become the biggest yakuza when he starts bawling at every opportunity available.

This came at a time when I was feeling the drought of good manga and it might be recency bias, but despite it's shortcomings, the art, characterization and plot of this manga deserve one read at the very least.

This is just embarrassing to be honest. Tokyo Revengers was a battle shonen manga with a simple premise, simple characters and simple messages. Thanks to it's simplicity the reader could just lay back and enjoy a simple tale of a man travelling back in time to fix the past which led to his old love dying. Takemitchy along the way had to learn that changing the past is not as easy as it might appear. Sometimes he accomplished his goal in changing a terrible event of the past for the better while other times all he could do was change past events from terrible to ... just bad. All while being the physical underdog in every encounter. He kept on fighting thanks to his incredible will to save the ones he cared about and the help which he received from them. Not because of his big muscles. After some time the manga started getting repetitive. Takemitchy changes something in the past thanks to his will and ocean of tears which he shed, then travels back into the future and finds out things are just as bad if not worse, after that be goes back and boom ! We have another arc based around the same idea again and again. Same types of speeches, very similar outcomes all while the cast kept on rapidly expanding. I believe this is my biggest problem with this manga. Author kept on throwing new characters at the reader all while expecting you to remember all of them. All of their backstories, names, "arc's", and relevance to the main storyline. It may not seem like a big problem but at a certain point in the story I genuinely thought that the mangaka was just parodying himself. In the last arc before the final one we were building up to a showdown between Takemitchy and a big antagonist. Inbetween those two walking towards each other we got like FIVE backstories of random side characters which brought nothing to the table. It just kept on interrupting the main storyline to give us another backstory for a character nobody cares about or even remembers. For every step Takemitchy took we got another backstory. I thought it would never end. Not to mention something similar happened in the final arc right after a very important character died. Like TWENTY new characters showed up out of UTTERLY nowhere, introduced themselves and started fighting. Despite being repetitive, spending obscene amount of time on filler characters and lacking emotion in the last arc I kept on reading. Last couple of chapters were actually intriguing. There was a promise of concequences, something big happening which would shake the story. Maybe not save the bad parts but still give a meaning to the good parts and end Takemichy's character arc. With the final plot twist we were almost there. It was so simple to craft an ending with a profound message and weight which would make readers remember this story fondly. I don't want to spoil anyone but I feel like we were so close to at least getting something good at the end instead of the embarrassing looney tunes ending. It was so sad it actually makes me feel rude even criticising the author. I actually think he just wanted to give everyone a happy ending. Which is fair. His characters. And his story.
Too bad it's just so lame.

read until CH 205
the story is good in the first arc
then it become bad and bad and wtf u must end it here why keep doing it author sama

1. how middle school deliquent can take over the city? i can understand if its high school gang but please, its just middle schoolerl
2. the power level is stupid there is a guy who strong then add another stronger guy and then keep adding another stronger guy
the strongest here is Mikey cos he learn taekwondo? the only chara who have martial art background i think.
3. MC is 26 year old with 6 year old mind
4. there ... is 5 division in manji gang
but after mc become leader of 1st division
the member is only 2people, the leader and vice leader
later add friend of mc
why bother to add division the if mc never doing anything what suppose to be the 1st division leader doing
i mean mc have 1st division in his back
but he keep doing anything with only him and his vice leader we never seen another 1st division member in his back except his old friend

started off as a very promising time adventure Shit itself at the end.
Just writing this to remind me how much this angers me, starting off with my favorite character baji what a way ruined the character the sacrifice he made and all planning he did meant absolutely shit at the end, all the things made me love this manga it ruined by the shit ass ending that doesn't even makes sense, I'm angry and would always remember this as the shitty ending rather than the good moments. I'm angry that the character's death I cried makes me stupid now, I'm sad that heartfelt moment and ... every achievement takemichi got meant absolutely nothing.
Should've ended at tenjuku with Kisaki and I would've still had some love left for this shit hole.

Update 17 November 2022:

Do I think it's recommendable?
- No. It was never exceptional in the first place, but got worse and worse as the story went on. The writing was quite disastrous. The ending was exceptional in a bad way, erasing all of the buildup and plot progression that made the story what it was.
Did I ever regret reading it?
- Well, yes, at one point it felt like so much time was wasted.
But do I regret finishing the last 60 chapters when I had previously dropped the series?
- I guess not. I'm glad I got to witness the ending.

Now that this is ... completed, surprisingly I feel at peace. I had a list of things I wanted to rant about before chapter 276 but once I read chapter 277, all of a sudden it felt like I was able to reconcile with the story. Maybe it's because I simply do not care enough about it to even muster the energy to complain about things, maybe because it's so plainly disastrous that I know all of my feelings and rants will be reflected by other readers anyway, or maybe it's because real life is already so hard that it doesn't feel too bad to see fictional characters get a happy ending. If I were a fan I would be feeling so many different emotions, but I never was in the first place. Either way for me, with an ending comes closure and with closure comes peace. I'm just glad it ended relatively soon and did not drag out the torture any longer. I maintain my conclusion that if you didn't like it 50 chapters in you'll find that it gets worse, far worse in the latter parts. But if you're fine with not bringing your brain cells while reading it, then why not? I certainly had to force my brain cells to shut down at multiple points. In a way, this is going to be an extremely memorable piece of work. But not necessarily for the good things.

------------------
Before update:
Disclaimer: If you're a fan of Tokyo Revengers, please don't read this. It'll probably just offend you.

TL;DR
1. 4.5 out of 10
2, This is going on for way too long. Like 100 chapters too long.
3. If you, like me 150 chapters ago, are not liking this but thinking if you should give this another chance because of all the raving reviews on MAL, heed my advice and just drop it. If you didn't like it 50 chapters in, you'll find that it gets worse.
4. Baji deserved better.

All the while reading this I kept asking myself why am I still reading it. The only reason why I kept going was, well, there has got to be a reason why people are giving out 9s and 10s right?

Admittedly my reason for starting the manga was shallow - I started the anime, felt meh about it, saw some fanart for Chifuyu and decided to give the manga a chance. Well. I won't say it's a complete waste of time, at least for the first 50 chapters or so, but it's definitely not for anyone who is looking for an intelligent piece of work about time-travelling. Or even about gangs.

Story: 3

The story is likely the weakest aspect of the manga. It's not all bad, but there are major flaws. I don't even like wracking my brains that much when I watch/read things but this entire set-up of time travelling with zero consequences or consideration for parallel timelines just screams HEAVEN FOR PLOT-HOLES if one starts to think about it for just a minute. Every single plot line is developed based on just one thing - the death of Tachibana Hina. Meaning that when she is rescued, there is literally nothing left for the story unless the mangaka decides to go the Boruto route (and this was what happened). This is one of the fatal points of the story - the mangaka has no choice but to expand on that single, thin premise of rescuing a girl because it all comes down to that. The plot is ultimately driven by this objective. Not very exciting. And after achieving that objective, the mangaka came up with a really brilliant idea - just add more people for Takemichi to save! Using the same formula!

I'm not even going to talk about the power-scaling or how realistic this manga is (in case you're wondering, it's not), I can disregard how unrealistic it is for 12-year-olds to start a gang that becomes a contender for the ruler gang of Tokyo, or how middle schoolers can take on 50 people at a time, or how they have enough strength to kill people left and right if they wanted to. It's a fictional story. The biggest problem with it isn't how many plot holes there are, or how unrealistic it is, it's how the story development is stretched thin over the same objective and so weak that it ends up boring and repetitive. The same pattern is executed repeatedly, camouflaged by the addition of more characters coming out of nowhere with zero buildup but apparently all really strong and have some beef with each other to make it seem like there was a huge, complicated plot behind it all along, right from the beginning. Not exactly the most intelligent way of story-telling.

Art: 7

I like the style. Nothing outstanding but it's good enough.

Characters: 5

This is where I fumble a little trying to rate it. Subjectively speaking, I do think there are some characters who are charming and deserve appreciation, but the MC kind of ruins it for me. I will say though, he's much more bearable than in the anime where I have to listen to him wailing. At least I can just skim over the panels in the manga. By no means is any of the character genius, but MC just takes the cake for being useless and pathetic. I do think I'm being very harsh on him, he's not ALL bad, but objectively speaking, this is all he is. The characters around him wouldn't be treating him the way they are/were if he weren't the MC and has the plot-armour. But he is the MC. So he gets brownie points from the cast for standing up against a big guy even though all he did is say something cool-ish and glare at the opponent for two seconds and then go cower in the corner, then realises he's the only one who can change the future but does none of the actual work and goes through the same thing all over again. He doesn't learn, he doesn't try to learn or plan, he goes with the flow and tries to think on the spot of what to do even though obviously he hasn't got the smarts for that. You'd think that he'd learn about the importance of planning ahead and collecting information 100 chapters in and after dozens of times of time-leaping but no.

A few others I do like, Mikey, Draken, Chifuyu, Mitsuya, Baji, Inui are all fan-favourites for a reason. They are not exceptionally-written, but solid enough amidst a rather big cast, and tick many right boxes to appeal to readers. Kisaki is probably the smartest guy in this manga. He's not bad as an antagonist, and a character who's written for people to hate on. Nothing much to say against him. On the other hand, I feel like there just isn't enough time for readers to really know the characters and witness their development. New characters, with zero buildup, keep getting introduced while I'm still trying to match the names to the faces of those who just got introduced 20 chapters ago. Just as you think they're not really important (because they get taken out by Mikey and conveniently disappear at the end of the arc anyway) and you can probably disregard them, they turn out to be recurring characters and one of them randomly gets a backstory reveal in the middle of the arc to make you like them, while there still hasn't been much time to connect/be attached to some in the main cast. Not as big of a problem as the storytelling, but it's still part of the weaker aspects of the manga.

Enjoyment: 3

I do want to know what happens in the end but I'm getting very, very impatient with the same pattern occurring over, over, over and all over again. There is manga where I am completely content with being there for the ride and the journey, and there is manga where I just want it to end. NOW. Tokyo Revengers is clearly the latter of the two.

This review is mostly my experience with the manga and what i think about it, so it might have some spoilers.


Among the airing shows in this season we had Tokyo Revengers. A time travel story where the protagonist goes back to the past to save his "beloved one", if you're here you might know the rest.
I watched 2 episodes of it and ended up going to the manga.
The quotation marks in "beloved one" is there because the protagonist had no reason to love her, Hina. They once dated in middle school, but that's it. Assuming from what the story tell us about when they were ... dating in the past, they weren't very close to each other and it didn't feel like they were in a relationship. Hina dumped on him probably because of that in the past where Takemitchi hadn't changed yet.
This is not shown at the beginning and it actually takes a lot of chapters to be revealed to us, the reader. A lot of other things that could have been stated in the beginning are revealed later on in the manga as well, such as why Hina likes Takemitchi. Different from Takemitchi she had fallen for him since they met, and probably was the one to ask him out. I don't remember if it is said so, but considering Takemitchi likely didn't even remember her it might be that way.
Revealing things after some time rather than in the beginning is not a bad move of the author, i just feel like that it could be something to make the reader more interested in the manga from the start and get them to keep reading it.


Something that i don't like though, is how power levels are just not a thing here. When a character looks strong, another stronger character appears right after to kick his butt. Take when Angry was revealed to be 100 times stronger than his brother (his brother, Smiley, a supposedly strong character since he's one of the Toman's 5 captains) as an example, he had fainted 4 of the strongest enemies Toman was fighting until Kakucho, someone of the other gang who was friends with Takemitchi in their childhood, beats him like he's not strong at all.
This wasn't the first time that something like that happened, and you can't tell who's strong and who's not anymore because when you're sure a character is strong another stronger character appears right after.


In Tokyo Revengers Takemitchi had to keep moving from the past and future a lot of times, since his goal was to save Hina he'd first go to the past to change it and then when he thought Hina would be safe in the future he would go back to the future. He had to try a lot of different things changing the future where he was supposed to be every time he changed the past. That's something i like a lot, seeing the protagonist failing and why he failed for him to try once again until he saved Hina.
But something that i found quite weird is how when Takemitchi goes back to the future from the past it's as if he didn't exist in the past, or that he is another person when his future self isn't in his past self anymore. He kept secret that he was from the future for a long time until he tells Chifuyu about it, and later on everyone knows about it as well.
In more recent chapters, Takemichi was able to save Hina and when he goes back to the future everyone had realized that he was Takemitchi who traveled back to the past and had just came back to the future, without him mentioning it. It's like Takemichi was just not there for the characters until he came back, because even though we don't see what happened, it still had to happen with Takemichi accompanying everything, him not remembering what happened is understandable, but he still had to be there.
Another example, Earlier in the story to what i was talking about, there was also this time where Takemichi changed the past and when he came back to the future he was one of Toman's admin, Toman in this timeline was still a corrupted gang that killed, robbed people and did all the bad stuff you could imagine a corrupted gang doing.
Even with Takemichi in Toman's administration it became a corrupted gang in this timeline, It's not said why, but it certainly does a 180° on Takemichi's character since his goal in the story was always to save Toman from becoming such a gang, and if he was on Toman's administration and it still became that way it just feels like Takemichi wasn't the same person anymore.


This same time where he saved Hina, everything was just fine and everyone else of the friends he made along the way were doing good.
Until Takemitchi realizes Mikey, Toman's captain and also one of his precious friend had fallen into dark once again and was still commanding a corrupted gang in the future. The reason Hina in the future died was because of that, thus, if he wanted to save Hina he had to save Mikey as well. But now Hina was safe and his friends as well, so the manga could have ended there with their marriage and Mikey'd be fine as well. Since Mikey doesn't have a good reason to do what he's doing it feels like the author is dragging out the story and screwing everything.



If you should read it or not, though i don't like it that much, i'd still say Tokyo Revengers is a good read. It may not be very consistent in the story, but the character design is pristine and it's very catchy, it always gets you wondering what will happen next.

I've read and/or watch so many time travel stories but this one is by far one of the best! Every character is so likeable and has distinct personalities. Takemichi has all the qualities you want in a protagonist. He's not overpowered. He's weak, strong, loyal, devoted, and the list just goes on. I personally love seeing his growth and every characters interactions with each other.

Also, the story revolves around gangs but as the story progresses, its more than gangs. It's about finding happiness. It goes from saving Hina to saving everyone. I love that the author takes his time developing the characters and arcs.

At first, I really liked Tokyo Revengers. Like REALLY. To the point I was reading it weekly. Then I took a few months break because I got a little lazy with staying up to date with the manga. So, out of complete boredom, I decided to reread it and....oh boy was I wrong about this series.

I can't be the only one frustrated with Takemichi's poor decision making and lack of braincells right? It seems his only solution to his problems is to cry constantly.

And before you give me the whole argument that he was put in a "very stressful scenerio. Of course he's gonna ... act like blah blah blah", remember that Takemichi is supposed to be a full grown ADULT. I'm not very well-informed when it comes to mental illness, but I'm pretty sure his trauma wasn't severe enough to reduce his mental maturitiy to a middle schooler.

Like, it was very weird just seeing him hang out and look up to these essentially 14 year old children and just rely on THEM in almost all these dangerous situations. I had expected him to treat them like kids (you know, to remind them that they ARE kids and to lift some of the pressure off their shoulders) and support them as the only available guardian. Even if he is in the past, it shouldn't make him forget the obvious age gap so easily.

Take the MC of Erased for example. He was also transported to the past, but the guy STILL acted like his age (29 years old) that even the people around him began to notice. And of course, there was a gap in understanding between him and his past school friends due to him being much older than them. Takemichi literally has no excuse.

And if you're just going to say stuff like "oh he's treating them like equals and not looking down on them" or whatever, keep in mind that Takemichi is twenty-six years old so they couldn't have been equals in the first place, alright? But apparently, despite his age, the guy still acts like a f**king child. So when Hina was talking about how he seemed different and more mature I was just like, "b**ch where???"

Oh, and on the topic of Hina, what the hell?? I don't care if she was his past girlfriend or that they were the same age in present time. For the majority of the plot, Takemichi is stuck in the past with the 14 year old version of Hina. So when I see him crushing on and getting flustered around basically a minor, it really creeps me out. Do I need to remind people that he's 26 years old mentally???

Also, why is he so fixated on saving Hina? We aren't provided with a good enough reason other than "she was that one middle school girlfriend he had way back and he kinda regrets breaking up with her". I was expecting something much more major to have happened between them but um....okay? Like, in the original timeline, the reason she dumped him was because it didn't feel like they were actually dating (which is understandable, they were kids. You don't form strong romantic relationships in middle school), so was Takemichi even in love with her in the first place? Honestly, I'm suprised he even managed to remember her.

So, yeah. Tokyo Revengers is just your average shounen tbh. Erased did a better job at this kind of thing.

Its overrated.

The art is good, there are couple of cool characters and the premise is somewhat interesting. That's almost all of the positive stuff that can be said about this series. The story is mediocre at best and its devoid of logic. Apart for few most of the characters are more of a caricature than a character. The plot is repetitive and getting more predictable as the story progress.

The MC is a 26 years in a body of 14 years but still have the mental age of 14 years old. He doesn't seem to learn anything from his mistakes and act like a ... child and a very whiney one. He dive headfirst into the life of violence and doesn't give any effort to make himself stronger. He should at least try to be able to defend himself. Not even basic self defense! Him being physically weak and not knowing how to throw a punch isn't the problem here. The problem is that MC is a little bitch (and he stays like that for god knows how long).

I understand its fiction there has to be a certain level suspense of belief but this is too much. Like how Naota became a cop after a stranger, who is middle schooler, told him to protect his sister. And the other thing is how the story is trying to portray the characters as "good guys" when all they are is wanna be gangster delinquents. They are all terrible people with no regards for others but themselves. And wtf are the adults doing in this manga. The cops are just there for plot convenience.

I know its enjoyable for a lot of people but it's definitely overrated. Maybe the most overrated in the last few years. Tbh I enjoyed it but I wouldn't say it was good. It is somewhere between fine and above average. And it sure doesn't deserve the rating its getting.

This is my first ever review so I’m sorry if it seems too boring.
Spoiler free review:
The Tokyo Revengers anime caught my interest because it is legally available to stream in my country which is a rarity so I decided why not watch it. The first two episodes didn’t hook me in but I continued further. After finishing episode 4 and my interest was piqued so I read the manga.

And I’m glad I did.
Within 24hrs I blazed through the 200 chapters and I have never been this hooked to a story.

Story: 9/10
The story is absolutely filled with twists at every turn and I loved ... it. There were multiple times when I went wtf after something was revealed in the story. It makes you grow attached to each of the characters, and certainly can make you cry. As someone who rarely gets emotional over manga there were moments where I was crying over the story. If there was one issue I had with the story it would only be that sometimes I wished that the characters were high schoolers and not middle school characters because they seem a bit too OP for 14/15 yr olds but that’s my personal thought.

Art:9/10
The art is absolutely well done and i feel this was one part where the anime wasn’t up to the mark. Each of the character designs were so unique and well thought out, and reflect their personalities.

Characters: 10/10
I don’t want to say too much but my opinions on various characters did change throughout the story. The in depth flashbacks really make every character stand out and help make the cast very diverse in motives and actions making the story a joyful ride and rarely dull.

Enjoyment: 10/10
I definitely enjoyed this to the point I could barely put it down.

Overall: 9.5/10 or 10/10
The series is certainly worth reading, esp if you like gang stories or time travel type stories with multiple twists and very well done characters.

I'm not going to hone in on specific characteristics of the manga like characters/plot/art/etc because there's plenty of that in other reviews here already, but I'm dropping this review as a WARNING to anyone who wants to pick up this manga these days,

DROP THIS MANGA AFTER CHAPTER 194!

It's very obvious that the manga wasn't planned to go for this long and is being stretched out bc it sells like hotcakes. The story in chapter 194 reaches a sort of natural endpoint, coming shortly after the biggest arc in the series, Tenjiku. Everything that came after has been torturous to read week after week, ... from something I once considered a very good shonen, 9/10, into something that gets worse and worse with each chapter and has become a complete irony read for me and my friend group with how comically bad it's gotten. It's also the type of bad that recontextualizes earlier parts of the story so that you can't enjoy it as much anymore.

If the idea of dropping a manga before seeing it through or a very bad last 70ish chapters is not appealing to you, do not bother reading this manga. If you're fine with dropping it before the end or with a bad ending, then there really is some great material to see in this manga, a delinquent shonen with great characters and good execution of emotional scenes and some hype ass fights. Was never anything too deep but man the author shit the bed with what was otherwise a really fun read.

the premise of the manga isnt horrible but the mc is unbearable one of the worst ive ever seen. he doesnt do shit to improve himself and acknowledges this but then goes like "well i jus gotta beat this person" like dude u jus admitted how weak n pathetic u are theres no way u stand a chance and hes the biggest fucking crybaby ever despite being like 28 or something n dealing w teenagers lmao. after seeing the same scenario of him crying about how weak he is (and hard to feel bad for him cuz he doesnt try to get stronger or anything ... lol) and then being like "im gonna beat this guy way stronger than me" all seriously, multiple times by chapter 100 i had to drop it, dogshit mc n jus bad writing all around. i would not recommend lol waste of time

I started the anime, it caught my eye as I thought it was good, but when I read the manga, it was okay in the start, but then I realized that the whole manga is the same scenario shit again and again.

the main character needs to separate 2 people so his girlfriend doesn't die, he does that, now something new was the cause that the girl died, then he fixed that, then there is another reason she died, then he got to fix that, and its like that the whole series, it's sad to see because it could have done a lot of things, but ... it chose to do the same thing, just with different people again and again. just like the ending of "seven deadly sins" were they just kept using another reason not to stop because they don't know what to do.

I have never written a review on MAL before because I never felt the need to but this series started off so good and eventually went to complete nonsense so I want to advise people not to waste their time on this like I did. This review only contains indirect spoilers.

I started reading Tokyo revengers spring of 2021 and at first it started off as a very captivating and intriguing story with lots of interesting and enjoyable characters. The plot twists and mysteries kept me at the edge of my seat and I constantly looked forward to the next chapter, the characters were relatable and ... played a big part in making the story so amazing. I genuinely and thoroughly loved the series and never imagined that the day would come that I would drop it. What made me dislike Tokyo Revengers so much was the clear dramatic change from a logical well written linear storyline to a completely new plot and total nonsense.

Let me explain. Tokyo Revengers' plot at the beginning was basically the mc (Hanagaki Takemichi) travelling back in time to save his middle school girlfriend that was essentially caught in between a gang feud and killed in the process. To stop this from happening he joins the gang that was involved and tries to rank his way up to the boss status. He joins, befriends the gang, tries solving the issue that caused the feud and so on. His only goal was to save her but eventually realised he had to save others in the process too, which was fine because it was still the same plot. He obviously achieves his goal so that should be the end of the story, right? Wrong. The author decided to add a whole new goal for the mc to achieve which caused the story to drag on and add new pointless characters and it became repetitive and boring as it felt like a different story. At some point in this new story it felt like the author was just continuing for the sake of continuing. Many characters (whom Takemichi did so much for to prevent their deaths in the past) died, wasting his efforts and time spent on them in the beginning. Takemichi was a second away from having his happy ending with his gf and friends but threw everything away for one person which caused this whole new plot. It irritated me how things changed so quickly, the story's atmosphere changed dramatically and felt so dragged out.

If you're going to read this series anyways I recommend stopping after reading the Tenjiku arc's conclusion, everything goes downhill after that arc.

After spending all day reading the manga of Tokyo Revengers and I reached the current chapters and I feel I should do a little review of everything that the manga has provided me.

Of the works that I am currently reading I think that Tokyo Revengers is one of the ones that most impressed me in terms of "history".

I think that after the first episode of the anime, a lot of people must have started reading the manga and that's what I did, I think I don't regret having spent the whole day reading the manga.

The proposal to use time travel as one of the elements ... was what made me interested in the work, if you started reading the manga for the same reason I think you may end up regretting not having certain "answers".

Well, as we are talking about time travel it is quite obvious that some points are loose, time travel is very complex and if you try to compare it with another work with the same time it will only take you nowhere.

Ah, while I was reading I always read people's comments about what they thought of the main character and I saw that a lot of people didn't understand the "character".

When people think of Shounen, people already expect the protagonist to be overpower and beat in general, if you are going to wait for something like this it is better not to even start reading the manga and it is very obvious that the protagonist will not be to your liking in certain situations..

The plot of Tokyo Revengers is a double-edged sword and you can be in the middle between liking or disliking the plots presented. Although some little things bothered me, I think the whole plot of Tokyo Revengers is very well written.

The work has so many nuances, plots and foreshadows that you are incredulous at the amount of interesting things that the story will introduce you to.

Although the story pleased me, the main point of the work is undoubtedly the characters. I think TR is one of the most interesting works in terms of creating a wonderful development for each character.

The fights are interesting, the designs of the clothes and characters are very well detailed. The author has improved a lot in relation to the arts and not to mention that the expressions of the characters were sensational.


But not everything is just flowers.The story could be finished at its best and it would be something wonderful, but the author preferred to extend the story a little more and creating situations that were practically "resolved".

Ah, the manga apparently entered its "last" arc and I hope that the author does not destroy the work with a terrible ending.

It is very rare for this to happen, but I ended up shedding some tears in some parts and it is super rare to happen to me and even more with something related to "shounen".