This series seemingly always has a couple of niggling issues for me, but keeps me thoroughly engaged every week.  It’s not quite the same as Mashiro no Oto – there, the annoying things are a lot more annoying but perhaps less critical to the long-term success of the story.  The ledger with Tokyo Revengers is definitely balanced to the positive on the whole, as it’s one of the most interesting shows of the season.  But I still worry about a few things and only time will show whether I’m right to.

Let’s start with the resolution of last week’s cliffhanger, which was both pretty spellbinding and a little troublesome.  First off, if the series is going to be Takemichi (is it me or does he look older as a 14 year-old than as a 26 year-old?) getting beaten to a pulp every week, that will quickly get tiresome.  It already is, in fact.  Maybe the developments this week signal that pattern is changing, though.  A larger problem I have is this – what was Takemichi’s plan, exactly?  I appreciate his guts, but what was the endgame?  If it weren’t for that Deus ex Mikey maybe Kiyomasa really does kill him, or at least put him in the hospital.  This is not a 14 year-old kid here – it’s a 26 year-old man who should have had an answer to those questions, IMHO.

I get that Takemichi is desperate here, so maybe he’s just a desperate guy throwing a Hail Mary pass.  It works, thanks to the aforementioned Sano “Mikey” Manjirou (Hayashi Yuu).  He and his lieutenant Ryuuguuji “Doraken” Ken (Suzuki Tatsuhisa) blow through Tokyo Revengers like a sirocco you know will leave things forever changed.  Their arrival is fortuitously timed to say the least, especially as Mikey takes a liking to “Takamitchy” for his seemingly foolhardy courage in battle.  Mikey and Ken quickly reduce Kiyomasa to what he is, a small time thug, and Mikey declares that from this point forward he and Takemichi are friends.  This also saves Akkun from having to stab Kiyomasa and possibly do hard time.

Mikey is a very charismatic character, no question, and so is Doraken for that matter.  Mikey would have to be to take command of a major gang given his stature, one assumes.  The best scene in the episode comes when the two of them show up at school to take Takemitchy out for a field trip, leaving behind a trail of corpses (not really) in their wake.  Hinata, having no idea who they are, decides to put a stop to all this nonsense and initiates their showdown with a slap to Mikey’s face.  This is pretty tense, very well brought-off, and satisfyingly resolved.

I definitely get why someone like Mikey would take an interest in Takemichi.  As Ken notes brawlers are a dime-a-dozen but a guy who stands up against hopeless odds on principle is considerably more rare.  It probably doesn’t hurt that Takemichi also makes a fool of Kiyomasa (who I’m assuming winds up allied with Kisaki), who Mikey and Ken clearly find to be contemptible.  Takemichi, being 26, understands that this new development isn’t a golden road for him – he’s in just as dangerous a place as before, albeit for the moment more pleasant.

What I’m hoping doesn’t happen and I fear will happen is that we see a “good vs. evil” scenario playing out with the noble Sano and the dastardly Kitta fighting for control of the Manji gang.  In Japan banchou tend to get romanticized a lot for (in my opinion) the reason that the modern nation is a country where civilized behavior and decorum is stressed above all else, and the Bushido ideal of the past is long-gone but not forgotten.  These people represent the samurai to an extent, even up to and including the Yakuza themselves – their romanticization in manga and anime has been a sore point for me for years.

Are there differences between gangsters sometimes – could Sano truly be a more principled dude than Kisaki?  Sure – but that doesn’t make Sano a hero.  Things may very well not go in that direction with Tokyo Revengers but if they do, it would be a problematic development.  There’s no nobility in extortion and assault and theft, only degrees of ignobility, and what I hope we see is Takemichi rising above the way of the gangster altogether.  Whichever way things go from here, though, Tokyo Revengers is a compelling story that thoroughly commands your attention.