Tokyo Ravens Episode 23
What They Say:
Things come to a head at the Onmyo Agency as Tenma finds his way into the building and joins the others.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Tokyo Ravens has muddled through the second half of the season as best as it could and we’ve gotten some interesting moments in the last couple of episodes. A lot of this comes from the focus on Harutora after the death of Natsume and how he’s reacting to it, as well as the way we see a few different adults looking to turn him or use him to their own advantage, or to keep things from getting out of control. With his friends doing their best to calm him down some as well, it’s been interesting to watch, but in a kind of haphazard way as there’s always something else with uninteresting characters getting in the way, usually when it comes to the adults themselves. Now, as we get to the penultimate episode, there should be a lot going on that sets the stage for the finale.
With what we get here, it sort of does that but in a way that doesn’t work well as it puts its focus on Tenma, a character that has been around since the show went to its Tokyo location but hasn’t had all that much of a critical or noteworthy role since. In fact, you may even try hard to remember who he is depending on how well the show is grabbing you. His progress to find out more of what’s going on has him getting into the Onymo Agency using his abilities in some interesting ways, including the fun of the fake spider angle that just brought to mind the Spider-Man origin story a lot, but the whole thing just uses some well animated and design magical moments. It all feels hollow in terms of what it means though, which is not a surprise and is unfortunate.
Mixed in with this are the other events going on there, which includes the various supernatural aspects that are cutting loose with a lot of spirits around and the like, which the gang is doing their best to seal while some of the adults are off doing their own fight, such as Kagami and all, which is wholly uninteresting. In the end, all the commotion and activity that we do get here is all towards bringing the core group of students together, with Tenma providing some useful information before they focus on their real job. It is interesting to see how the group focuses and the kind of magic used, which provides for an almost out of body experience that definitely goes big with a multiverse approach that I admit that I like a lot, but it’s just another part of the show that looks good but has little can be tackled directly at this stage as it’s mostly just a trick in order to get the big job done of bringing back Natsume.
In Summary:
As we barrel forward to the finale, we get some decent bits with Tenma here with his actions and his dialogue, we get a bit of fight along the way that involves Kagami, which is always fun, and we get the kids essentially bonding together to do the right thing while getting exposed to the larger multiverse and the out they’ll get in order to achieve their larger goals. It may be something that has been seeded along the way, but in viewing it on a weekly basis the whole thing just feels kind of contrived and out of place, disconnected from what we’ve had and how it’s all unfolding, which is pretty much how the second half of this series has felt in general.
Grade: C
Streamed By: FUNimation
Review Equipment:
Sony KDL70R550A 70″ LED 1080P HDTV, Apple TV via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.