Do I think it's recommendable?
- No. It was never exceptional in the first place, but got worse and worse as the story went on. The writing was quite disastrous. The ending was exceptional in a bad way, erasing all of the buildup and plot progression that made the story what it was.
Did I ever regret reading it?
- Well, yes, at one point it felt like so much time was wasted.
But do I regret finishing the last 60 chapters when I had previously dropped the series?
- I guess not. I'm glad I got to witness the ending.
Now that this is completed, surprisingly I feel at peace. I had a list of things I wanted to rant about before chapter 276 but once I read chapter 277, all of a sudden it felt like I was able to reconcile with the story. Maybe it's because I simply do not care enough about it to even muster the energy to complain about things, maybe because it's so plainly disastrous that I know all of my feelings and rants will be reflected by other readers anyway, or maybe it's because real life is already so hard that it doesn't feel too bad to see fictional characters get a happy ending. If I were a fan I would be feeling so many different emotions, but I never was in the first place. Either way for me, with an ending comes closure and with closure comes peace. I'm just glad it ended relatively soon and did not drag out the torture any longer. I maintain my conclusion that if you didn't like it 50 chapters in you'll find that it gets worse, far worse in the latter parts. But if you're fine with not bringing your brain cells while reading it, then why not? I certainly had to force my brain cells to shut down at multiple points. In a way, this is going to be an extremely memorable piece of work. But not necessarily for the good things.
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Before update:
Disclaimer: If you're a fan of Tokyo Revengers, please don't read this. It'll probably just offend you.
TL;DR
1. 4.5 out of 10
2, This is going on for way too long. Like 100 chapters too long.
3. If you, like me 150 chapters ago, are not liking this but thinking if you should give this another chance because of all the raving reviews on MAL, heed my advice and just drop it. If you didn't like it 50 chapters in, you'll find that it gets worse.
4. Baji deserved better.
All the while reading this I kept asking myself why am I still reading it. The only reason why I kept going was, well, there has got to be a reason why people are giving out 9s and 10s right?
ittedly my reason for starting the manga was shallow - I started the anime, felt meh about it, saw some fanart for Chifuyu and decided to give the manga a chance. Well. I won't say it's a complete waste of time, at least for the first 50 chapters or so, but it's definitely not for anyone who is looking for an intelligent piece of work about time-travelling. Or even about gangs.
Story: 3
The story is likely the weakest aspect of the manga. It's not all bad, but there are major flaws. I don't even like wracking my brains that much when I watch/read things but this entire set-up of time travelling with zero consequences or consideration for parallel timelines just screams HEAVEN FOR PLOT-HOLES if one starts to think about it for just a minute. Every single plot line is developed based on just one thing - the death of Tachibana Hina. Meaning that when she is rescued, there is literally nothing left for the story unless the mangaka decides to go the Boruto route (and this was what happened). This is one of the fatal points of the story - the mangaka has no choice but to expand on that single, thin premise of rescuing a girl because it all comes down to that. The plot is ultimately driven by this objective. Not very exciting. And after achieving that objective, the mangaka came up with a really brilliant idea - just add more people for Takemichi to save! Using the same formula!
I'm not even going to talk about the power-scaling or how realistic this manga is (in case you're wondering, it's not), I can disregard how unrealistic it is for 12-year-olds to start a gang that becomes a contender for the ruler gang of Tokyo, or how middle schoolers can take on 50 people at a time, or how they have enough strength to kill people left and right if they wanted to. It's a fictional story. The biggest problem with it isn't how many plot holes there are, or how unrealistic it is, it's how the story development is stretched thin over the same objective and so weak that it ends up boring and repetitive. The same pattern is executed repeatedly, camouflaged by the addition of more characters coming out of nowhere with zero buildup but apparently all really strong and have some beef with each other to make it seem like there was a huge, complicated plot behind it all along, right from the beginning. Not exactly the most intelligent way of story-telling.
Art: 7
I like the style. Nothing outstanding but it's good enough.
Characters: 5
This is where I fumble a little trying to rate it. Subjectively speaking, I do think there are some characters who are charming and deserve appreciation, but the MC kind of ruins it for me. I will say though, he's much more bearable than in the anime where I have to listen to him wailing. At least I can just skim over the s in the manga. By no means is any of the character genius, but MC just takes the cake for being useless and pathetic. I do think I'm being very harsh on him, he's not ALL bad, but objectively speaking, this is all he is. The characters around him wouldn't be treating him the way they are/were if he weren't the MC and has the plot-armour. But he is the MC. So he gets brownie points from the cast for standing up against a big guy even though all he did is say something cool-ish and glare at the opponent for two seconds and then go cower in the corner, then realises he's the only one who can change the future but does none of the actual work and goes through the same thing all over again. He doesn't learn, he doesn't try to learn or plan, he goes with the flow and tries to think on the spot of what to do even though obviously he hasn't got the smarts for that. You'd think that he'd learn about the importance of planning ahead and collecting information 100 chapters in and after dozens of times of time-leaping but no.
A few others I do like, Mikey, Draken, Chifuyu, Mitsuya, Baji, Inui are all fan-favourites for a reason. They are not exceptionally-written, but solid enough amidst a rather big cast, and tick many right boxes to appeal to readers. Kisaki is probably the smartest guy in this manga. He's not bad as an antagonist, and a character who's written for people to hate on. Nothing much to say against him. On the other hand, I feel like there just isn't enough time for readers to really know the characters and witness their development. New characters, with zero buildup, keep getting introduced while I'm still trying to match the names to the faces of those who just got introduced 20 chapters ago. Just as you think they're not really important (because they get taken out by Mikey and conveniently disappear at the end of the arc anyway) and you can probably disregard them, they turn out to be recurring characters and one of them randomly gets a backstory reveal in the middle of the arc to make you like them, while there still hasn't been much time to connect/be attached to some in the main cast. Not as big of a problem as the storytelling, but it's still part of the weaker aspects of the manga.
Enjoyment: 3
I do want to know what happens in the end but I'm getting very, very impatient with the same pattern occurring over, over, over and all over again. There is manga where I am completely content with being there for the ride and the journey, and there is manga where I just want it to end. NOW. Tokyo Revengers is clearly the latter of the two.
