Little Jirou would sometimes come back from school in the summer, complaining that the other kids called him a “weirdo animal whisperer,” and the warm words of his motherly white dog would always cheer him up. But after an artsy, moody, quite inventive opening, we find out that he has become a teenager, and has developed a serious case of Attitude. He’ll tell a bully to his face that the latter is just a little jerk, hiding behind a big jerk! And if the jerks won´t back down, he´ll throw all three of them to the river! We see that he is still able to speak to animals, and has become something of a local superhero for the beasts who live around his house. At home, he is greeted by his ninja grandfather, from whom he has obviously inherited Attitude. Respect your elders, punk! You’re full of it, old man! Things escalate until the grandpa charges at Jirou with a family heirloom, a sword given to his family by a shogun of old. Later that day, a crow requests Jirou’s Good Samaritan services: There is a wounded cat in the forest in a pool of blood. Jirou nurses him back to health and reveals to him that he can talk, but guess what, this particular black cat is a mononoke, a cursed spirit. And furthermore, he has Attitude, too! Are you starting to see a pattern here, or have I to spell it out for you, bozo?

So, the animation of BLACK TORCH is pretty great, and the opening made me think of teenagers joining The Team, untangling dark webs of mysteries, having cool fights, and ultimately saving the world. Like every show that treats animals like humans, Jirou’s power creates a whole lot of questions. We see a crow being a good neighbor and fighting for the survival of the cat. Well, just what do cats eat in this reality? Still, this is a concept that resonates with a deep desire of the human heart, and I am willing to suspend my disbelief and hope that this conversation with all living creatures it will do something different for this shōnen. The dialogue and the depiction of the characters are where things start to get rough, though, and I will confess that this 20-minute episode episode felt quite long to me. Nevertheless, if you do not mind every character endlessly going “now listen here, you IDIOT!” every other scene as much as I do, you are left with a pretty inoffensive shōnen about a strong guy becoming even stronger and fighting supernatural creatures, somewhat in the vein of Jujutsu Kaisen. And the first monster is intimidating enough, but the tone is much less dark than that of Jujutsu. Sometimes it is straight up goofy, like when our protagonist has to fight shirtless (see the image above), but I found the fight still had stakes. You should in any case expect some blood splashing here and there. For me, though, the fact that everyone and his grandpa has Attitude makes the show unwatchable. You have a problem with that? Hum. I didn’t think so.

BLACK TORCH is streaming at Crunchyroll.