Summary
Based on the ongoing manga series, here’s a time travelling high school tale with a bit of a difference.
The prospect of a high school do-over is the subject of copious fantasies and nightmares in equal measure. In the case of TOKYO REVENGERS (東京リベンジャーズ), based on the ongoing manga series by Ken Wakui, it’s a little bit of both.
As with the source material, it follows downtrodden 20-something Takemichi (Takumi Kitamura), who feels like his life is going nowhere. Shortly after learning that his first high-school girlfriend Hinata (Mio Imada) and her younger brother Naoto Tachibana (Yosuke Sugino) were killed by the Tokyo Manji Gang, he is pushed onto a train track. Instead of simply dying, he is transported back to his youth.
Finding a vastly different version of events to his memory, the once feisty scrapper Takemichi was involved in constant gang brawls. When he returns to the present, he also finds that his interference has led to Naoto becoming a detective, but they must work together to prevent Hinata’s death. So, Takemichi must continue to quantum leap back and forth, win gang leader Manjiro’s (Ryo Yoshizawa) confidence and change history.
If you think you’ve seen every variation of a Japanese high school drama, then think again. A clever time travel twist on the school gang sub-sub-genre, director Tsutomu Hanabusa (Tori Girl, Kakegurui, Project Dream: How to Build Mazinger Z’s Hangar) is a dab hand at bringing manga to life with a high degree of visual fidelity. He continues that here in this often dark and violent story.
TOKYO REVENGERS leans a little too heavily into the machismo elements at times — even if it is skewering and subverting them as well — by showing constant and bloody scraps between the various personalities. One particularly sadistic Manji henchman damn near beats Takemichi to death on more than one occasion. Keeping in mind that these are school kids, it’s a lot.
Yet the central performances are all top-notch. While I can’t speak to any familiarity with either the source material or the anime adaptation, the energy feels just about right. Kitamura is terrific at inhabiting multiple personas, as evidenced by last year’s body-swapping Our 30 Minute Sessions. Yuki Yamada, as Manjiro’s right hand man, is also worth highlighting.
While compressing a lot of story into a short space — a story that is still ongoing in print and anime form — TOKYO REVENGERS still manages to convey its complex tale in a a self-contained package. Indeed, if this is your first experience with the franchise, you might even be tempted to explore the world a little further.
TOKYO REVENGERS is reviewed as part of our coverage of Fantasia Festival 2021.
2021 | Japan | DIRECTOR: Tsutomu Hanabusa | WRITER: Ken Wakui, Izumi Takahashi | CAST: Takumi Kitamura, Yûki Yamada, Yôsuke Sugino, Mio Imada, Ryo Yoshizawa | DISTRIBUTOR: Fantasia Festival 2021 | RUNNING TIME: 120 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 5-25 August 2021 (Fantasia 2021)
