4:54 p.m. - Thursday, Dec. 16, 2010
Tokko Review 5/10
Okay people I'm back with my Anime Reviews. This time, I' planning on reviewing Tokko.
Alright, this is Tokko.
*The FOLLOWING ANIME IS SEINEN AND IS MEANT FOR AN ADULT MALE AUDIENCE, though others can enjoy it as well*
*PLEASE READ OTHER ANIME REVIEWS IN OLDER ENTRIES OR ABOVE IN ANIMEJOURNAL*
Okay, so I was watching this anime trying to figure out what to cover for this one. I though I would just go with the flow this time instead of just giving each part fully.
*Spoiler Alert*
Alright, so first I just want to say that the story is cliche. I'm going to be honest. It's typical for a Seinen. It's even typical for a Shonen. The only difference is in Shonens, the main characters aren't always losers, and usually get the girl in the end. Also,in shonens they are able to save the world. And in shonens, the "kiss" is always saved for the main girl. Tokko's story revolves around a young man named Shindo Ranmaru who decides to join Tokki, the local Metropolitan police. His first day is rough due to his hot-headed boss, Kaoru Kunikida. His is a typical man who is a "boss". He gives his "lower parts" a hard time and thinks he's big and bad, and so acts all fearless and instills fear in the lower ranks. Ranmaru is pretty typical too, a seemingly loser-guy who hasn't had a girl in awhile and joins the force to avenge his parents, who were killed when he was younger by some phantoms. He doesn't really do much but take care of his cute sister (who has a bodacious body). Warning: A great majority of the women in this anime have a bodacious body. And for all of you men who love to see naked women wet, you'll love Tokko. This seemed as if the women were designed to be specifically attractive but awesome at what they did (sexy, right?). A complete feast for men who love sexy women.
So, continuing with the story, Ranmaru has been having dreams about a half naked girl (figures right?) who wields a sword and kills all of the phantoms in his dreams, as he seems to dream of his past a lot. Eventually, he meets the girl and her partners: Sakura Rokujo, Kureha Suzuka, Takeru Inukai, and Ryoko Ibuki who are part of a Second Division called Tokko in the police department. Tokko is a mysterious part of the police force, only there to kill these specific "phantoms" that destroyed hundreds of people during the Machida incident, the same incident that Ranmaru's parents were killed, and to find several gold pieces so that they can construct and seal "the Box of Surge" which was allowing the demons to keep coming back to kill off the human race, or rather, make them a stronger species.
Think resident evil, and you've got the picture. A bunch of zombie-like phantoms who seem to serve no other purpose but to show up annoyingly and badger the main character into revealing his "true form". The main character is kind of "the one" who is supposed to wield all of this power but doesn't realize it yet. Tokko's main group consists of Symbiotes, people with gold pieces inside of them, and have phantom-like behavior. All 12 people who survived the Machida incident were symbiotes, and if awakened, could become these blade-wielding, powerful, super humans, who if angered enough, could become phantoms themselves.
Ranmaru throughout all of this was connected to a girl named Sakura Rokujo. Sakura seemed to share his gold piece, which I felt was a pathetic way to create a romance. It seemed rushed. He met her and then they had one scene together and then were in love. After awhile, we didn't even hear of the other girl who might have liked Ranmaru (Yukino). Sakura is also a powerful symbiote. She has a basic terrible past like most of the other characters. In fact, most of all of the symbiotes characters are set up the same way: they all are powerful humans who are out to avenge their parents, and their siblings. How uncreative. Sakura was out to avenge her brother, so was Suzuka, Inukai was out to avenge his sister, and at one point Ranmaru was out to avenge his sister. There might be some symbolic meaning behind it, but it's as if these people's siblings were their lives. Even more than their parents. And it wasn't like if it was a girl, she had a sister, or boy, he had a brother. It was paired off the exact same way.
So, with this anime, the story was pretty predictable, so were the characters.
Not only was the story predictable, but there were a lot of unanswered questions, a lot of random story plots, and random characters (Sakura included).
For instance, we were planted smack-dab in the middle of a problem with phantoms, but from the beginning, I didn't get the feeling there was disaster. The comedy scene between our main character and his hot sister gave the feeling that everything is peaceful...
I want to add to that by expressing my confusion as to why certain people are symbiotes and others aren't. It still doesn't make sense to me...
Random characters showed up mid-way in the story to help as symbiotes, but it just felt too random to me. I didn't understand their importance or why they weren't a part of Tokko.
Finally, I don't understand why the main love interest, Sakura, was kidnapped in this story. I understand she shared our hero's chip, but couldn't they have killed her and taken the chip from the very beginning?
The villain is the one thing that I really just couldn't take seriously and the one thing that bothered me. In all honesty, without a good villain, where is the story? He was average in his personality, but worse that that, he did random things a villain wouldn't do, like send all these phantoms out just to make Ranmaru mad enough to turn powerful (when he could've just kidnapped his sister to do so). I also found the scene where our main character "visits" the villain at his house long before the "big battle" at the end to be strange. Why didn't our hero try to kill him then? It was just awkward for him to be in this guy's house, not call for back-up, not use his "awesome" new abilities, and just walk out the front door as if he never met the villain...What a waste of a scene...And it really took the mystery and suspense away from the villain.
I'd say the only unpredictable thing was the fact that Ibuki turned out to be a regular human instead of a symbiote. But that also confused me because I thought they all could sense when someone was a symbiote...
The other shocking thing was just how important the police chief was to the story. That was thrown in there, but proved meaningless throughout it all.
Nothing was original about this anime. It was typical and it was confusing.
I did happen to find the action entertaining. Lots of blood and guts to appease your horror desire. Not completely out there, but your typical gore. The characters were also comedic, so that was pretty entertaining.
The story tried to elevate to a climax and tried to throw in curve balls and twists, so I applaud them for their efforts, but most of the time, I figured out who was who every time and most of the time it was just pointless.
I will acknowledge that I enjoyed the opening theme song "Nothing" by DB. It's pretty awesome. Possibly the best part of Tokko.
I don't recommend you waste your time on this anime. There's better out there, that's for sure. But there's plenty to screenshot, if you like the sexy girls.
I give it a 5/10, which means it's watchable, but it's not the best.
Tohru Fujisawa is the writer, and ironically, his first work was shonen. I can tell. Another thing that might also make someone feel like everything was a waste of time is the ending. All the hype and emotional upbuilding, and the ending just really wasn't satisfying.
~Over and Out~
