Anime Review: Tokyo Majin

Oh, this is going to be painful. You guys are lucky this time. This time I'm not reviewing an awesome series with a ridiculous name, this time I'm reviewing a frustrating series with a boring name. Seriously, how many anime have the title "Tokyo something"? Tokyo Babylon, Tokyo Godfathers, Tokyo Revelation (okay that was a subtitle... used for two different OVAs), and now Tokyo Majin. I waiting for the day where we exhausted all other possibilities and have Tokyo Tokyo. But how is this generically named series?

Well he is main character-ish.

During their senior year of High School: five students awaken to their mysterious powers lurking within them (or was granted to them by an outside entity... it's not really all that clear). As ghosts and demons appear all over Tokyo, these five must put aside their differences (I think...) and fight along side one another (Kind of...). However, they are not the only ones how have these special powers, and while some use their gifts for selfish desires, others seem bent on unleashing Hell on Earth. Can these students master their powers and solve their differences in time? Or is the Earth doom to the forces of Evil? Does anybody in the audience know or care about what is happening? Find out in Tokyo Majin!... If you care enough....

So many people.. that I just don't care about.

The easiest way to describe Tokyo Majin is frustrating. The series frequently has way too many things going on at once and absolutely NO TIME is spent developing the world or the characters. This results in the two major draw backs of the series; no logical rule set, nor characters. With a series steeped into the supernatural, it is important to have what is going on grounded in some form of rules or logic, this way you don't run into the "Making Shit Up" trope. For example, Card Captor Sakura had a simple rule to their magic: The can only use magic that they have a card for. Thus, any solution to the current problem must be done with a card the characters have in their possession. Tokyo Majin doesn't have any such rule or restrictions to their powers. Hell, their powers are hardly explained with how they got them, or what they do. This is exemplified in one scene where the group is fighting some demons and one guy says they can't used some seal or whatever because it won't work. I'm sitting here wondering, "What is talking about? What seal? What does it do? AND WHY CAN'T WE USE IT!?" The second draw back is the characters. We spend most of our time with the main five characters, yet none of them have any personality beyond broad archetypes. We have the mysterious Main Character-ish guy, the asshole bromance guy, the student counsel president girl, the student counsel president girl's best friend, and the guy who has a crush on the student counsel president girl's best friend. Those are our main characters. I can't even remember their names, and the only identifiable characteristic of two of them is their relationship to others. Everyone is boring, dull, and completely one dimensional, and what's worse is that their one dimensional characters can make complete 180s with absolutely no explanation. For the first few episodes, asshole guy keeps saying he wants nothing to do with the group and only wants to be stronger, then in the next episode he says "If you guys are forming a group, count me in." This makes no sense!

Friendship! Friendship! Friendship! Friendship! Friendship!

And that isn't to say it's only problems are with its characters and universe, there are so many different ways that this series sucks. There is a romance subplot between Main Character-ish guy and student counsel president girl which goes nowhere (and I'm using the term romance VERY loosely). There is another romance subplot that seems to only exist in the last two episodes (and once again, romance is a loose term). The action scenes range from hard to follow to annoying to completely ridiculous. There are characters who don't seem to do ANYTHING in the series and accomplish nothing. The passage of time is never really noted. Any kind of theme or message the series is trying to convey is lost underneath contradictory messages. There are vampires who seem like they where ripped from a completely different anime, who bare no relevance to the actual plot of the series. And some one says "For Great Justice" with a completely straight face. That last bit wasn't really a problem, but it is something I had to mention.

I can't recommend this series. Even if you like the "So bad it's good" kind of media, there is so little to riff that it just ends up rather dull. You might get one or two laughs here or there, but for most of the series you are tilting your head trying to figure out what they where thinking (or what drugs they where under the influence of) when they wrote this. The characters are boring, the world is confusing, the action edits out all the action, and there is so many people running around that do absolutely nothing, but for some reason we have to spend time watching them. Tokyo Majin is not recommended.

Until next time.

-Crescent, so that is what Fatina's been doing since the Tower of Druaga.