English Dub Review: Tokyo Revengers: “Reborn”

Overview: After suffering a near death accident on a train track, Takamichi Hanegaki (AJ Beckles) is thrust back into his junior high school days with the intent to change future but most importantly the fate of his one true love, Hinata Tachibana (Lizzie Freeman). 

Our Take: When “Reborn” reincarnates our main protagonist, Takamichi Hanegaki, the show’s true focus comes into view rather quickly. Not only does the key time traveling aspect of the series come into play but so does a potential mystery as well? This could be just conjecture on my part, but the framing of the scene sure as heck wants us to believe that the train accident that incites Takamichi’s “rebirth” was either foul play or premeditated to cause it. Dual plots could be a really intriguing aspect. Or at the very least if it was an aspect at all. However, with this episode in mind, it could also be the straw that broke the camel’s back in regards to the season as a whole. 

Like previously stated, the real meat of this episode is when Takamichi goes back to the past. The issue being that it feels as if it’s biting off more than it can chew at times with the end result being both positive and somewhat detrimental for the show’s debut episode. Most of these take place in the latter half of the episode, with some story elements feeling rushed and hastily thrown together. For instance, the love of his life that Takamichi that he cares for oh so dearly he just so happens to suddenly remember when news of her death is reported. Granted, the show tries to address this with how he’s always cared for her all along but it feels half-baked for the circumstances. Another abusirty is how Hinata’s brother, Naoto, just straight up believes Takamichi’s hair brained story about traveling into the past with no questions asked. He was younger at that time but the sheer wackiness of it didn’t raise any red flags to him, seriously? 

Thankfully though, the good that Revengers does definitely outweighs the bad. The comedrarie among his “misfit” friends is one of its defining strengths with some relatable moments sprinkled in that even made me nostalgic like teasing someone for making some new fashion statement or being strapped for cash for food. Also there’s a lot of honest and real character work like evolving into a different person over time, having friends one moment of your life and none the next, or even not remembering childhood events clearly enough. To top it all off, this is all supplemented with sympathetic problems like changing your past regrets if we all had an opportunity to do so. And this too takes shape in understandable issues, like not wanting to be pushed around by those who are older. Or much deeper and much to the show’s benefit, finding one’s inner strength to be better than we once were. 

All in all, even with my complaints, Tokyo Revengers needed to set up a lot of characters, timeframes, and relationships, and it needed to do it within the span of a single episode. So even with its pubescent blemishes and imperfections, it manages to create a strong opening. Especially with the unexpected setup of detective Naoto Tachibana and Takamichi relationship in the present day that will no doubt flip flop between times and offer an intriguing paradigm shift for the series moving forward.