3ET: Tokyo Ravens

That's why you don't eat shaved ice so fast.

Studio: 8bit

Director: Kanasaki Takaomi (School Rumble S2, Kore wa Zombie Desuka)

Writer: Kurata Hideyuki (Ima Soko ni Iru Boku, Read or Die)

Main Cast:

Ishikawa Kaito as Tsuchimikado Harutora

Hanazawa Kana as Tsuchimikado Natsume

Character Design: Watanabe Atsuko (Ookami Kakushi, Nekogami Yaoyorozu)

Music: Iuchi Makio (Toaru Majutsu no Index, Dog Days)

After watching anime for more than a decade, I've become somewhat familiar with the practice of onmyoudou. In this art, practitioners called onmyouji use Buddhist mysticism to divine things like astrological predections. The most famous onmyouji is Abe no Seimei, who lived in the 10th century and has been portrayed in several anime titles. Anime has also turned onmyouji into a form of warrior monks who write spells on paper and chant mantras to fight. The most famous of these are probably the CLAMP pair of Sumeragi Subaru and Sakurazuka Seishirou of Tokyo Babylon and X/1999 fame. Several other shows have included onmyouji characters or centered on the onmyoudou art. The latest of which is the subject of this post, Tokyo Ravens.

This show takes place in modern day Japan, where the Tsuchimikado family is the most powerful onmyouji clan in Japan. The heir is a girl named Natsume who sort of knows the protagonist, a boy named Harutora with no onmyouji powers. He's kind of a moron, but has the standard heart of gold. He's spending a quiet summer with his friends Toji and Hokuto when he gets sucked into an incident involving a powerful rogue onmyouji named Suzuka who is attempting to revive her brother from the dead, which as always, is a forbidden art that can cause calamity.

"Why is his hair black at the end? It looks so stupid."

From there the show gets rather interesting. For one, one of Harutora's friends gets killed in the action. It is immediately revealed that this friend was a familiar, likely of Natsume, but even so, this was quite surprising and had some emotional weight behind it. It also serves as an impetus for Harutora to do whatever it takes to gain onmyouji powers to stop Suzuka, in this case becoming the familiar of Natsume. The scene where she gives him her powers works especially well, and really solidified my faith in this show to be able to grab at my heartstrings. 

The action scenes are decent, especially for being so CG heavy. It's visually apparent that all of the summoned creatures, from mechanical spiders to Chinese dragons, are animated differently from the rest of the show. And I think that is to the show's benefit. And they definitely use any savings to make the fights look good. These fights lead up to the confrontation with Suzuka, who fails to bring back her brother, again with a good emotional punch. All in all, it's a good first arc.

A traditional Japanese monster, the giant mechanical spider.

Tokyo Ravens is an easy pass for me. I like the world they are working in, I like the characters, and it looks like there is even a big conspiracy I want to learn more about that is under the surface of the world of onmyouji. Yes, they are transferring to a special school and that does raise some red flags with me, but I'm hopeful that it doesn't fall too much into school antics and concentrates on getting to know the characters better. And the sooner Harutora figures out that his friend Hokuto was actually Natsume's familiar, the better.