Tokyo revengers vol 1 by ken WaKui

While watching the news, Takemichi finds out his middle school girlfriend and her brother are killed by a fierce gang, the Tokyo Manji. He goes about his day, has another horrible time at work, and his on his way back home, he falls onto the subway tracks and gets transported back to his middle-school self. He comes back in time to be jumped into the Tokyo Manji gang with a few of his friends. He runs into Hinata, his girlfriend, and is determined to use this time-jump power to save her. Later, he finds Naoto, Hinata’s little brother, and he becomes connected to Takemichi’s power to time leap between present day and his past. The two of them must work together to stop the gang and save everyone.

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This was an entertaining story, and definitely one shōnen readers will enjoy. The pacing is pretty fast and keeps readers on the edge of their seat, but that means character development suffers a bit. Takemichi isn't really a compelling main character within the first volume, and I don't feel the sense of urgency to save a girl who has been out of his life for ten years. There are some nuggets of intrigue dropped throughout the first volume, like hints at the difficulty Takemichi went through to get out of the gang, so that will hopefully be explored later. For me, though, this probably suffered from being over-hyped, and I found it a little lacking. For a more compelling and suspenseful time-jump storyline, grab Kei Sanbe’s Erased.

Even though the protagonist goes back to being a middle schooler, this one is probably not suitable for middle grade readers. There are some references to masterbation, some smoking, and profanity sprinkled throughout, as well as the prevalent violence with emphasis on hand-to-hand combat, some of which is shown in detail on the page.

This is currently only available digitally through Kodansha, but Seven Seas recently licensed the print version, which is supposed to come out later in 2022.

Sara's Rating: 7/10
Suitability Level: Grades 10-12

Publisher: Kodansha Comics
Publication Date: October 16, 2018
ISBN: ebook only

​Tags: Rating: 7/10, Suitability: High School, Manga, Action Adventure, Science Fiction, Friendship, Mystery, ​Kodansha