Tokyo Revengers, Tsutomu Hanabusa

Por um escritor misterioso

Last updated 26 janeiro 2025

It’s probably unnecessary to note that Japanese (pop) culture, and more specifically its cinema today, has a sort of very vivid coolness and charm that often easily distinguishes it for international viewers. The escalating domestic box-office success of live-action manga adaptations is no exception, even if internationally, this burgeoning “genre” may still be more of a cult attraction with a diehard but niche target audience. This brief exordium offers context for Tsutomu Hanabusa’s Tokyo Revengers, which is adapted from a famous, ongoing Weekly Shōnen manga of the same name — created, written, and illustrated by the mangaka, Ken Wakui. The film follows the story of 20-ish protagonist Takemichi Hanagaki (Takumi Kitamura) who, after being pushed onto subway tracks in front of a rushing train, is suddenly and magically thrown ten years back into the past where he tries, in a familiar Orphean manner, to save the life of his high-school sweetheart Hinata (Mio Imada) who, alongside her younger brother, Naoto (Yôsuke Sugino), was a victim of violence involving the Tokyo Manji gang. This mission, then, to change the past by altering the gang’s course, offers the thematic crux of Tokyo Revengers: specifically, the necessity of love’s survival in a time […]