Tokyo Majin

Some friends and I just watched this rather amazing series a few days ago, marathoning the entire series in one night. I must say I found it thoroughly enjoyable.

Tokyo Majin is a shounen series, and doesn't do anything new or revolutionary with the genre. However, what it does do is execute such a show so wonderfully, wonderfully right.

The premise is fairly simple, a bunch of high school students get imbued with demonic power and have to go hunting demons at night. The storyline, while interesting, isn't terribly unique (eventually have to take down the big bad guy who's making things evil and such). However, the execution is so superb you hardly care. Tokyo Majin makes no pretenses of being new and cutting edge, but it uses established conventions to great effect.

The cast of characters is generally pretty interesting, albeit not out of the ordinary. There's the calm and composed girl with telekinesis and healing abilities, the fiery archery girl, the punk, the big strong and not terribly bright wrestling dude who's lusting after the archer girl, and the main character, who talks just slightly more than the Dragon Warrior hero and tends to be fairly laid back. You get the most backstory on the Aoi, the calmer of the two girls, as she's most integral to the plot. At times, she almost seems to be the main character whenever Houraiji, the punk, isn't stealing the show by being awesome. Hiyuu, the main character, gets a reasonable amount of coverage. Sakurai, the archer girl tends to have her personality explored moreso than her past, and Daigo, the wrestling guy, tends to hit things and make you groan whenever he opens his mouth to make an ass out of himself in front of Sakurai (although he does have his own quirks that can be amusing).

One of the things that stands out most about this series is the artwork. The animation is beautiful and the movements are amazingly fluid. The fight scenes are absolute works of art, the way the characters move is amazingly well done. Stylistically, Tokyo Majin strives for (and achieves) a darker, more realistic tone amidst the fantastical battles and creatures. Tokyo Majin includes several homages to the Shin Megami Tensei series, and the two have several parallels, so the artwork tends to be along the same lines.

Tokyo Majin is not a series meant for young children, many of the episodes can be quite gruesome. Tokyo Majin does a good job of not lingering on the brutal images for more than necessary, but several things (such as the "bug episode" where large insects crawl out of people's skins and many people have their arms torn off) might upset those not used to more violent and brutal scenes. Unlike many Shounen series, you occasionally DO see when people die, and the heroes fail to save people fairly regularly (as is to be expected of five to six young teens attempting to protect the entirety of Tokyo).

One of the most interesting things about Tokyo Majin is that it is a shounen series that accomplishes its first arc in 14 episodes. The final battle takes just one episode to complete, instead of dragging on for ten or even twenty episodes as can often happen in the Shounen genre. Tokyo Majin has a great sense of pacing, the first half introduces you to the characters and starts to set up the plot, and the second half moves forward with the plot and concludes it, although leaves it very obviously open for the second season (which has just begun airing).

All in all, this is a great series, I highly recommend it and am myself eagerly awaiting a subtitled version of the second season.

TIME TO DIIIIIIIIE!

I watched the first season of this as well, and found it pretty enjoyable. I likely won't be buying the DVDs (ADV already licensed both seasons), since I didn't like it that much. For free though, absolutely. It's actually loosely based off of a Japanese PS1 game. Apparently there's a series of these 'Tokyo Majin' games.

I agree about the art style, it was pretty great. The video quality of the version I watched really sucked though.

For a shounen show based off of something else (something I'm generally biased against), it's pretty good. From what I understand, even though it was somewhat linked to a game it had its own story so they were able to plot it out exactly how they wanted to.

(SPOILER)However for pure, fresh, anime awesomeness, check out Tengen Toppa Gurren-Lagann. Which is (unfortunately?) also licensed by ADV...I'm definitely buying these DVDs.

Time to die! That perfect world! Let's break the spine! That perfect world!

I as well watched this, and found it quite enjoyable, and also can't wait until the second season, the raws should be out soon if not now.

I watched the first few episodes when it came out, but lost touch after that. I wish I would've kept up with it before it was licensed. :\

I don't remember much about it except that the opening sequence with the violinist was so beautiful in a very intense, horrifying sort of way.

I actually did a blog post about one of the episodes. It has the honor of being the only anime I've ever blogged out exclusively.

Blogging is hard, 'specially with anime and pictures.

I had never heard of it, but now I want to see it after reading all this D: Shounen anime with lots of violence, good animation, special powahs, and the first season isn't 156 episodes with three OVAs and two movies and one Christmas special? Sign me up, chief.

I believe ADV has licensed the first two seasons, so it should be released in America at some point.

Oh, heavy use of Vivalidi's "Four Seasons" when bad stuff is going down, something I appreciate.

When all else fails, Youtube it.