Tokyo Esp | Anime Review | Pinnedupink.com

Tokyo Esp

Tokyo Esp’s anime adaptation was a highly anticipated one, and in the summer of 2014, it finally came out. Fans were excited to check if the story is still as strong in the anime as in the manga, but boy, oh boy, it disappointed all of us! So, let’s talk about the anime in detail! It has a pretty low rating for all the right reasons. However, some aspects of this anime deserve appreciation, and we just can’t ignore them because that would be so unfair.

The story revolves around a high school girl named Rinka Urushiba who works part-time as a waitress because her father is unemployed. Her life is going pretty smoothly, and every day is the same for her until she witnesses a flying penguin in the sky one day. After watching the flying penguin, she's fascinated and follows it to the top of a massive building where she finds other creatures like a flying fish that glows when you touch it.

Rinka collapses after a flying fish passes through her and wakes up after a while to find out that she has become an esper and can pass through solid matter. Whenever Rinka tries to use her power, her hair turns white. She decides to help the civilians and becomes the superhero of Tokyo named “White Girl.” She notices her classmate, Kyoutarou Azuma, who apparently sees these things. Kyoutarou, who had gained the power of teleportation, also chooses to help Rinka save humans and fight fellow espers who have other motives.

The story starts off really well, setting the stage well and all. We were excited to see how things would roll on in the next few episodes. However, the creators decided to throw us back in the past.

It’s usually not a wise decision to start with the present and then abruptly shift the tone to the past. Most of the episodes got wasted telling us about the backstory, and we were excited about the finale. It was unfortunately not up to the mark because it lacked luster. We were left hanging AND yearning for a second season that we highly doubt will get back the anime’s lost glory. The anime leaves the story open for development.

When it comes to executing action in the anime Tokyo Esp failed to show us some decent action. There is not enough information about the glowing fish and its origin, and it continuously feels like the plot is missing something massively important. Overall, we found the story of Tokyo Esp a complete mess that lacked depth. We had high hopes for it, but it ended up being nothing more than a disappointment.

The characters present in the anime feel a lot like those from X-Men. Our MC’s father had his personality taken from Batman and had the looks of Wolverine. Rinka feels a lot like Storm but with the powers of Shadow Cat and Wonder Woman’s attitude. Kyoutarou shares the same powers as NightCrawler from X-Men. Our MC’s father had his personality taken from Batman and had the looks of Wolverine.

Sure, our MC did feel a little relatable, and she did go through some sort of character development as well. However, in contrast to her, the other supporting characters felt really flat. It was hard to tell the difference between the adults and the teenagers because they all acted in the same way. Both their personalities were pretty childish and immature.

The creators failed to do a decent job with the characters as they barely felt original and very generic. Especially, the supporting characters were of not much help, and they were just there, existing.

The animation did some sort of justice with the manga. The initial episodes portrayed the artwork well, clean with good color contrasts. However, as the anime progressed, the quality of the animation started going downhill. It’s pretty evident where all of the Tokyo Esp’s budget went. As far as the design of the characters is concerned, they felt similar to each other.

Overall, the design was not that bad at all. The artwork overall was very fresh and decent, except for the last few episodes. The creators put some effort into that department, so we commend them for that.

The background music with the fight scenes continuously shifted between high and low. The music played at the sad scenes was very impactful, though. Most of the time during the anime, the background music was going well with scenes. The best thing about the sound with this anime was that every track that was played in the last 11 episodes was played in succession in the 12th episode. That was quite amazing!

When it comes to opening and ending sound themes, they were very catchy and decent. We also commend the voice actors who did a good enough job to keep the tone suitable to the atmosphere. Overall, we liked the sound of this anime and have seen visible effort put into creating the opening and ending and background music.

Tokyo Esp, unfortunately, did not come up to our expectations. It lacked focus, and the plot had some massive errors that were quite visible. The fact that it feels like a rip-off of X-Men also kind of turned us off.

Overall, Tokyo Esp is not too bad to not give it a shot. We do urge you to check it out, BUT you shouldn’t expect a lot from it! If you just want to watch it to kill some time, then you might be able to enjoy it. Or if you haven’t watched the X-Men movies, then you should give it a shot.