Damn, this series has a lot of characters.  I guess that’s natural for a series centered on long-standing war between street gangs, but there’s a kind of nesting doll thing effect here.  Every new twist brings new faces, critical cogs in the machine that we knew nothing of before.  And there are a lot of twists, needless to say.  I have the sense that Tokyo Revengers‘ story has gotten a little too big for its own good, to be honest – but that doesn’t mean I’m not interested in seeing where the road ends up after all those hairpins.

The next landmark event is October 31st – “Bloody Halloween” as condemned Doraken will later refer to it.  That’s the day when Valhalla and Toman will clash, Honma tells Takemitchy (and instructs him to tell Mikey).  Takemitchy is rather left in the lurch here, as there’s no reason to think Baji would consider going back (though his reasoning for taking Kazutora’s side never really makes much sense). But Takemitchy’s lucky break comes in meeting Matsuno Chifuyu (Karino Shou).  They’ve met before in fact, though Takemitchy doesn’t recognize Baji’s old vice-captain (for good reason).

It’s hard to know just how reliable Chifuyu is.  He seems pretty sharp, but he clearly has a personal loyalty to Baji than transcends his loyalty to Toman.  He’s convinced that Baji has joined Valhalla only to investigate their ties to Kisaki, and that his ultimate fealty remains with Toman.  And maybe he’s right, about Baji’s intervention effectively saving Takemitchy’s ass at Kisaki’s appointment ceremony too (intentionally or not).  But whether he is or not, his interests currently overlap with Takemitchy’s, and the two become allies in investigating Kisaki’s role in the coming war.

Their first lead is Osanai, the deposed former leader of Moebius, already well on his way towards the mundane future which awaits him.  He was, in his own words, a stepping stone for Kisaki – who he met as an innocuous-looking middle schooler.  At this point Osanai has seen enough of Kisaki’s cleverness and ruthlessness to be terrified of crossing him, but he does share the information that Kisaki set up the August 3rd bloodbath as a way to take out Doraken and ascend to the #2 spot in Toman himself.

At this point Takemitchy decides to leap forward and try and get some answers from Doraken.  It’s not obvious what Doraken is telling Takemichi here as regards Valhalla and Toman, but it’s unequivocal in Doraken’s words that Mikey is going to kill Kazutora on Halloween – an event which will seemingly lead to the current situation.  Just exactly how complicit Mikey and Kisaki are in what’s to come is a key question that seems likely to be answered as soon as next week.