This is exactly how you destroy a manga that was already mediocre.

I stopped writing reviews over a year ago because I didn't have the time, but this manga brought me out of my cave to write what was the biggest disappointment of all the stories I followed, and some minor spoilers are going to run all over the place.

Time travel is always a topic that needs to be treated with love, patience and dedication. If you don’t have none of them, you can’t write a story and expect it to be good. This is the case. The main character, Takemichi, is our guy. He, a man close to his thirties, starts his adventure by finding out that his ex-girlfriend from high school died. Due to a couple of things that are not worth mentioning, he travels to the past and returns to be a fourteen years old teen delinquent in order to save that girl he didn’t even remember. The thing is that he is a twenty-six years old man in a teen body, while this girl, Hina, is just fourteen by then, and he kind of fall in love with her all over again. I’m not here to discuss this weird fact, though.

He gets to remember how weak he used to be, and what a sad adolescence he lived, being bullied by other little gangs. Decided to make things different, he tries to strengthen himself by going all stupidly brave. Due to his lack of common sense and all the unnecessary fights he gets into, he attracts the attention of the leader of the biggest gang in the area, and befriends with him. As the story progresses, he starts to discover little things related to that big gang that will guide him to know how to prevent Hina’s death in the future. He travels as he likes from time to time to the future, to see how the situation has changed since the last time, in order to decide if he’s going in the right direction and acquiring new information. That’s it, in short.

In terms of characters, if by the middle of the story we didn’t have a lot of development, by the end we have almost none.

Almost, except for our big hero, Takemichi. He is the man that no one can hate. Every side character, every antagonist, every human being felt respect for him. He touched so many lives, because he has such a good heart. Okay, I got it the first time. Can we move on now?

At the beginning, he is kinda funny, interesting. He is the archetype of a shounen main character, but denser. He regrets the decisions he took during his adolescence, so he tries not to be the boy he was in the past. He tries to be the better version of himself. He escapes cowardice and affronts every problem, and that’s nice. The thing is that, as the story progresses, this situation gets so blatantly repeated that loses its scent. Every single time he gets into a fight and loses (as ALWAYS), he comes back from the dead to say that he’s not giving up, that he can’t be the coward he used to be. That he has experienced loneliness and that he will protect his people at all coast. All. The. Time. That speech is so burned out that can easily tire the reader. However, it causes a totally different effect on the enemies, since they develop a big admiration for him, saying how different he is. Of course, you don’t see a person so willing to take unnecessary punches so often. Apparently, that was his way of showing resistance. Because we all know resistance is a lot more important than being a little bit smart and not getting into fights that will destroy you for sure.

He takes the most stupid decisions most of the time, and okay, I can take that, but he cries and regrets right after that. Until the third arc, that’s all he does. He has a big lot of information to prevent murders to happen, and can’t prevent most of them. It gets tiring after he makes a big lot of mistakes and cries. I don’t have a problem with crybaby characters, I love them. Nevertheless, Takemichi cries after making the same old mistake that ever does. Cries and cries as if he couldn’t have prevented those events. Blames himself and goes to do the same thing again. It feels like he never learns anything, or that he can’t ever get a little smarter nor astute. Frustrating. By the very end he gets to do some intelligent takes, but did it take you 250 chapters to think that through?

The rest of the characters can’t say much since their development turned to zero. Although, there are some cool bonds during the story, there is a good environment of friendship, there are interesting character developments. Not impressing and not big, but there are. However, who I want to mention now is Mikey. Look how they massacred my boy. The most enigmatic person in that manga resulted the shallowest thing in the world. This is an honorable mention to a character whose entire development and complexity was synthetized to a lack of love and some kind of supernatural stuff.

If I had to enumerate the big amount of plot holes and plot devices in this work, I should need more characters than MAL is allowed to give me. Takemichi gets brutally punched a lot of times because he doesn’t know how to fight, and he actually never learns not in 278 chapters. He gets so hurt in occasions, that a human would not be able to stand, nor be conscious. But our big hero is always there, defying the laws of nature and biology. Not only biology, but our author’s logic. While Takemichi can support any kind and amount of damage, the other characters can faint with just one kick. Amazing. There are victories that exist just because the author lighted a candle and decided so while he laughed. There are victories that exist just because of the power of friendship. There are victories that exist because of hidden powers or abilities that not only are humanly impossible, but that have no precedent in the story. There are characters that were never shown, but that suddenly were the most important of the story, and that were always there, waiting their 200 chapters to shine. There are actions that are done just because the plot needed it, such a coincidence. There are unnecessary deaths, and very avoidable deaths.

The convenience itself was Tokyo Revengers’ fall and biggest enemy. Not only ruined the story little by little, but it killed the end of the story. I don’t hate happy endings. I hate endings that try too hard. This one tried too hard to make the fanboys like it. Actually, the story could have ended in the third arc, that was about the chapter 194, that ending would have been a lot better than the one we got. However, the need of violently lengthen the story was a result of the pressure that a successful adaptation generates on a mangaka, alongside the fanboys’ wish for a happy ending of a Disney’s caliber.

The ending not only was forcedly happy, but it destroyed all the characters’ history, all the poor logic that the story built, and magically transformed everything into sugar, spice and everything nice. Every tragic past, with a flick of the wrist disappeared. Suddenly, every mentally ill character does not need to go to therapy. Suddenly, every violent psycho in the story becomes a human being and doesn’t kill people, doesn’t break bones. The little man that pursued Hina for not liking him back, suddenly does not care about her anymore and can respectfully take a no. They even prevented a fire that was part of a character’s past, because even his scars disappear. God knows how, since they were little kids when that happened. Remember that guy that abused his family? Well, he doesn’t anymore. Why? Because the holy spirit told him not to. My guess, though.

A bittersweet ending is never a bad option if it has a reason, if it’s necessary. You can’t expect everyone (literally, everyone) to be happily ever after in a manga that was severely pierced by death and tragedy. It’s forced and anticlimactic. However, a sweet ending that forgets and denies the last 277 chapters, is always a bad option.

In conclusion, it is a disappointment. If you only care about people being happy, read this, or go read a fanfic. It’s the same. If you care about a good writing, outstanding character development, or at least an attractive art, don’t bother yourself with almost 300 chapters.

I had a big affection for Tokyo Revengers even knowing all its big flaws during the first three arcs, but the last one was so ridiculous, that love’s gone behind.

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Who needs time travel when the solution to everything is gang fights?

Tokyo Revengers is a story with a spectacular premise… that is promptly squandered. That's what makes it so frustrating to read: it entices you with aspects that are truly unique; aspects that give you a glimpse of tremendous potential – and then devolves into run-of-the-mill shonen schlock.

The time-travel mechanic, detailed in the first few chapters, works in a novel way: Takemichi, the protagonist, can only travel exactly 12 years back in time, and from there only exactly 12 years forward again. While he's in the past, time keeps progressing in the present (with him in a comatose state), and while he's in the present time keeps progressing in the past. This means that if, say, someone dies in the present (or sometime in the last 12 years, for that matter), he can travel back and set things right – but if someone dies in the past? Well, then there's no traveling back before that and fixing it. This is a fantastic way to ensure that there still are stakes – something most other time travel stories could learn from. And indeed, a lot of the intrigue comes from there! Sadly, though, that's about the extent to which Tokyo Revengers explores its premise.

Though the manga hits a high point in around volume 3-4, with Takemichi following the central conceit of retroactively saving his girlfriend, going back in time to diagnose and tangibly solve problems – I truly felt that it was great for a few brilliant chapters there – it loses its footing afterward, and becomes an entirely different story. A palpable loop emerges: go back to the present, see that things went wrong in a different way this time, go back to the past, and… oh! There's a new rival gang, the existence of which has never been mentioned before, and conveniently enough, they're the source of all the problems this time! I guess the only thing to do is fight them. Even when the present offers an interesting plot hook – “this character grows up to be a psychopath; you need to make sure he has a better youth” – the result is invariably the same: “actually, that was all because of this new rival gang.” In this way, Tokyo Revengers deftly nullifies its own premise to become a bog-standard shonen manga where fighting the villain of the week is always the answer.

It's a terrible shame that a manga with such a stellar premise, such fantastic art, and such undeniably heart-tugging moments should falter so utterly, but falter it does. Coupled with an motley crew of other sizable blemishes – new characters keep being introduced at far too rapid a pace for you to care about them, the deuteragonists are forgotten about; barely appear through large swaths of the story and receive little to no character development, the manga's view of women is on the further end of “iffy”, and its morals are out of whack (“sure, he's a psychopath who indiscriminately beats people bloody, but he's not a bad guy!”) – Tokyo Revengers ends up being largely an exasperating, unenjoyable read.

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