Guess who’s writing for Crunchyroll.fr, GUESS WHO?!
Guess who’ll be at Japan Expo in no time, GUESS WHO?!
I don’t know which news I’m the most excited about. But you probably didn’t come here to read me talk about my life (though if you’re interested, you can still follow me on twitter) so let’s move on to Tokyo Ravens!
Tokyo Ravens is a the story of Harutora and his friends who just so happen to study Onmyoudo in a world that heavily relies on Onmyouji for various things. Obviously, it also happens that Harutora and his friends are all a bit special and then stuff happens. Stuff always happens.
The main problem I had with Tokyo Ravens isn’t that the story was quite generic, which it was but not to such a high level that I couldn’t bear it, it was that the whole supernatural aspect was a bit too confusing.
As I said, I love the supernatural stuff, as such, I am a bit familiar with the various techniques and everything traditionally used by the onmyouji and their kind. But I am not sure if a novice would understand a lot.
Actually, I had sometimes a hard time understanding some things. Especially when it comes to how their world worked. It was a bit complicated to follow the implications of all the different families and institutions and it also seems that the “normal” world is nearly entirely forgotten. I would have liked a bit more interactions between the two worlds, especially since they seemed to be quite close, at least closer than in most things I have seen.
That is where my main complaints about Tokyo Ravens lie. Things were confusing.
Fortunately, Tokyo Ravens focused more on its characters than on anything else. It didn’t make it any less confusing, but at least you had something consistent to follow.
Our main guy Harutora is the usual prototype of the guy who appear normal at first glance but who isn’t. Easy to identify with, nothing much to say about him, he’s a bit bland for that reason. Doesn’t mean he isn’t a cool guy, doesn’t mean that his fashion sense doesn’t suck either. His seiyuu, Kaito Ishikawa, was a good choice for that character.
His friends ranged from the crazy to the normal. Again, I don’t have a lot to say about them, they were rather normal while being very good at their craft. Obviously they all had some kind of super ability that distinguish them from the rest of their class whose members didn’t get any screen time at all.
It might come as a complaint but it isn’t, at least the anime didn’t lose a lot of time in introducing useless characters.
To be honest, I didn’t care much about Harutora and his friends. My favorite was Douman Ashiya. I can’t say much about him because I don’t want to spoil you but he was great. His seiyuu, Nobuo Tobita, was great too. Otomo-sensei also deserves a mention for being a wonderful and deep character, probably the deepest of them all. Obviously again, his seiyuu, Kouji Yusa, did a wonderful job at voicing him as a very ambiguous character.
In the end, Tokyo Ravens was nothing special, its characters were nothing special, its plot was nothing special, it was even pretty predictable, but for some reasons I enjoyed watching it. I can’t say it’s a must watch but I still think you should watch it if you’re interested in the supernatural.
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Kuuki
Here is Kuuki, French 20-something anime-baka speaking. I watch too many things, read too much, eat too much and work too much. I'm writing Go for Broke and sometimes more for the Organization. Nice to meet you!Latest posts by Kuuki (see all)
- Go for Broke: Tokyo Ravens - July 1, 2014
- Go for Broke: Wooser no Sono Higurashi - June 24, 2014
- Go for Broke: D-Frag - June 17, 2014
- Go for Broke: Nagi no Asukara - June 10, 2014
- Go for Broke: The Pilot’s Love Song - June 3, 2014