REVIEW: ‘Tougen Anki’ Season 1 Is A Poor Facsimile Of Its Genre Betters

Tougen Anki Season 1 follows Shiki Ichinose (Kazuki Ura, Undead Murder Farce) as he is dragged into an age-long battle between Oni and the descendants of a human hero, the Momotaro. His journey won’t be easy, as he discovers he may play a crucial role in the ongoing conflict, putting a target on his head. 

From its first moments, this series establishes that it is looking to take viewers on an all-too-familiar journey. From the sudden attack that reveals the dangerous world of Onis to Shiki, to the closing moments of season one, little stands out creatively. This lack of originality creates a higher demand for quality—something the series fails at delivering. 

The quality struggles begin with Shiki himself. Loud, brash, and frequently annoying, the lead is hard to root for. He rarely tries to think about problems, preferring to settle things instinctively, as if he knows the plot won’t let him die. 

Shiki is a weak leading character in Tougen Anki Season 1.

Further undercutting the character’s story is the frequent aid he is given, making his initial underdog status feel ridiculous. Within a half dozen episodes, Shiki is the heir of a powerful bloodline, gifting him with incredible strength that puts him above almost everybody else. He struggles to control it, but that can be overwritten whenever it serves the story. And sadly, his supporting cast doesn’t pick up the personality slack that Shiki leaves behind him.

After surviving the opening moments of the story, in which his adopted father is killed protecting him, Shiki is sent to a school for Onis to learn how to use and control their powers. He is accepted into the class of the legendary Oni Mudano (Hiroshi Kamiya, Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero). Cut from a predictable cloth, Mudano is a harsh and externally cold teacher who deeply cares about his students, but has a hard time showing it. 

Mudano falls into line with virtually every other teacher at magical/supernatural/superhero school we’ve seen. He drives home his single focus of pushing his students so hard that it’s immediately clear that he can’t be that bad, because if he were, no one would meet his standards. The narrative seems to think that by doubling down on the familiar archetype, it will be better. But it’s not. It’s just as played out and unoriginal, just at a higher volume. 

Shiki’s classmates are one-note and profoundly obnoxious.

Filling out the rest of the core cast are Shiki’s classmates—misfits one and all who exhibit some profoundly obnoxious personality traits. From being oppressively protective to combative to the ninth degree, each of these characters devolves quickly into one-note cutouts who exist simply to remind us of their sole personality trait. A couple of brief flashes of combat success try to make a couple of class members stand out, but it’s not nearly enough. 

This group comes to comprise the biggest of Tougen Anki Season 1’s plethora of problems. For how little most of them contribute to the story, they stick around way too much. Fretting, panicking, or just annoying, the group seems incapable of getting out of its own way until the chips are down. Then, miraculously, they can make the last moment save, before immediately devolving into their normal selves. 

Building on the intolerable state of the cast is the collection of villains the class faces. The Momotaro are a group of psychos who, half the time, seem as eager to fight each other as they do their Oni opponents. Incapable of talking without hurling a violent threat every three seconds, the group’s complete disarray makes one wonder how the Oni are losing their war so badly. 

The action visuals are Tougen Anki Season 1’s only successful element.

This war tries hard to be the redeeming element of Tougen Anki Season 1. A wide array of powers delivers some striking visuals. The fact that every Oni power centers around blood manipulation ensures that plenty of memorable power designs go into each fight. However, the visual side of the battles is the only place the series succeeds, in terms of its action. 

Too many of the fights in this series are resolved through unpredictable means. Powers not previously shown or twists with powers that make no sense are frequently used to wrap a confrontation up. This only serves to remind the viewer that the hero is going to win, even if the story has to make up a way for it to happen. The plot armor is thick with this one. 

Weaving between the fights is a plot that, at its core, is fine. The steps it takes are largely predictable for anyone familiar with the genre, but they are basically good ones. However, the standard nature of the narrative isn’t nearly enough to incentivize tolerating the annoying cast. And the production even finds a way to insert some of the annoying energy of its cast into the narrative delivery, dragging down a rare okay element of the show. 

The narrator makes every story beat even harder to stomach.

The poison that infects the predictable storytelling comes from the narration. Not only does the narrator come out to explain new powers, a perfectly fine use for it, but it also comes along occasionally to clarify character feelings and plot points. This is terrible. 

Firstly, if there is one thing no one would accuse Tougen Anki Season 1 of, it’s subtlety. Every element of this series is done in all caps, bright red letters, and flashing lights surrounding it. Rarely could any explanation ever be needed. And even if there is a measure of subtlety in a character’s motivation or the circumstances of an event, let the audience figure it out. Trust that they will see what is being presented to them. Talking down to them and explaining what they just saw isn’t just bad and insecure from a writing perspective; it’s downright insulting to the viewer. 

Tougen Anki Season 1 is a shallow and predictable entry in the Shonen Battle genre at the best of times. Far too often, though, it devolves into obnoxious characterizations, narration that doesn’t trust the audience to see what is right in front of them, and fights that, while visually exciting, frequently resolve in unsatisfying ways. Even the most hardcore fan of the genre must be able to find something better to watch than this.

Tougen Anki Season 1 is streaming now on Netflix.