Two samurai, a baby, and a betrayal as the younger warrior tries to stop his senpai from allowing the babe to live. Cut to present day. A teenager surrounded by military grade automatic weapons (surely they’re models? This is Japan, after all) laughs snarkily in his bedroom as he tells someone on the phone about being expelled. Hilarious! His father busts into the room and throws a few punches and insults his way, but it’s ok, this is just their way of bonding, though the boy does shout that he’s glad the two of them don’t share any blood. Later, a mysterious figure apparates in the street below, and a weird black tentacle drags the boy out of his second-storey window. The man looks like his (adoptive) father, only with deeper scars, physically and emotionally. As he stalks toward the boy, he’s hit by a car. It’s Dad. As they speed away, Dad explains that Boy is actually Oni, and that the Momotaro (e.g. the other guy) are sworn to kill him. Because of his blood. Dad was a Momotaro once too, but now he’s not. The Momotaro catches them up and there’s a showdown at a warehouse. When Dad is mortally wounded, Boy’s Oni blood kicks in and he gets all OP up in the Momotaro’s face, wielding massive military grade weapons (including a rocket launcher, no joke) made of blood. When the dust settles, no one is dead, the Momotaro disapparates, and then Dad dies after all, telling Boy to get strong and be free. As Boy cries, demonstrating that he actually has three and not just two modes (cocky, angry and sad!), someone wheels up behind him on rollerblades and kidnaps him. Cut to five mummies sitting on thrones discussing the state of the world, swearing to rid it of Oni. Then someone standing by the turbulent ocean teases the fact that there’s a school for Oni and isn’t it great how many new pupils have suddenly appeared, as flashes of a handful of color-coded disaffected youth with horns flood the screen. Including Boy. No, it’s not a preview of the next episode, it’s just a weird thing that happens. Fade to black.
Ugh. This was just…boring. The production quality is fine—nothing to critique there, except that all the adult men look alike, but hey, samey character design is not unusual in anime. The full-blown Oni mode design is decent enough, but nowhere near the level of Dandadan, though the opening historical sequence, reminiscent of ink painting, is nicely done. The voice actors are doing their best with flat, one-note characters, while I didn’t even notice the music, which is unusual. That’s about it: It’s just flat and unmemorable. And when it turns out this seems to be a setup for something like JJK, Mashle, or MHA, with the whole action-mythical-magical-power-training-school thing going on, it just falls even flatter by comparison. The MC spends so much time raging and fronting in this episode that we get absolutely no insight into his character, let alone some point of resonance that would make us root for him through the very long, tortuous character journey that doubtless lies ahead. All we have is Dad’s word for it that there’s something about this kid worth persevering through a season of mediocre storytelling for, and for me, that’s just not enough. If you want something that grapples with philosophical and moral questions about the nature of oni vs humanity, with awesome fight sequences, check out Sengoku Youku instead (especially the manga). That’s a far superior modern epic inspired by the tales of Peach Boy Momotaro and his confrontations with oni.
Tougen Anki is streaming on Netflix.
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