Dub Talk 261: Tokyo Revengers

0:00 disclaimer this episode may contain language and adult situations that aren't appropriate for all audiences listener discretion is advised this episode also contains spoilers for the series tokyo revengers and possibly other anime film and manga properties keep this in mind as you listen and finally opinions express are those the individual participants and may not reflect those of the dub talk podcast as a whole so with that out of the way sit back and enjoy tonight's episode tokyo revengers [Music] hello fellow thugs and crooks and

0:46 welcome to a brand new episode of dub talk where a bunch of nerds get together and talk about the latest and greatest in english dubs and voice over um i am your host tonight patrick aka roots um joining me today is none other than lilac the only reason why you're in charge is because you won [ __ ] roshambo and i'm still pissed about it damn straight i did and we also have jets fight fight fight fight fight fight fight [ __ ] we're going this is sounding like a mosh pit on his own [Laughter]

1:34 well tonight if you couldn't guess from us bringing on our tough selves um the show we will be covering is none other than a tokyo revengers last year's hit crime drama about time traveling motorcycle punks should be cray or as honma says at one point patch [ __ ] cray cray um so i have a plot description in front of me courtesy of anime news network watching the news takamichi hanugaki learns that his girlfriend from way back

2:21 in middle school hinda tachibana has died the only girlfriend he ever had was killed by a villainous group known as a tokyo manji gang he lives in a crappy apartment with thin walls and his six years younger boss treats him like an idiot at the height of his rock bottom life he suddenly time leaps 12 years back into his middle school days safe hinata and changed the life he spent running away hopeless part-timer takamichi must aim for the top of kanto's most sinister delinquent gang uh yeah that's quite a purpose but i think but i feel like you but i feel like i've made a mistake there it's just not the cookie magic gig it's just a tokyo gang [Laughter]

3:09 [Music] pronounce the name because mikey uh it's gonna come up actually you get you you both are wrong it's the tokyo ah my eyes i'm blind gang if there's ever a home video released for this one i'm curious to know what the [ __ ] they're going to do with it i mean japan got an uncensored broadcast

3:56 so in any case um since we are talking about a show about gangs um in order to make a dub you kind of need a gang of people uh this is our adr crew um unfortunately due to the nature of in which crunchyroll casts their um announces their cast and staff we only have one name uh that is the name of our avr director which is david walsh um you would know him from such works as um the adr sequences for power rangers um the season's turbo through wild force uh he did work on digimon

4:42 and a little bit of a deep cut technoman which is the english language version of an anime known as tecaman blade i've never heard of that one before i don't think yeah yeah i mean i i mean literally the only reason i was talking about blade isn't because i owned tanzanoka versus capcom which is a very criminally underrated game ah yeah you've never lucky i've never heard but as a side note when we talk digimon we're talking like the og digimon

5:28 correct um yes digital monsters okay so um which is actually kind of in i bring that up for a very interesting point um if you really stop and think about it um the dub for tokyo revengers kind of had that mid-2000s saban feel to it oh yeah totally oh actually it does and it works very well given the fact that time travels involved and most of the series takes place in 2005 2005. yeah quote unquote present day is like 2017 so it's 12 years so that makes a lot of sense

6:14 yeah yeah there is a pretty bad decent amount of uh colorful uncomfortable language of the show much of it actually must have been actually straight from cultural something else in fact which is kind of surprising oh really yeah i didn't watch the japanese so yeah yeah i didn't want yeah i did watch a fair chug a bit of japanese it's not like obviously it's not like a direct one for one but like and surprising came out of the colorful language it was actually just like ingredients subtitle track to begin with interesting about to say because i really do this is probably more on the credit of the writer whoever our mystery writer is i really love the slang and like the like thug gangster talk that was used in there because this is a group of [ __ ] punks

7:00 the thing i like about it is it doesn't necessarily date anything listen i like that oh yeah i was about to mention that like yeah yeah there's a lot of like yeah i think they use a lot of swag and swears but it doesn't sound like going below do you like any okay at the very least it's okay it's not like super modern slang but it's not like super old either it's it's kind of like yeah i can believe these teenagers introduce these specific swear words and like yeah 2005. yeah it kind of hits that fun little that nice little sweet spot really that nice little sweet spot which makes this dub much more accessible to really like almost any generation whether it's mid-2000s or even now honestly so

7:45 yeah uh there is only one minor complaint i have here with the language there were no iphones i mean i i understand why that's a little disappointing but i also kind of like it look it is look it is very it's it's similar to the whole like situation we're using persona 5. it is very click and it's very clear they want the character to use the f5 they're looking forward to we're talking dj says some so that's how to go online athletes or whatever but he can't say the exact word it's like just let him do it you just want to do it guys what's hilarious is you guys have heard about that video of um panty and stocking but it's only them saying [ __ ] every like every oh yeah

8:32 there's also one for uh black lagoon right like you could say you could do something similar and i'm wondering if that if this exists yet or not where every every scare time in tokyo avengers someone says [ __ ] because that is the farthest of the hard language that we get is the word [ __ ] and it's constant so it's like come on come on just one end ball just the one don't be satisfied honestly wondering if at some point before you know the whole crunchyroll funimation like super merger thing happened if there were like actual plans for this to go on like adult swim because it certainly showed up on hbo max i mean

9:19 i mean uh there's nothing stopping that from happening anyway about to say there's true reason why it wouldn't end up on there eventually honestly i think you would have a fun time on toonami but i think i think the other point though despite all of like the all like the hard-hitting punk kind of gang kind of stuff this show it doesn't stray away from comedy because there are some fun comedic moments in there most of them are a comedy of errors nine times out of ten which is great yep i really want to i really think it should be commended for the directing the writing and also the actors themselves there you wouldn't think that there is but there's a lot of really hard-hitting emotional moments in

10:04 the show yeah um one thing i really have to commend particularly with the uh with the script writing with our unknown writer is um this show goes through a lot of emotional whiplash oh yeah like you have really sublime moments uh kind of the rug is absolutely pulled out from under you multiple times and like everybody just gets shellacked with all of this awful [ __ ] that ends up going down and uh one thing i absolutely have to commend is when the show is meant to be funny

10:53 it is very snappy very bantery very [Music] realistic to an extent i i don't know how like teenage street punks in japan would would treat each other but i don't know okay okay no i was gonna breathe until now but like this show is very similar to um okay there's gonna be a weird code but this is the show it's very similar to saint saying where like you have to suspend your or like it takes a surprising amount of suspension of this belief to believe these characters are like 13 or 14 year olds true listen you have to suspend your disbelief with disbelief with how the [ __ ] time travel horseshit works all right there's like we already have this okay

11:39 okay i mean okay look i'm not okay look i don't know anything about japanese motorcycle vlog but i'm just saying i don't think 14 year olds would be running around with motorcycles they weren't even 14. they weren't even 14. because remember there are flashbacks well the youngest people which i think is like bhaji khazatora and paw or like [ __ ] they were like 12. i don't think that's how motorcycle law works in japan but it may have been in the mid-2000s i don't know sure not mid-2000s like early 2000s really for that case like jesus like all right japan [ __ ] why are we doing that here in america and then when it decides to punch you in the gut um it feels like raw emotion or it or when

12:25 it wants to um stab you in the back i had to we know i had to or the gut or mostly in the back any of the other or upside the head oh yeah with a middle pipe yeah a few times poor poor poor mikey poor mikey sometimes the emotions hit you like a semi or or a train like in um the first episode for takamiji yeah or a [ __ ] humvee i guess i don't know i don't remember what i don't even

13:12 remember what that car was halfway through yeah [ __ ] smoosh tina a humvee maybe okay i just realized something it was definitely a hammer it looks like it yeah what's up i just realized something awful oh no what oh boy does tokyo revengers one up truck [ __ ] like more ways than one train [ __ ] hummer [ __ ] pipe [ __ ] even [Laughter]

13:57 [Music] i think we can generally come to the consensus though that oh yeah actually you know what um there is one complaint that i actually have oh i have a call too i'm wondering if it's the same it's kind of a rampant problem with particularly studiopolis dubs and that is the double and sometimes triple casting with the secondary and tertiary cast or in one person's case i'm pretty positive quadruple there's a yeah yeah i will say yeah i will say it is definitely not as bad as you two kind of said it's at least not as noticeable as it was it

14:42 is it yes yeah yeah the very least it's not like named characters who are doubled up right so like well hold on we can't even say that because the case there's one case in particular it's not i think there's a couple of younger versions of some characters played by actors in the main cast and then there are like secondary [Music] characters also played by main cast members well there's one there's one actor who i'm pretty positive has played four or five roles in this including one of the the um tauman captains potentially one of the antagonists from

15:29 an upcoming arc maybe um because it's a leader of like a rival gang or some [ __ ] and then at least a couple of minor characters and this is an actor who can be very distinct it's just enough of a difference that you this is yeah yeah but uh yeah i mean by one i mean my one counterpoint is that it is early enough that that it's really enough that they might get recast we want to do those rules anyway but yeah what happens well we'll see and i mean yeah if you guys yeah it's gonna be kind of like bottomed off with that so like it's not as egregious as jiu jitsu kaisen where i think there was like two or three instances of keith silverstein interacting with himself as different characters oh yeah that that's

16:16 the the principal versus the principle of mechabarry thing is oh yeah oh yeah that's that's a bad one like it's not as egregious as that but it's still noticeable enough yeah it is a problem especially with at least the actor that i'm thinking of in my head where he potentially has to i'm thinking play twins maybe question mark at one point because again this goes back to one of the tellmon captains and then what looks to be like a twin we don't see that when like we only see that twin like maybe for like a split second but it's like uh to be fair designs also kind of blend at times yeah this one is noticeable

17:03 hair be either pink or blue yeah yeah one of the things i will say is that like why do you think that uh why do you think that it hit all the movements it needed to there were like a few ports where i thought the direction could be like a little jk every now and then maybe like a few awkward line reads here and there was it like you know is that i mean i mean wasn't like you know super disruptive or anything but it didn't kind of have that weird mid-2000s quality in that sense as well yeah but honestly like i'm willing to give kind of adds a little charm to it in that respect yeah yeah that was basically where i was gonna go with it i can i can give it a free pass to an extent because specifically

17:49 2005 is a major plot point in the show yeah yeah yeah that's right yeah and at least there's enough of a different different difference in um distinction and some language between 2005 japan versus the 2017 aka present in the show so it's enough of a difference to make it distinct i guess um i didn't have as much of an issue of it i honestly liked this dub more than i thought it was going to and the show in general like i'm just like oh okay i like it but i think the directing is solid minus like a couple of minor issues but yeah i mean if all we have to really

18:36 like if our only critique is like little nitpicks like you're you're doing something right yeah i will say yeah i will say the dub didn't hold up better about like myrie watson like that same same for me too it held up a lot better when i rewatched it all right um so with that i think we're gonna go ahead and start introducing the characters um i'm gonna do things a little bit differently if you've listened to our other world picnic episode or any of the or any of the other dub talk retro episodes that noah has done um you might get a general sense of how i'm going to be doing this um i'm going to introduce everybody at once but we're really going to

19:22 talk about a handful of characters at a time um so i'm gonna go ahead and start with um who we're going to be covering with um valhalla and mobius uh we have nobutaka osanai um formerly one of the acting leaders of the gang he leaves after he's stabbed but also provides critical information about tita kisaki both in two thousand like both in sort of interrogations in 2005 and in 2017 they basically provide important clues that help you know takamichi figure figure out a little bit more about this guy and while we're on the subject

20:08 uh taita kisiki is a former member of mobius uh more or less sort of a hidden leader within the group and he after tauman wins a fight with them he is brought into their ranks as the third division captain basically to bolster the ranks of talman and foster good relations between the two gangs as a fun side note the only reason why kisiki is now the third division captain is because the third division captain known as paw got his ass arrested for stabbing osanai so there is a very complicated kisi has a complicated plan involved here he is involved in that so and he's

20:56 orchestrated all of this [ __ ] not only has he orchestrated his rise within both mobius and tauman um he has also organized orchestrated the murder of hinata tachibana at least twice so far in the story yep as far as we know of successfully mind you yup kisa keys um [ __ ] rap bastard also i'm i'm just gonna throw this out because it's in my notes um even at the end of where the first season ends i have a very strong suspicion but can't confirm that his um his 2017 self is actually to some degree aware that

21:42 takamiki is able to time travel oh i was literally waiting tires i was only waiting the entire show for the shoe to drop that oh he could tie trouble too i literally thought that was going to be the cliffhanger that's my guess as well yeah i mean because there are like a few i mean because there definitely are like a few well actually not even settled it's like very few they're definitely clues scattered around that kind of makes it aware that he's at least somewhat aware of what takami she's doing or at least immediately suspicious of him he at least knows that he knows something yeah yeah he knows the [ __ ] of me to know something and he was also there during like a few during a couple of key events where it would be weird for him to be there unless he was like actively on the top

22:28 of eg that's true yeah we need more scenes let's go japan yeah um continuing down my list we've got shiji honma who was an enforcer for the mobius street gang later made acting leader of the valhalla gang and then after the fight with the valhalla gang um he is brought into toman and then again orchestrated by tata kisiki right and in 2017 he's part of the upper echelon for telmon at that point yep uh we have kazutora hanamiya uh he's a founding member of tomon and one of another character bhaji's oldest friends uh he turns his back on the gang when a

23:13 simple heist for a motorcycle turns tragic um and his death is the trigger point for hinata's second murder and then we also have um atsuchi sendo who is one of takamichi's best friends um he becomes involved with tomon after the events takamichi alters and he was personally involved in the pushing takamichi into a train like he was the one who actually pushed him um and in the second timeline he murders hinata by running a um like a hummer into her car

23:59 hummer [ __ ] from and moving on to the tokyo manji gang um we have manjuro sano aka mikey he's the commander of the tokyo manji gang he's carefree in 2005 but he grows absolutely reckless in the first two 2017 timelines and in the third they bring up in the final episode he's just flat out gone and nobody knows where he is um and takamichi's goal in life is to rise to the ranks of leader of toman in order to save mikey from himself yep uh and then we have kenryuguji aka drakken also aka best player of the show

24:48 um he is tauman's second in command and mikey's best friend um in the first timeline his death is the trigger point for the first set of murders with hinata and takanichi uh we have keisuke baji who is the leader of tauman's first division who defects for valhalla um more or less to investigate the goings-on of tata kisiki because he gets the feeling something very very sketchy is going on with that guy yep but he has to keep it a secret from just about everyone uh but there is someone

25:33 who figures out what's going on and that is chiefu matsuno he's bhaji's second in command of tomon's first division um he's also trying to gather intel on tafikisuki um he's kind of unaware that bhaji's doing his own thing so he's trying to save baji so he's trying to say bhaji bhaji's trying to figure out what's going on with kisaki and it's just all this big mess of misunderstanding that ultimately leads to bhaji's death poor body all right and next up we have uh the tachibanas uh hinata and naoto uh hinata is takabichi's girlfriend in

26:19 2005 and her her murder is basically the linchpin to get all this time travel shenanigans started and naoto is sort of the trigger point for takamichi's ability they shake hands takamichi goes to the pass when he's in the pass he shakes hands with past snauto he goes back to the future um he is a cop in 2017 and he's trying to get to the bottom of hinata's murder and basically keep it from happening in the first place which is also the objective of our protagonist takamichi hanakaki a 26 year old washout who gains the ability to time travel 12 years in the past and he joins telmon with the intent of

27:05 becoming its leader in order to save hinata there we go that's a lot of people and that's not even scratching the surface that's at least the major characters of this season like that's just the characters with enough that we can cover tonight oh yeah there's a lot so let me run down this list of actors so are we starting with valhalla and mobius yeah i'm basically gonna just run all the way up all right um let's go so atsushi sendo is played by john omahundro uh you would know him from such things as yusuke tashiro and noble s and danny vasquez in the western cartoon bravest

27:51 warriors um okay cozy torah hanamiya is played by joe zeja who you would know from such characters as bumblebee and transformers were for cybertron he's a morrowind katsuki token rambu and the writer of red and fade apocrypha uh shuji hanma is played by zeno robinson you would know him as hawks from my hero academia remy from the western cartoon big city greens and brawler and akudama drive um tita kisaki we have a feeling we know who he is but as of right now he is uncredited so unfortunately can't name past roles because we don't know who's playing him but he's important enough that we have to cover uh nobutaka osanai is played by keichi

28:37 tang you would know him as archer in fate say knight unlimited blade works and heaven's feel uh he's big g in the stand by me door i'm on films also the doraemon cartoon series but i don't know if that's streaming anymore uh and goro yadagarasu in lupon the third part five uh chifuyu matsuno is played by adam mcarthur you would know him as yuji todori and jiu-jitsu tyson ricky and patrick in shadow's house and marco diaz in the western cartoon starring the forces of evil uh casey bhaji is played by lucian dodge you would know him as akaza and demon slayer kimetz uh he is waver velvet or lord l malloy ii depending on which uh which ones you watch um

29:22 in fate zero and the lord l malloy the second case files uh he's also omaro rey in the mobile suit gundam origin reboot and also mobile suit gundam hathaway drakken is played by sean shiplock you would know him as rivali and the legend of zelda breath of the wild subaru natsuki and re-zero and yuki machima in persona 5. uh mikey is played by alex lee you would know him from such roles as kaiman in doro hiduro sedro akashi and kiroko's basketball and zenitsu agatsuma in demon slayer kimetsu uh naruto tachibana is played by griffin patau you would know him as lewis and b stars uh hop in pokemon twilight wings

30:08 and natsu yukazee in number 24. i hope i got that name right um hinata tachibano is lizzy freeman you would know her as trishuna in jojo's bizarre adventure golden wind cardinal in sword art online alicization and kotako and kotako iwanaga in inspector and finally mainly the reason the reason i'm hosting this episode in the first place because i promised him i would do it um is played by aj beckles you would know aj beckles from such roles as joko love in the 2021 reboot of shaman king tatamaru in kimono jihan and musashi in the

30:53 currently in production dub of orient all right so how this is going to work is i'm going to basically separate this into moby's valhalla tokyo manji gang protagonists and we're gonna probably spend like a half an hour on each okay let's do it so let us begin with mobius and valhalla so that's osunai kisiki hanuma uh casatora and akun correct yes i i have things kind of sectioned out so it should be that's something yeah if you yeah i feel like you could probably start without an eye first that's probably the quickest conversation probably he's not in there too too much

31:40 yeah yeah i mean hey i mean it's kg tag gonna be the best easy bad performance not really no no but the thing i really like about osanai is kg tang really gets the sort of the performance arc of [ __ ] around and finding out oh yeah yeah i definitely do love the contrast between herself and his older self yeah like not just his younger self and his older self his younger self his second time his second timeline past self and then his first timeline future we have we have essentially there are three major interactions with osanai there's 2017 present osanai

32:26 at least during the first half of the show where um takamichi and naoto are doing some investigating about the incident on august 3rd um where drakken is murdered and that's what happened in the first timeline and they meet 2017 osanai who was this pathetic washout similar to takamichi at the start of the show essentially and then you go back to 2005 right before the august third incident where you get to meet younger osun i who is this punk like cocky little [ __ ] and it's great and then you have once drakken is saved in that timeline you have

33:12 um around the bloody halloween incident where takamichi and chifuyu are doing some investigation into kisiki and this is one of osana is a bit more relaxed he's not as much of a punk confident self and he's just trying to get his [ __ ] back together right he's trying to like get himself on the right track again especially after all the [ __ ] he dealt with with kisiki because kisik is a snake oh yeah he's a [ __ ] snake yeah i mean also i imagine um getting sad would probably you know make you rethink your life choices just a bit i would think so just a bit i would very much think so i would hope

33:57 so for uh osanai's sake but no like those are three different distinct moments in osunai as a character and kg is a kg 100 was able to portray each of those integral moments not just for exposition or plot purposes but to showcase osana's progression yeah and and the part i like about it the most is you maybe spend about 10 minutes with each of his selves and you get that complete sort of sort of character arc with him yeah oh yeah that was very fascinating again man i thought you didn't do that with that god i i really wish we had

34:44 an actor to go with tatikisuki and i i hope this person is like listening to this episode because man yeah i will yeah i will say if it is okay i will say if it is that person i definitely a little surprised i'm not i said i definitely never heard that actor do a build role before i mean i believe i i can't even really hear them as like protagonists maybe like the most antagonistic thing they've done is maybe being a like rival-ish character on like an enemy team or something yeah not like the big bad yeah yeah is set up as far as we know of as the main villain of the entire thing and i mean you look at the at the final

35:31 episode of the series where he's basically like shooting takamichi in the leg and chief with you in the head headshot yeah yeah i will say think i will say i do think he i don't want to say he needed time to like uh get into character per se but i will say i did think like he had like maybe a couple of like cheeky libraries in the beginning maybe like trying to figure out exactly i guess like how rough or intimidating he needs to sound any particular movement but i think but i think like by the time we got to like the bloody halloween battle he had like a good handle on what he wanted to do and from there but he saw him yeah because we don't even hear we don't even hear his keys talk until the second half of the show where

36:17 he gets introduced as the new third division captain for telmon the only other time we see him is either one in pictures at naoto's place or a brief run-in as like takimici and him are passing by each other and even then kisiki doesn't really say anything yeah so i think it's his like two lackeys that end up saying more but yeah there was like one brief conversation he has where i guess uh he uh where i guess was like right before the president where apparently he ordered dracon to commit some kind of murder and that was like the first time we ever heard a voice oh yeah there is that yeah yeah but otherwise that's basically until the second half no you're right because

37:03 kakumichi now took over natto finds out that drawkins on death row for some sort of murder and they go to visit him and we have that small flashback from drakken about him killing someone and then um [ __ ] kisiki saying something to him so yeah that is the first time we hear but like no we didn't we do we spent like the first half of the show not really getting anything i think the first half more for the purposes of the show i think is more to establish um not just takamichi's role in this but i think to establish mikey and drakken more than anything in the first half which makes a lot of sense given like because the relationship between mikey and

37:48 drakken is a huge thing throughout the course of the first season so if that's not like given the time to establish the importance of that it's gonna fall apart so it makes a lot of sense for that to be established but no casey he's a [ __ ] snake yeah [ __ ] snake i hate him but that means he's really good oh yeah but i don't say like something everything's gonna give me a good guide of i don't know suspicions good something i kind of found like interesting isn't it like isn't even like necessarily the character itself but that's kind of like boy the man goes through a lot of hairstyles over the course of the show you're right because the supposed early kisiki

38:35 we find out through osanai's flashback during chifuyu and um takamichi's investigation and how like osanai first meets kisakee and he looks like this super [ __ ] nerd but like the black man they're just like unassuming [ __ ] right he's clutching his bag just like i can help you like pushing like pushing his glasses up his nose i can help you it's like this really [ __ ] i don't know if the word is pimp or this like it's a yeah yeah the next time you see him he has like the he had like this good head look oh yeah and then like in the end of this and the uh present day version is just like

39:23 oh what up i'm a rich [ __ ] gangster it's like oh my god baby why didn't you come have a drink with me oh yeah he tries very hard a little too hard he he's like he he believes himself to be hot [ __ ] that's what this is i love the fact that his 2017 self is basically just this smooth operator [Music] you can tell that kisiki has this presence and charisma about him and that's why he's able to get where he is in present day he's very intelligent and he has that charisma which makes him very dangerous i think the best part about the

40:08 performance is um you know like with osanai like you actually get a bit of a progression with him because in the past like he is abs you can tell he's sort of sniveling conniving oh yeah just a backstabber and then you get to the last episode and the flashback with drakken oh yeah and you can absolutely see like all of that has gotten to his head and he is just cocky as [ __ ] yeah because in his mind he has won because now if only he could do something about that takamichi [ __ ] oh no kisiki's a [ __ ] snake i hate him but i love him

40:53 [Laughter] he's such a great villain and like also as sort of the you know pardon the pun but the dragon of mobius in the first ark like zeno as hanma oh boy like man oh boy you want to talk about like absolute outward ruthlessness i just realized on my notes that's not cool oh yeah so like that's actually so kevlar so it's a bluetooth actor this is actually kind of like the first time i've really heard zetta with a villain role like psychosis that's i mean like the closest thing to an antagon antagonistic character or i

41:39 could think of him playing would be no i didn't even know brawler into knocking up a drive wouldn't even come from probably the great guy no brawler's a good dude the closest maybe in terms of mentality to honma i might argue vonnie tossed a little bit on that okay but yeah but valuetalk is a hero so vanitas is the hero but like when you think about someone funny one some of anita's actions and in the tone sometimes that zeno takes on for the character again i haven't started season two yet but in the first season it can light up a little bit with honma that's like the closest you can get but ham is just like way out there like harm is like leagues away he's on the other side of the football field

42:24 compared to body tests oh yeah like i have that comparison yes but honma is just like way on the other side of the field and it works i i absolutely love the sinister air that just comes off of hanma yep it's so good like particularly with the um kind of start of the second timeline in the future like right when um right when he not is about to be murdered again yep because takimiji runs into him without knowing it oh yeah oh shoot you were supposed to be elsewhere it's just such a calm

43:14 yeah it's always just like oh you were supposed to be in the car oh well and then you compare it to 2005 honma who's [ __ ] nuts oh man it's like very unsettling and xeno can be good with unsettling like have you guys have you guys watched bunga and alchemist yet at all potentially uh not yet but it's on my mind one or two episodes i think so i this i've talked about it before with megan when we did bunga and alchemist um because he plays osama dazai in that and there's the story of um no longer a human that that is like a two-parter uh in the latter half of the

44:01 show where zeno gets to be like this sinister like like psychotic person it's not to that extent because that's just oh it's over dramatic but but there's purpose to that honma is a little bit dialed back and it's a bit more subtle but i can see yeah you know and it's like holy [ __ ] also i love i love when he says he calls cozy torah batshit cray cray because it's like [ __ ] you have no room to talk and you know that like it also fits in terms of like actual something you would actually say in like 2005. oh for sure

44:48 yeah totally oh 100 percent i said yeah but i definitely do appreciate ghettos it's like overall demeanor says where is that where is that where is this or this guy where it's like he's not just where he knows he's not the one on top of everything but he definitely knows how to like get things done and how to command his band oh yeah he is very on top of things he also has that charisma not as much as kisiki does because the hanuma is a straight-up pawn for kissing yeah i think one of my favorite i think one of my favorite little bits is that like the bloody halloween battle was about to start and they're like going over like all the terms and stuff mm-hmm that's as i added to adidas and he's just like ready to go

45:34 oh i was just ready to kick some [ __ ] pick some ass but um wasn't it uh wasn't it kazutora who like punches the arbiter out like which man like i i've been a fan of joe's aegis since fate apocrypha but yeah yeah uh uh yeah i'm not gonna lie and do you like actually show me the granite woods i actually didn't know it was him i kept thinking it was griffin birds because they sound very similar yeah um i was actually confused for a little bit because um landon mcdonald is also credited as kazutora but i think that's his younger self oh probably yeah that would make sense

46:21 i i was like i don't like i could pick up that was joe right away honestly because i'm like is just a punk version of claude from three hours okay okay okay okay yeah when i saw it with your days i was like it's like okay yeah that's simply his name but like i can't think it was gonna burn because like yeah they have similar voices that i know griffin birds did like a lot of sunniopolis stuff and i was also pretty sure he was like baby drock and so i was like okay it's probably griffin burns and i was like oh okay it's on him but no this is for punk clawed for gangster clutch it's that's the cl that's like that's how my brain is equating to this right now like uh that's a uh oh yeah uh to which um

47:07 i got the door on my is probably one of the most tragic characters we've seen yeah i don't know what it is he's a very tragic character his whole situation is pretty messed up on the other hand like the way he goes about it it's just like the way he copes with it yeah the way he comes with it just makes him so extremely punchable oh it is it's like literally if all of the bad things that happened to him he also kind of brings on himself yes like he's the one who killed mikey's brother right it was a presumed act of self-defense but okay no it was not a presumed act of

47:52 self-defense because mikey's brother was having an interaction with bhaji right because the torah just comes in and just whacks him on the head to def he comes in to defend the defense to presumably defend baji but then he realizes oh yeah he [ __ ] up yeah but which i guess that's more on the side of his younger self played by another actor but still since we're talking about the character it's it's one of those interesting things because um kazutora in terms of what we know about these characters so far has probably the most tragic story of the cast because not only do we have the whole thing where he killed mikey's brother out of a mix of accident and self-defense um we learned that

48:38 his parents were in a very abusive relationship at a very young age and his his mom [ __ ] [ __ ] um had to make made causatory choose like whose side he was gonna be on mom or dad and then just everything that he was dealing with kind of just like bubbled up for him yeah yeah so now he has like now he blames everything on mikey it's not even just mikey it's just like it is very clear that it's just like something in him is just kind of like broken to the point where like he can where his way to cope with things is to just blame other people right he sees yeah he has a really big like hero villain complex oh yeah

49:26 like that's his way of coping because he hasn't been able to like face what has happened to him or what he's done so in all respects he's one of the more tragic characters of this of this first season because of that um bhaji i would think is a close second in terms of the second half honestly but um but no like joe joe zija is just such a fun performance it's punk claude i keep saying that but like those tragic pieces are very important because when because kazutor stabs bhaji right that's what

50:11 kicks off that next timeline anyway but he also still stabs bhaji in the 2005 bloody halloween incident that takemichi is trying to prevent and he's just sitting there as baji is like slumped over on a bunch of [ __ ] junk in cars and he's just like it's not me it wasn't me that uh he's like mumbling to himself like he's like he's trying to figure out and process what has just happened because similar in a way to when he killed mikey's brother right it's very similar and you can see he's trying to process it but in his mind he he was he killed bhaji because he was betrayed by bhaji that's what was going on in his

50:57 head yeah because i think it is that [Music] uh kisaki calls hanma to let him know to get rid of bhaji basically han mata calls cause of torah to let kazutora know yeah bhaji's a [ __ ] traitor kazutora takes that to heart because the two of them are very close and that's what sets kazutara off in order to still to um stab bhaji so yep kazutora is a very very fragile person and i gotta say like the definitive moment for me with him is like at the very end i think it's like episode 22 when um takamichi and drakken are

51:44 talking to him in prison yes uh yeah when he yet when he like finally yeah when he's finally realized like oh yeah i am responsible for all this he's finally taking he's finally taking accountability for his actions which unfortunately he takes at first a little too far where he's just like yeah i will take responsibility for all of this and then drakken immediately calls him the [ __ ] out on that because he knows what's going to happen and i think again that goes back to one of the points where i think kazatura is probably one of the more tragic characters we've we meet in this show so far because he's dealing with a lot of [ __ ] and he's finally coming to terms with what he's done and being accountable for his actions instead of

52:31 blaming others right and it's it's that moment of that whole scene you're talking about it's that moment of clarity where drakken passes on a message from mikey to kazatora where mikey's like you're always a part of tomorrow and i forgive you and it's that moment of forgiveness that i think really hits very hard for kazatora and it's that realization and that clarity for the first time that he realizes that he can be forgiven for what he's done and yeah it's very impactful of a moment that that bloody halloween arc is just such a roller coaster of emotions it's not even high man

53:16 that was like i basically got through bloody halloween in like a sitting and a half i basically did too because i marathoned the majority of it last night it was that intense oh yeah and like speaking of kind of intense moments of the show like we've also got a name i've really never heard of in the context of anime uh john o'mahondro as um atsushi akun yup and just like i love how you know like osanai he gets a sort of three segmented arc yeah where [Music] he's he's just like

54:04 just just a middle school punk and then like he's just absolutely hollow in 2017. well remember we have the two different version two different versions of 2017 first timeline yeah first time like yeah he's very hollow he had moved up pretty high in the ranks of tilman by that point and but that by the time um takamichi and naoto come to see him to ask questions and try and get in touch with mikey this is before yeah this is before i think he even met mikey um takamichi i think this is before he met mikey for the first time yeah um and acun takes his own life by jumping

54:51 off of a building because of all the things he's done and so much pain he has caused yeah oh oh wait uh oh wait actually he had bet mikey by that point but only like maybe the one time gotcha oh yeah and like like the whole thing of that is also just um like the whole the whole reveal that oh yeah i you the whole you know i was the one who pushed you in front of the train thing yeah [Music] on the roof where he finally admits it and he's on the roof and he's like on the ledge and he's just like begging takanichi to save him because he's basically figured out that takamichi can travel through time

55:36 yeah akun is probably the only other character who has even the shred of realization okay okay okay you say that but uh when specifically right as altoon fell off guess who was there yeah very cute yeah we very different we very typically think he's very physically see watching the whole thing which again why would he be watching that if he didn't have some inkling of who takamichi was oh i forgot about that part you're right man [ __ ] if casey is just right there in front of you if he can [ __ ] time travel i [ __ ] hate ki ski even more now [ __ ] you

56:22 i mean it also helps to explain how he can weasel his way through like through takamichi's interventions to basically reach the same end right you're right [ __ ] anyway yeah and then going back to aku yeah then there's the like the third time you see him which is like the second 2017 timeline he finally makes it as a hairdresser but he still can't escape thomann right because in this time this version of 2017 akun has a wife and a child and it is presumed according to naoto in the investigation that he was doing that his wife and child disappeared presumably

57:08 kisiki kidnapped them and forced akun's hand in order to use him to the to kill takamichi but inadvertently only kills hinata right so it's oh i [ __ ] hate mother he's so punchable i want to kick his ass for hurting these boys god damn they're all good boys except for kisiki [ __ ] [ __ ] kisiki anyway no i'm i've never heard of her john before until this show and

57:54 it makes sense he doesn't exactly have a lot of credits under his belt currently so yeah uh yeah one thing i will say is that i did like his performance as like the younger person a lot i didn't think he sounded like maybe a little shaky playing uh older aku which is also understandable given you know i think the post august 3rd 2017 version of akun where he is the hairdresser i think that was fine yeah yeah i didn't think specifically to see it on the roof maybe a little shakier than i would have liked a little bit i think part of it might have to do a little bit with some with how the character design turned out for akun as well um so it's not as

58:42 it doesn't seem as like an internal conflict or like pain or exhaustion as like the akun in that version comes off a little bit to me so yeah i think that might be some of the issue is with the character design and the assumption there but i think the second time we have 2017 aku and i think it works nicely honestly um it works a lot better in that version compared to the one on the roof um but i was surprised by um by john i i aside from i think a little bit of um a little bit of rough start growing pains at the start of the show i think it turned out rather well because the

59:27 first 2017 akun version i think was only what episode four maybe yeah four or five like somewhere right before the half of the halfway point of the core yeah it was rather early on so aside from that i think it worked out very well he really got acclimated into it a lot more um but yeah i think the roughest was probably that roof scene um in 2017 with the first version of present day akun yeah um but i think that has more to do with the character design and how the progression of akun was and maybe not knowing what happened to him either it's hard to say yeah i still liked it though oh absolutely

1:00:14 like this this group like basically the sort of quote-unquote antagonists like they did their job really well i like how aku is the antagonist but only because he he's the reason why he does kill pretty much otherwise than that akun's a very good boy he's just stuck with [ __ ] circumstances cause [ __ ] he's a key yeah all right and um moving on to the the tokyo manji gang i'm kind of gonna lump baji and chief of you into like one little conversation point um because they are both sort of the driving force of the bloody halloween arc yeah they are

1:01:00 i hate that these four are together because these four are my favorite boys like i i told the two of you this earlier but for the folks at home before recording this i was having dinner and andrew looks at me he's like i haven't watched tokyo avengers it is on my list of things to watch at some point did you end up with a favorite boy i'm like [ __ ] you because i was like i would tell you that it's either mikey or drockham however on this rewatch i was reminded about bocce and chifuyu and i'm like you [ __ ] [Laughter] the thing i really liked about these two um first of all

1:01:47 chief of you adam macarthur is like undying loyalty not to the gang not to toman he does not care about anything else it is too body and then subsequently to takamichi but at baji's request like he is his objective is basically to bring baji back and yeah like i i really like the first part of the bloody halloween arc where it's just like where takamichi is basically trying to get like trying to get mikey to like not kill baji like outright yep

1:02:34 yeah i said yeah i really did like adam's performance like i mentioned it with jiu-jitsu guys in but like the thing i really do decide to black about is like the general tone of a lot of his performances that he just got that's very kind of down-to-earth quality that kind of comes through with a lot of his work yeah yeah which is and i think that really works well here which is really funny considering who he plays in shadow's house the absolutely over the top ricky and patrick it's not as over the top as sean and john i.e john but you know right points to stance um no i really i really love i really loved adam as chief of you because

1:03:20 he has chibi-u does have that down-to-earth nature but it's also he's also very good at hiding his emotions for the most part um only when it comes to bhaji does he let those emotions come through right and he has these little little fun subtleties to chifuyu's character that i just find so enjoyable and then when you think about the dynamic between bhaji and chifuyu chifu you helps bhaji is the heart chifu you is the brains if that makes sense it does because the reason why um tauman was found in the first place was because

1:04:06 of bhaji's idea it was baji's idea to start it in the first place and he became this like the heart of tauman um in essence of that and chifuyu kind of counteracts bhaji's like strong passion and heart along with the stupid brawn gorilla-ness that sometimes the body will have sometimes with this more down-to-earth centered kind of person he can read baji so well because he's known bhaji for a pretty long time yeah so it's which gives chifa you and adam's portrayal a much more mature tone to him at times he can be cocky as [ __ ]

1:04:52 when we have that flashback of how chief you first meets pachi which that means he's great and his voice does still have sort of that child like tone to it yeah that sort of plays into the emotional maturity of the character really well yeah because in that flashback chiefu is essentially the big [ __ ] on campus for um what is he a first year at that point yeah i think so he's just this big shot cocky little [ __ ] to which his first interaction with bocce was boji in the classroom body looks like a with [ __ ] hair and the ponytail like normal but

1:05:38 like the [ __ ] nerd glasses and trying to do homework he's just trying to get his [ __ ] together okay i think it was like very specifically he was like he promised his mom he would get through school yeah because he was held back bhaji was held back in his first year again and he's like if i don't do all this time it'll break mom's heart it was so cute but no it's chifuyu has a lot of respect for bhaji and that really does come through in adam's character because he he it comes through because he knows baji so well he's very mature and he count and he has like a fun

1:06:24 a really good counterbalance to baji's personality and he you can see the respect that shifu has to the point where baji's death like really crushes him to the to the point where to the point where at the end of the first season all he's been wanting this entire time was revenge against kisaki yes because of bhaji and then coming back into the final episode in modern day where he's basically like takamichi's second in command and they both get taken to kisuki's tower for a drink and oh yeah um to which like we've been talking a

1:07:11 lot about chiefu um let's get a little bit into bhaji oh this poor poor man is poor child oh bonji the sweetest thing but this biggest like gorilla he has the bite to march to match that bark that's for sure that's it yeah so i will say that this rule definitely reminded me a lot of uh the character lucian played in um mobiles who got them by blooded orphans whose name escapes me but that character was basically just like a giant joke yeah i know what you're talking about

1:07:57 i don't see i can't i can't get felix from three houses out of my head i'm in the three houses camp and it's like this is just punk gangster felix my boy felix uh yeah but yeah it does yeah it reminds me a lot of that reminds me a lot of that character but um not quite as jocky and mike gets a little more gruff to which i wasn't sure how that which i mean it's not the first time before illusion used that tone of voice but i wasn't sure exactly how it was gonna work across like a bunch of episodes but like the performance worked really well like i'm gonna be real it like lucian's body was probably

1:08:44 one of the more consistently [Music] yeah spot-on performances of the show oh yeah was it was fantastic huh okay i would argue one of the other two we're going to talk about shortly but in terms of i mean i mean it is at least up there with like the ones we were about to mention oh yeah okay yeah 100 is absolutely up there um and i think lucian despite bhaji really having a major role in the bloody halloween arc it is a very impactful and lasting one like baji has a presence in this show and it stays and lucian carries that

1:09:31 because that is a huge impact i [ __ ] cried when he died i'm gonna i will say it i cried is it yeah yeah i don't know that there's a lot to say about like you know the current body but i just want to say that like lucian's for luther uses delivery as young body was also really good specifically during the scene where like they seen the bike shop where everything goes wrong yeah has to freak out about it oh yeah i forgot about all that oh yeah again bhaji because the background for bhaji aside from him being the reason why toman exists in the first place he's um he's next door neighbors with mikey i believe right either next door or like they grew up together close

1:10:17 i think they have said that same building but they grew up together um so bhaji has known mikey forever forever forever probably even longer than drakken has and so it's to the point where for in terms of mikey um he if like if body or drakken were to die mikey would [ __ ] lose his [ __ ] and he does with when boji jumps up dead because he goes i mean he kind of does when both baji and drakken die at one point or another correct you right considering original timeline drawkin

1:11:03 does die um that is a point to be made there but no it's with the backstory of bhaji being the reason why tauman's created and essentially being its heart and it's like core even more so of its core and heart than mikey is and mikey's the commander of the damn thing you can feel that impact and how much that like bhaji means to all of them especially the original the six founding members that being mikey drakken baji yeah like he baji has an impact on them to which man um like the definitive scene i was

1:11:50 gonna bring up is the very beginning of the bloody halloween arc um with the tomeon meeting where they introduced kisiki oh and [ __ ] takamichi decides to punch kisiki michi's ass fighting just comes baji just goes him beats a loving car out of him oh yeah because takamiji would have been [ __ ] screwed if he didn't where he also quote unquote defects and that's like that's yup it's a good introduction oh yeah yeah it took like re-watching that scene after i had finished where i realized oh yeah like you can kind of tell that lucian

1:12:36 dodge is like acting as in like he is currently playing a character who is acting yeah like it's a roll within a roll and it's so good like you wouldn't pick it up on your first watch and i certainly didn't um until obviously takamiji's interactions with chifuyu or if chiefy was just like no i'm positive he's being a spy in valhalla like i'm positive and it's like on the re-watch you can get that sense at the same time at the same time your impression of bhaji because you

1:13:22 only only see bhaji one other time and that is on august 3rd during the fight that um originally kills draken when all of tomon come in you get introduced really to like the captains for the first time including bhaji and baji's like [ __ ] let's go man aaron here in the ponytail let's [ __ ] go i'm at it like so you don't really have the sense at that time what bhaji actually really means to thomann and yeah not only as a entity in an identity for tauman but as in a way a symbolic he's kind of symbolic for taubon i just love lucian's portrayal again

1:14:08 [ __ ] made me cry when he died i was like no yeah that was that's gonna stick with me for a bit oh man that was the only time i think in the show that i actually cried and again i watched tina to [ __ ] die in a goddamn car crash in a car explosion like bocce hit really hard man yeah especially once you know like what he like symbolically what he means to toman really so it hurt it hurt yep all right and honestly i think i'm gonna lump together my thoughts on uh mikey and drakken okay um because they are

1:14:55 the two characters are so intertwined with one another that um i really enjoyed alex lee's sort of he gets to do both the zenitsu like sort of high-pitched child-like voice and then he gets to go into beast mode and it's like the contrast is so good mikey's beast mode is just [ __ ] intense and scary and it's like and honestly sean chiplock is the exact opposite like yeah his performance is mainly just this really intimidating beast

1:15:41 but in the end like he cares about everybody around him he is the big brother he's seen i think the specific line is he is the big brother i think it's obagi actually says it and that flashback where they're at the shrine and the they come up with the idea of creating taoman baji mentions like our vice commander will be our big brother drakken so he's the big brother of the group pretty much yeah yeah between mikey and drakken like they are inseparable and for a reason i think i mentioned this earlier where like mikey has

1:16:27 the presence and the leadership and all that fun stuff but he i mean he's nicknamed the invincible mikey that's the what he's referred to as throughout the course of the show but drakken is mikey's heart and his moral code hence why in the first half of the show drakken's death in the original timeline has a huge negative impact on mikey yeah and it it it it's drakken's death that causes mikey to spiral down like spiral down so and then conversely um you know baji and

1:17:15 kazutora's deaths in the second timeline of like not only kind of drag mikey into this sort of dark state but drakken as well yeah because i mean drakken is it like in the 2017 timeline is absolutely willing to kill people yeah a hundred percent because at that point and drakken actually makes a point in saying this takamichi while he's on death row that he wishes that he had realized back then i think the wording was the heavy cross that mikey was bearing as a 15 year old kid so

1:18:01 i think even at that point this even though drakken is this moral [Music] this moral grounding for mikey and essentially mikey's heart even drakken couldn't predict like the impact something like casatora killing bhaji would have because of course this is going to affect drakken as well because yeah yeah the four of them like started tomorrow together along with paw and mitzia it's like it's hard to really i'm kind of glad we're talking about the two of them together because it's really hard to separate the two of them exactly because you can't really have one without the other it's the whole

1:18:46 argument of [ __ ] it's the argument of akudama drive with brawler and hoodlum you can't separate the two like i'm gonna be honest like they kind of epitomized the idea of like platonic soul mates yeah they really do like they they balance each other out so well because mikey does come off as this like this mature leader type person but mikey has moments where he's very childish yeah very childish uh uh yeah like they're gonna dance we could he didn't get his kids real yeah the [ __ ] i was like

1:19:32 i wanted a kid just had one of the little flags ready to go that was great [ __ ] yeah yeah they didn't definitely nothing for inside they had that conversation oh no it's not and then [ __ ] because for a little bit of context so michi decides to be drakken's secret bodyguard to prevent draken from dying or either also to prevent a argument between mikey and drakken because at that point i guess in the original timeline like toman was kind of split between the mikey and the dracon factions it's like he's just following them around and they're just like after the whole flag with the kids meal thing shortly after that he's still in the restaurant

1:20:17 and and drakken's just getting pissed at mikey for something and talking me she's like oh no are they gonna fight and all this is just mikey napping in the booth and drunk is like are you [ __ ] kidding me again like again it's those moments where like those moments of levity are [ __ ] fantastic and it just absolutely belies the fact that like the both of them could absolutely kick your [ __ ] in like two ways to sunday yep sorry like the duality for both of those characters it just i love it so much yeah

1:21:03 it's so good have a really good day man i think another funny moment for um alex and sean is mikey and dragon is i believe this is after it's after the august 3rd yeah it's after the august 3rd incident takemichi goes back to the future or presents excuse me to see what had happened and he then he returns back to the past because he finds out [ __ ] this is still happening and he arrives in the past in a [ __ ] bathhouse with lucky and drunken [ __ ] and mikey and dragon are just poking fun at each other because you have dracon

1:21:48 over here by the sinks with a goddamn shower cap on shampoo in his hair and mikey's giving him [ __ ] because he's like oh the little baby doesn't want to get soap and he dies and then they then they fight and then the like the shampoo cap ends up on takanishi's hair it's great yeah yeah i think another fun bit is just kind of like when they're like first introduced and like they are like and they just kind of like suddenly decide to break into talking busy school yes like they like being never in the hallway and they just had to line up somebody can just step on top of them yeah because because when you're first introducing the two of them in 2005 they are seen as this very intimidating

1:22:33 presence but like the more takimici gets to know them and spend time with them us in turn as the viewer we realize these two actually mean very well they're both idiots at times but they mean very well and they're they're legit good beans right like it's these are all good boys with the exception of [ __ ] kisiki but we already talked about kiski it's just like and we believe takamichi when he says to naoto i can't see why the white mikey would turn out this way yeah i don't see mikey doing this

1:23:19 and he's desperate especially in that first half to save drakken because again drakken is mikey's heart and the second that drakken is dead there's that downward spiral from mikey yep and both i think both sean and alex play off of each other so well and they complement each other so well both of their tone work with the with the tone with the personality with um the context and the backgrounds for these two characters like this is like you again you can't separate them you really can't which is

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