Tokyo Majin, Volume One

Sometimes, over the top is good. Sometimes, “It just doesn’t make sense”, does indeed make sense when it makes sense to itself; make sense? Tokyo Majin, Volume One writes its own rules for an over the top action packed anime.

plot summary

Tokyo has been plagued of late by disappearances and strange, unsolved murders. People have gone missing only to show up days later as corpses which have been sucked dry. At times, the corpses have become reanimated and walked amongst the living to prey on former loved ones.

This crisis has affected many Tokyo citizens, including students at Magami High School. There, five high schoolers find themselves in the thick of these strange occurrences. When the captain of the high school wrestling club, Yuuya Daigo, challenges new transfer student, Tatsuma Hiyuu, to a fight, they unwittingly open the door for a malevolent spirit.

Hiyuu has just transfered to Magami High and has already dueled with the school’s head delinquent, Kyouichi Horaiji. After the two battled fiercely, they become good friends. Now Yuuya steps up to fight the newcomer, and has issued his challenge to Hiyuu to be fought in an abandoned house.

Just as the two get started, Student Council President, Aoi Misato bursts in to break up the fight. But as she and best friend, Komaki Sakura, cross the threshold of the room, a strange power is released and the five teens must fight for their lives against it.

Because of this encounter, the group find themselves endowed with powerful, supernatural abilities and have the strength to fight the demons causing the random deaths in Tokyo. Now they strive to find the underlying cause of the supernatural occurrences which have simultaneously blessed the five and cursed the city.

review

The first episode of Tokyo Majin comes out full throttle and never stops. It starts out with non-stop, supernatural action and keeps on going. No explanations are given, no time is taken to slow the pace down and wait for viewers to catch their breath, and no excuses are handed out. This is usually one of those anime I scoff at and toss aside after five minutes of viewing. The story for Tokyo Majin is almost cliche in the anime world, yet it still works since it has a lot of style and interesting characters who I can connect with- which is why I kept watching.

Too often, far-fetched anime- and Tokyo Majin is far-fetched- ruin themselves by breaking the rules of the world they’ve created. These anime do this by switching gears, completely, from what they initially intended to be, into another beast all together or by explaining away every incredible detail. They also manage to sink their own ship by having zero plot and/or poorly developed characters; but that’s damnation for any anime.

As to adhering to its own rules, Tokyo Majin, TM for short, has created a world where: Characters don’t act like “normal” high schoolers but they react like them. Some of the action is absolutely unbelievable, but I bought it because the other characters did. The character designs are outlandish and almost laughable in some instances, however, they’re interesting and a fresh change of pace from standard anime fare. Through all this unbelievability and “out-there” designs, runs unifying factors of the characters, their development and plot consistency (so far). Without these, the anime would have fallen flat on its face and been dead before it even began.

Character Development

While further character development is needed to better flesh out the series, I already feel sympathetic to Tatsuma and Aoi. Tatsuma is sympathetic because he’s more than he appears to be and has good intentions along with his delinquent attributes. He’s profoundly affected by the deaths of the random victims, while his friend, Kyouichi, doesn’t seem touched by them.

Aoi is also sympathetic since she too is just as empathetic as Kyouichi, if not more so. However, Aoi is just a teensy bit annoying as she has this slightly superior, commanding attitude. Her demeanor is probably a side-effect of being a rich child who’s shamelessly doted upon, and who’s also mega-popular.

Even though Kyouichi isn’t someone I connect to on an emotional level, the guy is still super bad-ass and a guilty pleasure to watch as he brings the pain. The other two of the five, Yuuya and Komaki, aren’t really “there” as characters yet. Later in the series, they’ll be given additional depth, but for now, they’re about as interesting as bookends.

Character Design

Some of the students in the anime are designed in a pretty far-out manner: one guy has a scar from an injury which looks like it should have the left guy cleaved in two. The wrestling team is also a bit extreme as they all look like luchadors instead of Japanese teenagers. The bad guys for TM are absolutely bizarre; just the way I like them. Tendo Kozunu looks like he stepped off stage after performing with a visual kei rock band and his lolita side kick, Marie Claire, looks like his groupie- superb! The demons are highly inventive in appearance and I applaud the studio for not holding back in the baddies’ designs.

Animation

Anime International Company, AIC for short, did a great job with the animation. Overall, the animation was smooth and of high quality. The fight scenes were well choreographed and I wasn’t distracted by any kinks in the flow of the anime.

Music

0:00 a.m., by Acid, the OP is a slightly heavy J-rock tune, and while it’s a very good choice as an opener to Tokyo Majin, I would never listen to it as a piece of music. One other comment on the opening; the title screen for individual episodes looks cheap. The opening itself looks high-quality-super-fantastic, but for some odd reason, the episode title screens look not-so-good. Prayer, also by Acid, isn’t as heavy as 0:00 a.m., but sounds almost exactly like it. The vocals for Prayer, though, are better than in the OP, and are rather catchy.

Voice Acting

The Japanese voice cast is better than the English one, but the English isn’t as god-awful as in some anime. We still opted for Japanese in the audio for Tokyo Majin.

Tokyo Majin, Volume One has a lot of intense action, an interesting story, and engaging characters. Though Tokyo Majin looks similar to other anime in its genre it’s got style and is utterly unapologetic in the way it sets itself apart. Gotta love an anime that makes its own rules and so far, I’m luv’n Tokyo Majin.

Rating

Tokyo Majin, Volume One gets 3.5 Hammies outta 4!