What’s the deal with these gang meetings and gang brawls all happening at shrines?  Is that a thing in Japan?  If so that’s gotta be a serious pain in the ass for the priests, especially as they often live on-site at the larger ones.  I guess it’s a big space that’s open 24 hours and tends to be pretty deserted at night, so I could see the attraction from that standpoint.  Still, it’s a bit weird if you ask me.  Certainly no worrying about angering the Gods happening with these punks.

As I suspected, last week’s cliffhanger was indeed capped by Kisaki being introduced as the captain of the third division.  There was really no way Takemitchy was getting the job – especially since, as Doraken pointed out, he wasn’t even officially a member of Toman (which I’d sort of forgotten).  I tend to think the kind of moral distinctions between these thugs are a case of heavy romanticizing by Tokyo Revengers, but Mikey does indeed have a tough job when it comes to the politics of street gangs.  I can see his thinking behind bringing Kisaki in, but it’s also a pretty naive thing to do (as the savvier Doraken’s reaction implies).

Takemitchy gonna be Takemitchy I suppose, but his talent for doing the absolute wrong thing at every crucial moment does get tiresome sometimes.  It’s a balancing act for the writing, because his being basically an idiot (who doesn’t even have the excuse of actually being 14 years old) is the nut of his character, but it can be a lot to take.  When he said “What should I do?” the obvious answer popped into my head – shut up and wait for a better moment to act.  But of course I knew he’d do something like what he did, dart onstage and sucker punch Kisaki.  It was just so dumb for so many reasons, and it actually could have ended up much worse for him than it did.

If Kisaki’s formal intro was expected (and it’s strongly implied that he knew more about Takemitchy than he should have), there were a couple of important developments that came out of left field.  The first was the arrival of Baji Keisuke (Mizunaka Masaaki), who punches Takemitchy just because he’s a random puncher kind of dude.  Baji is going to turn out to be important, but all we knew at this stage was that he’d been suspended from Toman for some reason, and that he was quitting to join Valhalla.  Mikey’s appointment of Kisaki generally goes over like a lead balloon, and the rumblings of dissent are louder than we’ve yet heard them.

Once Takemitchy is knocked out yet again as expected (it’s Kisaki who does the honors) he and Mikey get some alone time when he wakes up (except Mitsuya – whose role is obviously about to ramp up – is eavesdropping).  Takemitchy can’t explain himself to Mikey, obviously – and Mikey knows Kisaki is a bad seed.  The two end up striking a sort of bargain – if Takemitchy can bring Baji back, he’ll kick Kisaki out (I don’t take the “I’ll kill you” part seriously).  Baji means something to Mikey – an old friend from early days, and one of the founding members of Toman.  Mikey formally accepts Takemitchy into the gang – and assigns him to a less than thrilled Mitsuya’s second division.

The other twist here is that despite Mikey telling Takemitchy that there were five founding members, the photo which Takemitchy (conveniently) finds shows a sixth.  This is Hanemiya Kazutora (Toki Shunichi) shows six grommets.  We know Kazutora is currently hooked up with Baji and thus presumably Valhalla – what we don’t know is what his role in the early days was, and why Mikey erased him from existence.  He’s going to be a factor – obstacle or otherwise – in Takemitchy’s quest to bring Baji back into the fold, that’s for certain

ED 2: “Tokyo Wonder” (トーキョーワンダー。) by Nakimushi