Tokyo Majin

When i watched this show, the first thing that came to mind was the power rangers. [Now in their 51thrd incarnation]
Each character has a specific personality ascribed to their colour. Red is the leader, and often the non elaborate speaking tough guy. Black is the strong quiet one, with ability but lack of leadership. Pink is the girl, soft spoken and motherly. Yellow is also a girl, but more tomboyish and violent. And blue is the soft spoken, intelligent guy. He is often the one to talk down Red.

Thats basically all this show is. Its what i call an advanced Shonen. It has all the basic character types as a shonen, with the stereotypical archtypes. Just with more blood. So basically there's an ancient evil {check one on the sterotypical plot contrivance list} and the heroes, several stereotypical teens with attitude {Check two.} are the only ones who can stop it.

Ok this annoyed me. I could leave this for the "J's Pet Peeves" section, but it bothered me a lot. When the Rangers....i mean.....um....Demon Buster Club, or whatever they were called by that stupid reporter girl, gain their powers by a random coincidence/ plot device called the Dragon Stream. Basically its the Lifestream from FF7. It embues our heroes with super powers....which they then never actually learn how to use. Its basically "Sweet! We're heroes now! Sure we dont know each other, and have nothing in common, but we can go fight demons! Woot!"
["We're so smart! No training For the win!"]
Ok, i gotta give this show props, when it does stuff well, it does it really well. The combat is fluid and well done. But that goes hand in hand with the lack of it. The battles don't actually ever last too long. Also, the wrestler? He left no impression on me so i don't know his name, but basically the Black Ranger. He never does anything. He's absolutely worthless.

Not that that had anything to do with anything, but, seriously the combat is good, but never frequent enough. The animation does a good job of portraying horror, but at times it just gets ugly. You'll have a shot of some zombies, and BOOM they look freaky and dead and stuff. Then next thing you know, shablam, they look like roadkill. Its jarring and obnoxious.

The plot was interesting at first, and i sort of wish they had actually had more episodes. They have about two episodes set for fighting each demon, and each time they flesh out back story behind the people who become them. Its actually good story telling, despite the fact that the main characters are never actually fully fleshed out. I refer to them by their power ranger colour from here on in. Red is automatically a dick to everybody, but spurts good sense at the drop of the hat. He keeps the team together despite the fact it was probably him who broke them up in the first place. And thats all we get. Red and Black basically have no background at all, relying on the other characters to carry them in plot.

I know there;s a second season but still, i wish the first had been longer. So instead of something that could have been REALLY good, is now just ok. Its still entertaining, still well done. Although the Dub has a lot of flaws. Since i usually watch the Sub, i cant usually comment on this kind of thing, as i dont understand the ins and outs of Japanese, i really cant judge a voice actor by their performance. For all i know they suck and im giving them gold trophies. But for this dub i will have a rating.

Animation: B [very interesting, more realistic than most other styles. Often gets ugly, and human anatomy is horribly mangled in these parts, with necks growing to giraffe lengths. Its odd, but not bad at all. Also each demon is designed individually, and they all look both awesome and terrifying. My personal favorite was the Crow demon.]

Story: C+ [Demons arent very original, so you need to pump that extra gusto into a story with such a familiar plot premise. Tokyo Majin could have done this, but as it is, it gets crammed into 14 episodes, for a show that should have spanned 30 or more. So plot gets violated and a huge amount of Deus Ex Machina occurs just to keep things running. Then they ignore explanation, and hid it in a box under a foot of melted steel and lead. I cannot stress how annoying it is, as a fan, so want to understand the world that Tokyo Majin is set in. What is the Dragon Stream really? What is the borisatfa eye? Who made it, where did it come from? We get hints, but no explanations. But even with all that the plot can carry its own, and is enjoyable to sit through. If your not to picky about stuff and dont rage out.]
[So yeah, its not for 90% of the internet....stay out trolls.]

Voice Acting: C [The main enemy, Tendo, or whatever his name is, is voiced by Vic Mignogna, also known for his role as Edward Elric in Full Metal Alchemist. He is very well done and articulated, an extremely talented voice actor, right up there with Crispin Freeman in my books....ok maybe a tad below but still, he kicks major amounts of butt. The rest of the cast, does not. They even have big names in the cast like Andrew Love, Illich Guardiola, Stephanie Wittels....Its not by any means a group of newcomers. They have loads of talent, and yet, they couldn't phone it in. But do you know what doesn't surprise me? The fact that every single voice actor has struck Tokyo Majin from their resume. Check IMDB, nobody wants to touch it.]

Action: B [not much to say about this. I wish there was more of it, and i wish there were more episodes.]

Characters: C [The main enemy is fleshed out, as if the quiet Blue, and Pink rangers...i mean....whatever. But everybody else is kind of.......not there. Other characters i enjoyed barely appeared at all, like the teacher, Miss Alucard for example. [Dracula spelled backwards.] It was unsatisfying, but still it was all right.]

Music. B+ [I've got to give it up for this show, the music is good. It resonates cleanly with the show, being spooky when necessary, and calm when it needs to be. I guess im a sucker for classical music. That and traditional Japanese music is naturally freaky for some reason.]

Overall: B [could have been so much better, and i know, yes i know, that there is a second season. But i will not watch it....well maybe i will. But no review on it.]

And now for my favorite part, J's Pet Peeves.
Two for this one.
1: Why is it that Red and Blue can jump out of a third story window and survive? Human bodies dont work like that. And this was before they get their powers, so no excuses, its just lazy story telling.
2: Why does the Reporter Girl, Anko, exist. I know her name because my ire for her is like the heart of a rage volcano. She. Serves. No. Purpose. She gets in the way, she tells them information they should already know, but dont. She whines and moans and screams and just acts stupidly. Did i mention shes voiced by Brittney Karbowski? The one woman whose had more roles than almost anybody but still sounds terrible? She is a horrible voice actor. She was in Pani Poni Dash too, and almost ruined the show for me. That is partly why i watch subs, because Brittney Kabowski cant be in them then. Annnd looking over her resume there are a lot of shows that i WANT to watch, but now im afraid too because shes in them. Wish me luck on those.

Until next time, J out.
Next review: Kanon