With episodes like this, it’s always a question of what I lead with.  Do you talk first about what bothers you or what you liked?  And that’s been a theme with quite a few shows this season – overall good with lots of potential, but most (not all) with some significant caveats.  I tend to favor the “rip the band-aid off” approach, because that gets the unpleasant part out of the way, so I guess I’ll go with that here.  Especially since it’s pretty straightforward in this case.

So, about that.  This is all, in a word, very convenient.  Naoto has figured this whole thing out, seemingly (and of course he’s right).  Naoto-bo believing Takemichi in the first place.  Adult Takemichi believing Naoto-san’s explanation without questioning it.  The ease with which Takemichi can (apparently) go back and forth in time.  It all carries the feel of “I want to get that stuff out of the way so I can get this serialized and get on with telling the story” – which is annoying, but ironically does have an upside.  If you can get past the skepticism (and frankly irritation) and suspend disbelief, well – at least it’s out of the way.  It’s not like you’re going to be thinking about the original setup every week.

And that’s the flipside of all this.  Tokyo Revengers may have an annoying way of setting it up, but for me at least it’s very good at telling the story.  Better in the past than the present so far, but that part of the series is excellent.  I wasn’t part of any gangs when I was a teen and avoided fights religiously, but I still remember the terror when that looked like it would be impossible.  We had bullies, we had torturers, we had turf wars.  There’s a visceral anxiety when you’re in middle school that isn’t quite replicated at any other point in your life, and Tokyo Revengers has a real aptitude for capturing that.

The essence of the assignment adult Naoto has for Takemichi is a pretty straightforward one – infiltrate the nascent Tokyo Manji and prevent the two future leaders from ever meeting up.  Is that actually the best way to prevent Hinata’s future death?  Well TBH, I’m not sure why you couldn’t just take her aside and tell her “don’t go to that damn matsuri in 2017”.  I suppose she might not be as trusting as Nao-ko and Takemichi are, but if you were insistent enough I would think that’s something you’d remember anyway when the moment came.  But I digress…

As predicted, life for Takemichi-kun and his mates turns into a living hell in the aftermath of their disastrous field trip.  They’re made to be part of a fight club pretty much every day, and if they lose beaten to a pulp by the ToMan members.  Takemichi’s idea to directly ask the current banchou Kiyomasa-kun (Hino Satoshi, quite against type) to meet one of the leaders is a terrible idea on the face of it, and the results are predictable gruesome.  One of the future capos, Sano Manjirou, seems to be an especially sore point with Kiyomasa – to the point where he tells Takemichi he’ll kill him if he ever mentions that name again (he doesn’t stop far short of that as is).

All this, of course, serves to remind Take-kun of just why he ran away in the first place (I honestly don’t blame him).  He heads to the Tachibana apartment to meet Nao-ko and shake his hand back to the future, but it’s Hinata who gets there first.  And seeing her reinforces his courage, in a rather charming way (I especially enjoyed the bit where he casually called her “Hina” and caused her to practically hard boot).  Back at school, the next fight club ominously targets Yamamoto Takuya (Hirose Yuuya), the weakest and gentlest of Takemichi’s pack.  And the others rally around him in a way that further shores up Takemichi’s resolve.

This part is really effective and again, very authentic.  Adolescents, for all their penchant for animal savagery, are also capable of great kindness.  And boys are creatures of loyalty.  But there’s not much these boys can do for their friend, it seems – that sense of powerlessness against the brutality of the world too feels very authentic.  Takemichi, that creature of retreat, decides to be bold – very bold indeed.  And it seems likely that this foolhardy but courageous act may capture Kiyomasa’s interest in a way that ultimately proves beneficial for the cause.  It feels like the first step on the long climb up from the bottom for Takemichi.  And for all the quibbles I have with the way it’s set up, that’s a climb I remain very keen to watch play out.