Tokyo Revengers – 11 – Everybody Breathe

After a number of horrifying twists and turns and some truly epic beatings, Takemichi and his friends finally catch a goddamn break. The bad guys hear sirens and decide to flee, while Hina and Emma arrive with EMTs. Takemichi rides in the ambulance with Draken, who is not out of the woods, and even seemingly breathes his last breath asking Mitchy to take care of Mikey for him before going into cardiac arrest.

Draken enters emergency surgery, and Takemichi, the girls, the boys, Mitsuya, Peh-yan, and Mikey can do nothing but try to keep it down and wait. Everyone’s on pins and needles until that “operation in progress” red light goes out, two suregons step out and report the good news: Draken will live.

Everyone celebrates, Mitsuya tells Peh-yan that Draken visited Pah-chin every day at juvie, and he’d better apologize for trying to kill him. When everyone heads home, Takemichi goes looking for Mikey and finds him having a private cry alone, finally able to drop his tough stoic guy façade.

A few days pass, and Takemichi is the toast of the school, looked up to for the first time in his life and loving every minute of it. He even looks the part with his wide-open bowling shirt, red “OUTLAW” shorts, purple shades, and wide, pompous strut.

An on-the-mend Draken has no time for any of that nonsense when Takemichi visits him the hospital, but Takemichi pushes back against his disapproval, basically telling him to let him have this, just for a little while. Draken bows and thanks him properly for saving him, and presents him with the first Toman jacket Mikey ever wore, a kingly garment that’s a gesture of his gratitude.

On the rooftop, Mikey ominously wonders out loud how Takemichi knew inner Toman strife was going to go down before anyone else did, but drops it and offers his hand for the kid to shake.

Takemichi only has one last handshake to make. He stops by the Tachibanas unannounced, asks Hina to bring out Naoto, then presents her with a four-leaf clover necklace—the same one adult Hina wears (and kisses) in the ED. Takemichi doesn’t give it to her just to make things up to her, but because he wants to leave something behind before going back to the future.

With that, he shakes a very confused Naoto’s hand and ends up back in the present-day, only not in Naoto’s apartment. He doesn’t even have Naoto’s phone number! Instead, he’s back at the video store being taken to task by his younger manager. He gets an alarm for salon appointment, and when he picks up his dropped phone, he notices he now has a scar from when he was stabbed through the palm.

Suspecting he was finally successful in changing the future for the better, one of the three people he saved turns up alive, well, and looking much healthier and happier than the previous present-day Akkun. He’s an assistant at the salon and about to start being allowed to cut hair. He wants to cut Takemichi’s first, since that was their promise.

Then Takemichi gets a call from Naoto, who confirms that he was successful in changing the future. He invites Takemichi to join him in going to see Hina. The question is, will Tokyo Revengers’ twelfth episode rip the rug out from under Takemichi’s (and our) feet once more with some kind of new twist related to Hina’s fate?

With Hanma promising his new gang Valhalla will never allow Toman a moment’s peace before fleeing the sirens at the start of the episode, as well as the total and inexplicable absence of Kisaki Tetta throughout the last few weeks, there may be plenty left for Takemichi to do in the past. Still, I hold out hope Hina is alive, well, and not already spoken for.

Tokyo Revengers – 10 – Stand Your Shaky Ground

Takemichi finds Draken stabbed in the kidney area by Kiyomasa, but everyone else is busy brawling, including Mikey with the surprisingly formidable Hanma. So it’s all up to Takemichi whether Draken bleeds out or gets to a hospital.

Despite being half his size, Takemichi puts the hulking Ken on his back and sloooowly trudges his way to the hospital. Thankfully, Hina and Emma catch up to him, and have already called an ambulance.

While they wait longer than usual due to the festival and the rain, Kiyomasa’s crew tracks Takemichi and Draken down. Thankfully none of them threaten to do anything to Hina or Emma, but Kiyomasa is going to have to insist that Takemichi take them and fuck right off so he can finish Draken off.

But Takemichi is done running. He doesn’t care how absurd it is to try to go up against a beast like Kiyomasa, he has to make the most of his second chance. So he rushes the guy, shrugs off a stab wound to the hand, leaps onto his back, and refuses to let go.

Eventually, Kiyomasa passes out from lack of oxygen, and comes crashing down on Takemichi like a damn felled tree. But just because Kiyomasa’s down doesn’t mean his buddies are going anywhere. They advance on Draken and Takemichi, both of whom are barely able to stand and losing lots of blood.

They’re rescued at the last moment by Akkun and the rest of Mizu Mid’s Ferocious Five, who are even goofier and more embarrassing than Takemichi…but it doesn’t matter. Victory for them is buying enough time for the ambulance to get there, and when that happens, Kiyomasa’s pals have lost. Takemichi is free to savor the win, but the work to salvage his future has still only just begun.