Episode 20 – Tokyo Revengers [2021-08-23]

There’s an old canard about shonen anime pacing that says you’re only allowed to have one thing happen per episode. That’s obviously an exaggeration, borne out of equal parts frustration or good-natured ribbing, but it’s also not entirely wrong. There are certainly some shonen battle series that, at least in some places, feel like they were stretched past the breaking point to fill out an ever-increasing episode count, at the expense of any tension or narrative momentum. That’s not quite the case for this episode of Revengers, but only because two things happen across these 20-odd minutes.

The rest is, unfortunately, a lot of padding. We get the requisite two-minute recap of last episode, followed by an extended sequence of Takemichi tripping ass over teakettle as he tries and fails to accomplish much of anything. I’ve joked before about just how ineffective our hero is in a…