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Like any genre, the delinquent genre has inevitably died down. The majority of the fandom moved on from gang fights to something more fantasy-like, with power structures and dystopian shounen. Or the main character getting hit by a truck and teleporting to the world we daydream about.

Tokyo Revengers decided to bring back a genre left in the dust, while giving it a twist to suit a modern anime viewer's tastes. The main character, Takemichi, has the ability to travel exactly 12 years back to his childhood when he was a gang member and change how the past unraveled. He utilizes the power to save ... his girlfriend of the time, Hinata, who is destined to die 12 years after the two broke up.

I'm not a MAL reviewer; I mainly use the site to keep track of anime I watch and keep up with news. But I felt compelled to write a review for Tokyo Revengers. People have rightfully criticized and praised a variety of aspects of the anime: the story, the animation, the character development, just to name a few. In my opinion, these people have overlooked the heart of Tokyo Revengers: the themes. Tokyo Revengers is unique because it doesn't only focus on themes such as "protect what you love with the cost of your life" or "strength isn't just how physically strong you are". Yes, these themes are major ones, maybe even the core ones of the show. But they aren't the focus.

Teenage years are the most dangerous years of a person's life. Adolescents are trying to grow out of the childish life they've lived for so long and are expected to carry responsibilities. Perhaps it's this inner conflict, along with the popping hormones, that leads them to rebellion. Tokyo Revengers knows its characters and their way of thinking. It caught me off guard when they began addressing flaws in a teenager's mindset, which is something I haven't seen in the other shounen anime I've watched. The show addressed young peoples' inability to take responsibility, their naïve view on heroism, their tendency to solve problems through rage and recklessness, their ignorance of consequences that are the effect of trying to stand out, among many others.

On the other hand, the story is, in the nicest way I can phrase it, not the ideal. While it is enjoyable, it has its down moments. There's times where the story is dragged out to the point I wanted to strangle a child then shoot myself. Plot holes aren't a once-in-a-while thing, and the execution of conflicts is mediocre. I'd compare the story to something written by a student in their first of studying Creative Writing. However, if you don't think too much about the flaws, you'll find yourself enjoying it.

Lots of anime are able to cover for their average storytelling with animation. Unfortunately, Tokyo Revengers wasn't able to. The animation was average, even below average at times. Subpar animation is a drawback, but especially for anime that's focused on action. Tokyo Revengers is packed with fistfights and brawls, so it isn't a good match with choppy and lazy animation. This one's harder to overlook, but personally, I didn't find myself too bothered. I'm the type of person who can enjoy trashy things. My main focus is what the theme of the story is. But for people who rightfully put importance on how the action in an anime looks like, this show wouldn't satisfy them.

To support the fights wasn't the best music. The music wasn't bad, in fact, it was pretty good, but it wasn't memorable. I don't find myself going out of my way to listen to the openings, endings, or OSTs again. Sure, I didn't skip them while watching, but it didn't stand out from music other anime have. Maybe it just isn't my taste? I'm sure someone else will enjoy the music more than I did. But for this review, I'm going to say the music was good, but wasn't outstanding. One thing I loved is the fact that the anime has a mix of experienced and new voice actors. I got introduced to beginning voice actors with lots of potential. I can't imagine how happy they must have felt. They were finally making a breakthrough and were given the ability to learn from more experienced ones. If I hadn't went through the cast names, I wouldn't have even known these newer voice actors were inexperienced. All the seiyuus of the show did an amazing job at understanding their characters and voicing them.

While the character writing wasn't perfect, I found myself enjoying their development and chemistry. The main character, Takemichi, was likable in the beginning, but he quickly went downhill in the second half. He cries an average of four times per episode. No, this is not an estimation. I actually counted. I don't have anything against main characters who cry a lot, but what pisses me off is when the main character cries and doesn't do anything. Takemichi didn't do much in the last arc of the show, despite the other characters claiming he did. Instead of hating him, I felt more disappointed than anything. He had so much potential, but the writers threw it down the drain just to drag out the story to 24 episodes. Enough of the main character, though. While some of the other characters are gary stus, the ones who are written well don't disappoint. They're flaw-ridden, have development, and entertaining personalities. I exceptionally loved Naoto's, Chifuyu's, and Kazutora's personalities and development. It's unfortunate that these characters are the focus for only a few episodes. While the female characters were admirable and had their badass moments, and thankfully, were not sexualized, they weren't the ideal. They were rather flat and pushed to the side. It seems like the writer just wanted to make them badass, then they had almost no purpose. However, they are a huge improvement from what we have seen. Anime hasn't given us the best female characters yet, but Tokyo Revengers did make an improvement.

Despite the flaws, I did enjoy Tokyo Revengers. But again, I enjoy a lot of trashy things. Like I mentioned earlier, I judge a show wholly on its themes and characters. If a show's themes are executed well, that's good enough for me. After all, the main reason stories are written is to communicate a moral or lesson. I found that Tokyo Revengers did that perfectly. It put light on themes that other shounen tend to ignore. In addition, some of the characters ended up growing on me. While their development wasn't something that pushed me to the edge of my seat, I did find their character arcs thrilling.

Now, shoving my personal opinions aside and looking at how the majority would see this anime, I'd say it's good. If you're looking for a masterpiece, then it isn't for you. It's a flawed anime with a huge amount of aspects that deserve criticism. But despite all that, it is entertaining. In my opinion, the high score it got is by fans glorifying gang and delinquent culture, completely ignoring the fact that the show takes a strong stance against it. If you aren't picky about what you watch, then give it a shot. Go into it not to find a breathtaking story, but just to pass time. As long as you don't watch this show with a magnifying lens, but instead to have a throwback to your edgy teenage years, or maybe to recognize your flaws as a teenager, I guarantee you'll appreciate it.

This anime is the type of anime that people have completely opposing opinions on. One side will say that the anime is pretty good, not the best, but good. The other will say that the entire anime was crap. I, unfortunately, fall into the latter.

I won't lie, I did enjoy this anime, but I enjoy a lot of crappy things. Mainly because I never am picky of the anime I watch and can enjoy almost everything. But I can see why people disliked it.

Story: 5/10

In summary, the story follows a boy named Sudo Kaname who found himself stuck in a mobile game called Darwin's ... game. The game grants its players special powers upon registration, because, well, why the hell not? It'd be boring to watch a bunch of kids murder each other without powers. He ends up getting himself in an event, and ends up making a clan which he leads.

Call me picky, but the fact that no one questioned the important stuff pissed me off. Like, how did they make the civilians of an entire town leave for three days for a game, without any outsider noticing? I get that the characters were more focused on survival, but this wasn't even brought up. It was like the writers wanted to avoid the entire topic in general.

All in all, the story was plot generic. The execution of the plot was pretty generic too. The intro and outro pretty much spoiled who was going to die. Most of it was predictable. I don't want to spoil anything, so I'll leave it at that.

Art: 4/10

I'll say for a record: I loved the unique shading of colours in this show. But the rest was in the bottom of tolerable. The characters' faces continuously change with every shot. The body proportions were off in many scenes. They were so noticeable that they ruined the enjoyment of the show.

Sound: 7/10

ASCA strikes again with her talent, this time showing it off through Chain. Chain, the intro of Darwin's game was amazing. The ending, Alive by Ayano Mashiro, was an awesome song too. It definitely did its best to reflect the intended aesthetic and theme of Darwin's Game, which the anime failed to reach.

The soundtracks were good, but they weren't memorable.

Meanwhile, the voice actors and actresses did a wonderful job. Wang's voice actor was amazing, and Kaname's and Sui's also did great.

Character: 2/10

Character personalities were stereotypical and bland. Their actions were extremely predictable. First, we had our edgy Gary Stu Kaname, our main character who found himself in the middle of Darwin's Game and somehow became the best player on it. Then, we have this blonde girl I can never memorize the name of. The blonde girl was obviously meant for fanservice. She was our typical yandere. Nothing more, nothing less.

Then is the supporting characters. We had a Florist guy, who, thankfully, was a tolerable character at first then changed his outlook on everything for absolutely no reason. We have a guy with anger issues. That's literally it, all he did in this season was shoot and scream at people and accompany Kaname. We had an Info Broker, who was the brains of the team. She was your typical quiet and stoic girl. We have a shy girl named Sui who you could've replaced with a brick that had the power to control water and it wouldn't have made a difference, and her brother, Sota, who you could've replaced with a brick that had the power to control ice and it wouldn't have made a difference.

We weren't given the backstories or goals of characters rather than "survive Darwin's Game". For characters that had backstories, it didn't really describe them. It was like the characters were slapped together with something that contained death just for the sake of it.

Enjoyment: 7/10

Like I mentioned, I tend to enjoy watching a lot of anime, and that contains crappy anime as well. The plot was okay, the art was okay, the music was pretty good, the characters were pretty bad, but oh well. It's not like this show was a nightmare. I never did physically recoil out of cringe. I was actually looking forward to the next episode. Not as much as other shows this season, but I did genuinely enjoy it.

Overall: 5/10

This show isn't the best show, but it's far from the worst. I suggest that if you want to watch this, then go ahead. If you don't want to, you won't be missing out.

When I sat down to watch this anime, I was ready for a good anime. But once I was done, it left a bitter taste in my mouth.

Story: 6/10
I felt as though the story... Was okay...? The idea itself was nice, but the way that it was portrayed was, well, not good. It is true that everything that happened helped with character development, but the way it was written made the anime boring. The horror element was horrible. I felt as though the entire thing was dragged out. I'm trying not to get into spoilers here, so I'll leave it at that.

Art: 5/10
The art ... was the common "anime" art style. The graphics were good, and everything was fine. But there was really nothing to stand out.

Sound: 7/10
The voice actors and actresses were amazing. The ending song was suiting what I'm sure the feel the anime was going for, (and, in my opinion, failed to) but the opening song, compared to the ending song, wasn't that good. The soundtracks were okay, nothing more and nothing less. They were just there. They weren't special, but they did portray what was going on.

Character: 9/10
All the characters obviously had a ton of research put into them. Rachel, Zack, and Danny had a fleshed out past, and it made sense why they act the way they did in the anime. The development was perfect. I'm sort of sad that the other characters' pasts couldn't be portrayed too.

Enjoyment: 4/10
I'll try not to be harsh here, but I'm sitting here, staring at my screen, wondering what the heck I just watched. As I said before, it felt dragged out. I felt as if I lost so much of my time. This anime would've been better suited to lesser episodes. In the end, I was confused because of all the unnecessary details added. However, I liked the ending scene in the final episode. I loved the character development. But I came hear for horror, but I didn't get that.

Overall: 3/10
This anime was like any other show. It has no aspect to make it stand out in my mind, except for the ending song. It's just an anime I'll stack under my "Hey, I watched that too" list and carry on. I'm not saying that I regret watching it. It's just that if I could tell my future self about it, I'd advise them to watch it when I have nothing else to watch.

Where do I start? It took me 30 episodes to actually find it interesting. I stopped watching after episode 53, but I couldn't stand not finishing the anime, so I continued watching. It took me around 150 episode to actually be marveled with its story, but after that, it was amazing. It made me smile and cry within the span of twenty minutes. It was an adventure. Sure, it started slow, but after a while, it became an intense ride.

Story: 8/10

The thing about Gintama is that it progresses without a certain and clear goal. Every episode and arc has a different plot line from the ... other. Some is pure humor, some will push the viewer to the edge of your seat, some will make them cry, and some will make them do three. There is no goal the main character is trying to achieve. Within the span of 201 episodes, we find out little about the main character, but even that was played out perfectly. However, there is one small mistake the manga writer made. When the villain is about to receive his/her final blow, they'd go into a ten minute flashback about their sad past. It got to a point that they will hold a conversation with a knife in their back for fifteen minutes. I'm not saying that their pasts were boring, but they didn't seem perfectly sewn into the plot. They were roughly patched into it to give the character to give them a better image. I will admit, the manga writer improved on this by the end of the series, as shown in the Onmyoji arc. Before that, I would be all "Shut up and die already" as some of the villains mulled over the losses they had.

Art: 10/10

I have to praise the art. Not only was the art style unique, it was also really flexible, which helped in parodying other anime. The animation was colorful and eye-catching, but whenever it wanted, it could become dark for a serious fight, comedic for a hilarious revelation, and dull for a sad moment. Unlike many other anime, most character had a different face and the viewer did not have to depend on the hair and eye color to tell them apart.

Sound: 10/10

The opening and ending songs were perfect. Gintama is one of the few anime of its time in which the animation matched perfectly with the song. The soundtracks brought out the emotions of the scene being played. And above all, the voice actors and actresses playing the characters were obviously skilled and experienced. Not only did their voices match their character perfectly, they portrayed what the characters were feeling.

Character: 8/10

The character development of every character was beautiful. Each one had their own flaws and funny gags. They had unique personalities, and overlapped in only rare cases. I only have one complaint, though. There were some characters I was interested in, who were simply forgotten. Their only purpose was to develop to entertain the viewer, and then they disappeared, everyone moved on, and no one mentioned them again. This was a major flaw in handling such a big cast. The main cast, however, were one of the most well-written characters I have ever come across. Each one was fleshed out in a different way, memorable, and appealing.

Enjoyment: 9/10

While there is a huge cultural difference, Gintama jokes about so many cultures, games, shows, and celebrities, it's hard not to laugh. Not only that, the gags of the characters themselves is enough to be amusing. This is for the humorous part. In many situations, Gintama will have you at the edge of your seat. The fight scenes are intense and unique, whether fighting with swords, fists, or toothpicks. So if you want to watch this anime to lay back and relax or cheer on your favorite character to beat up their rival (or the rival to beat up your favorite character. Trust me, Gintama can make you do this), it will offer both.

Overall: 9/10

To enjoy this anime, dedication is crucial. Sure, the first few episodes may feel dragged on, but slowly, you'll get used to the weird humor and the anime will unravel into an outstanding story.