桃源暗鬼

TOUGEN ANKI

MANGA

STATUS
RELEASING
VOLUMES
Not Available
RELEASE
Invalid Date
CHAPTERS
Not Available

DESCRIPTION

Shiki Ichinose's blood is Oni, and his father's is Momotarou. Normally, those with Momotarou blood hunt the Oni—but Shiki's father refused to kill him as an infant. Instead, he adopted Shiki and raised him despite the rebellious attitude and dangerous temper that come with Oni blood. When a member of the Momotarou Agency kills Shiki's father, Shiki vows to avenge him. But as he hones his abilities and learns to control his Oni blood, will he be strong enough to survive the dangers waiting for him…?

(Source: Yen Press)

CAST

Naito Mudano
Shiki Ichinose
Jin Kougasaki
Kyouya Oiranzaka
Homare Byobugaura
Mikado Momodera
Ikari Yaoroshi
Hayate Todoroki
Rokuro Kiriyama
Jyuuji Yusurube
Kuina Sazanami

CHAPTERS

RELATED TO TOUGEN ANKI

ANIME ActionTougen Anki

Cover Art for Tougen Anki Gaiden: Tsuki to Sakura no Kyousou Kyoku

MANGA ActionTougen Anki Gaiden: Tsuki to Sakura no Kyousou Kyoku

REVIEWS

JohnDoe32
90/100
How come I'm the first (no, I really mean it) writing a review of this manga? I really recommend it.
The fascinating manga started around mid-2020 by the hand of Yura Urushibara, Tougen Anki has really gone beyond many had expected.

Have you ever heard of the Momotarou story? It's a very famous fairy tale in Japan, well, to put it short, a noble hero takes down the villainous demons to bring peace once again to the world.

Now, the story didn't go quite like that, Momotarou fought the evil original demons, the pure blood known as Kishin, without knowing that they left a numerous offspring with human women. Momotarou in response did the same as well, so his descendants would finish the job for him, with this the eternal fight between Oni and Momotarou continued for hundreds of years.

This manga starts with betrayal and death, it follows the development of a young Oni called Ichinose Shiki as he learnt the truth of his world, the Oni are hunted down and massacred because of their blood, many of them are just children or citizens that weren't aware at all they were something else than regular people. The degree of cruelty you may see from the relentless Momotarou members is unspeakable at some times, most of them are somewhat really out of their minds for enjoying it or showing a completely indifferent behaviour towards killing what used to be normal citizens.

The power system, the Oni have the ability to control their blood in different ways, to make weapons or use it in a non-combatant way but practical in the battlefield, the nature of the ability depends from Oni to Oni. On the other hand the Momotarou have their own abilities, something called black bacteria or fungus, by the moment is still unknown it's true origin, but it works following the same principle to that of the Oni blood.

The main reason why the Momotarou have to eliminate all of them is because the Oni despite being partially human they have a tendency to change into what is called 'Berserker Mode', apparently it's well-known they don't have any capacity of controlling such state of complete destruction and could happen anytime no matter the place or age while they are living among humans, they must be wiped so there wouldn't be large casualties, is what the very few sane Momotarou members think while doing their job.

Even in these circumstances the comedy is quite good at times, as well as seeing some character development in a positive direction; one of the strong points of this manga is that you have indeed quite a large variety of characters with what you would call 'unique personalities' (many of you might say it's the basic for every Shonen but I don't get tired of this move)

I genuinely like this manga, for a while I lost the trace, but after a season I hooked again to found out the story was going through an interesting arc, there is only one issue, maybe you haven't noticed (or haven't read the manga) but whenever a finger is drawn pointing directly to the front it seems a bit off the shape of the hand, I know it isn't that bad nonetheless I have to say as well the negative sides, right?

On the whole I wouldn't mind such a little thing, I think this is a manga worth of your time if you like secret wars, conspiracy and super powers.

With that being said it's time for wild guesses with zero fundaments!
1. During this year and the next one we'll get news for an adaptation.
2. I would say the series will end around 350-400 chapter.
I humbly apologize for all the text and the fact that these pseudo-predictions might get into your nerves (Thank you for reading and see ya later!)
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AWall86
20/100
A series stuck in the shadow of Blue Exorcist
Tougen Anki: The Series Stuck in Blue Exorcist's Shadow

When I read this Tougen Anki by Yura Urushibara, I was a bit excited as I am a sucker for the battle shonen genre, especially with an exorcist setting. To me they provide very cool action and gives us a bit more of a nuanced perspective about morality within humanity, the constant cycle of violence between exorcists and demons, and introduce some cool shit of Japanese, European, or other cultural exorcism practices. It is how I got into Blue Exorcist written by Kazue Kato, and seeing how big of an inspiration it was to this story, I will explain as to why Tougen Anki is a story that is stuck in the shadows of a far better (and more popular) manga.

To start with in the first chapter, Tougen Anki legit starts in a near one to one copy of the first chapter of Blue Exorcist.

Both have protagonists who get into trouble, both are under the care of adoptive father's who doesn't like them dropping out of school/not getting a job.

Both have the protagonists say something of "stop acting like my father!" then later come to regret it within the final bits of the chapter.

Then they get revealed as Oni/Demon, which the main antagonistic force tries to go after them, which leads to their fathers to sacrifice themselves to protagonists.

The point I am getting at is that Tougen Anki doesn't hide its inspiration well from Blue Exorcist, and seeing how I read both series, I am going to compare it to Blue Exorcist and explain why Tougen Anki is not good.

After the first chapter's of respective series, we go into a school of fighters being trained to kill these antagonistic forces. Both series handle it a bit differently but I will skip to the cast members.

For some reason, Urushibara just wants to not really focus that much on its side cast outside of 4 folks. It is very disappointing that most of their cast members (even 73 chapters in) are uninteresting, only have one personality gimmick, or hasn't done shit as characters. I still don't even know most of the characters due to how underutilized they are. Blue Exorcist meanwhile has mostly done its cast justice by giving them all unique designs, personality quirks, and has them be active members in the story. Just the first arc alone (which is about 15 chapters) Kato was able to get me interested in the other cast members and even know with the slug of the current arc, I am still invested to see what she will do with them.

Another thing Tougen Anki fails is in its worldbuilding and its not even funny how bad and uninteresting the world of Tougen Anki is compared to how Blue Exorcist handles its worldbuilding. Regarding the world of Tougen Anki, there are two groups (humans and oni), its said in chapter one that a dude named Momotarou formed the Momotarou agency to kill the oni who supposedly harm humans which is neat, one problem with that... We never see the Oni harm a human unjustly. I do not know how you can fuck up the worldbuilding like that, because if the goal of Shiki's dad was to have Momotarou and Oni coexist, then you have to see why they can't coexist. We see on the Oni perspective of why they choose to fight the Momotarou, yet the Momotarou's perspective is just "oh you guys might do bad shit, so we should kill you before that happens!" In fairness that could be a neat obstacle to overcome yet that just makes it a simplistic setting where Oni are supposed to not be good either. This is where Urushibara should have looked into other stories like Tokyo Ghoul in how to handle a conflict where both sides aren't exactly good, Tokyo Ghoul executed it to near-perfection and it is still one of the main reasons why it is one of the best stories in the shonen medium and no the second arc where Shiki and Mudano become "friends" despite their lineage is just poorly handled and contrived bullshit to get them to fight before Mudano sees the error of his ways. Blue Exorcist does its worldbuilding in a more minimal setting but it presents that demons aren't all awful and that humans can join the side of Satan as well with the existence of the Illuminati, this makes conflicts far more engaging as Rin has to beat up stronger demons but the fact he is the son of Satan, made the cast's dynamic in Blue Exorcist's Kyoto arc more interesting to see how it played out and it expanded the arc of Rin's self-loathing that goes on.

Regarding the treatment of both stories' female cast, ooooo boy Tougen Anki is a misogynistic and sexist manga with these panels alone. (Censored for Nudity)
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<img width='220' src='https://files.catbox.moe/mzlly4.jpeg'> <img width='220' src='https://files.catbox.moe/f36ur9.jpeg'>
<img width='220' src='https://files.catbox.moe/8uw4n9.jpeg'> </span></span> ~~~
Blue Exorcist doesn't do this shit as egregious and since its written by a woman, I am far more comfortable in how Kato handles the women of her story then Urushibara's female characters in his story. Don't get me started with how Homare has basically disappeared despite her possibly being the main female lead of Tougen Anki. 

____

Regarding the fights and power system of both series. Both stories don't really have in-depth power systems like Naruto, One Piece, or Hunter x Hunter do but they serve their functions. Tougen Anki focuses on Oni's Blood where they can think about objects and their blood will transform and function, with it being powered by experiences, interests, and trauma. Then if they go out of control they have a "berserk" form where they go apeshit before they are either defeated or lose too much blood and need to recharge. Momotarou's power kinda reflects that but their mold powers is just physical ki so its not too special lol. 

<img width='' src='https://official.lowee.us/manga/Tougen-Anki/0001-043.png'>

In terms of fights, it suffers from flashy explosions first actual fighting later. I do not give a shit in any fight between the Oni Agency and Momotarou. They don't have the emotional feeling to any of them and since they all have the same ill-will against each other, I'm more inclinded to skim through them. One power system development I heavily dislike is this "Kishin" bloodline shit that Shiki gets in Ch 32. Its just an asspull ability that he gets to beat a stronger Momotarou so he can stand out as the protagonist, at least for Rin when he got his blue flame in Chapter 1 of Blue Exorcist, he couldn't get his flames controlled until the middle of the second arc and he had to handle that plus most of his friends not wanting to go near him due to his lineage. Shiki is just Rin Okumara but far less interesting and lacks the substance that makes Rin a solid protagonist.

<img width='' src='https://scans.lastation.us/manga/Tougen-Anki/0032-018.png'>

Blue Exorcist's fights aren't too choreographed either and sometimes suffers from the flashy issue, but for its power system it mainly revolves around ki and summoning familiars to help in battle. Otherwise it is a mostly hand-to-hand combat system which is fine. I don't think its too interesting to other shonen systems but its okay since it works fine without any major asspull elements to fuck shit up. I don't have too much to say about it but I vastly prefer that system compared to Tougen Anki continuing to bend so the protagonist can have special abilities to make him stand out lol

<img width='' src='https://official.lowee.us/manga/Ao-No-Exorcist/0121-009.png'> 
____

To conclude all of this, Tougen Anki is a manga that proudly wears Blue Exorcist on its shelve yet it will never be able to escape the shadow of a bigger and far more batter series. Urushibara poorly utilizes shonen tropes and the similar set up from Blue Exorcist and produces a story that many would consider uninteresting or (in my case) just straight up bad. Regarding the anime adapation, I watched the ones that are already out and its okay but the CGI usage is just yikes. When its full 2D models, it looks alright for an action show yet I wouldn't really recommend either. So to finish this off, fans of Tougen Anki who somehow read this review of mine, please go read Blue Exorcist. It is Tougen Anki but done significantly better with the writing of its cast, fights, and worldbuilding with far more content to be engaged on compared to Tougen Anki. 

My rating: 2/10 do not recommend at all.
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