Tokyo Revengers blasted onto the scene with its 2021 anime debut, marking it easily as one of the best anime of that year. The show follows a young man named Takemichi Hanagaki, a loser with no prospects in life who learns one day that his middle school girlfriend Hinata Tachibana was killed in an accident due to a gang war. When he is later pushed in front of an oncoming train, Takemichi suddenly finds out that he has gained the ability to travel through time, ending up in the time when he was still in middle school.
Takemichi soon realizes that he has actually traveled back to the past, and decides to use this chance to try and stop Hinata Tachibana's death. This turns out to be more difficult than he first believes, but he decides to use his newfound time-traveling abilities to keep trying, getting entangled in the Tokyo Manji Group as a result. However, unfortunately for Takemichi, his time travel ability is a little more complex, and has a lot of idiosyncrasies that he has to work around.
How Takemichi's Time Travel Works
While Takemichi's time travel ability is powerful, it also has a lot of strange rules. Firstly, Takemichi can only travel between the present and the past by shaking hands with Naoto Tachibana, the younger brother of Hinata Tachibana. In addition, his time travel ability will always send him back in time exactly twelve years; for example, if Takemichi decides to travel back in time on July 5, 2017, he'll arrive in the past on July 5, 2005. It's an oddly specific rule, but it's one that works in Takemichi's favor, since it sends to the time in which many significant events happen. This works both ways; if Takemichi returns to the past on July 8, 2005, he'll return to the present on July 8, 2017.
Takemichi does not travel through time physically; when he is in the past, he inhabits the body of his younger self. While he is in the past, his body in the present is in a coma-like state. When Takemichi returns to the present, his younger self reverts to the way he was in the past. Only Takemichi and Naoto retain memories of previous timelines, which allows them to recognize when major changes have been caused to the present.
The Drawbacks Of Takemichi's Time Travel Ability
While Takemichi's time travel ability grants him the miracle of being able to change the past, it also places a lot of restrictions on how he can use his power. Since his time travel ability always sends him back in time exactly twelve years, this means that he is unable to affect any events that occur before then. For example, if it is currently July 5, 2017, Takemichi cannot do anything about an event that happens on July 2, 2005. This also means that Takemichi can't redo anything, meaning he only has one chance to change the past. This makes Takemichi's time travel ability very different from the time manipulation powers of other characters in anime.
Takemichi's time travel ability has a few other drawbacks. One such drawback is that Takemichi never knows exactly what he's doing or where he's at whenever he jumps through time, and he always needs a little time to re-orient himself and figure out what he's doing. This can be a bad thing as he sometimes is thrown into a situation where he needs to act fast. Takemichi also cannot travel back in time without Naoto, so if something happens where he cannot shake Naoto's hand, he will be stuck there until he can meet with Naoto again.
How Takemichi Uses His Ability To Save Lives
Despite all of these restrictions and drawbacks, Takemichi has been fairly successful at using his time travel ability to change the past. Every "mission" usually starts with Takemichi and Naoto researching the current Tokyo Manji Group and interviewing connections to try and find out what was the turning point that would eventually cause Hinata's death. This can sometimes involve short excursions into the past in order to glean more information from the situation as it happens.
Once Takemichi and Naoto figure out one of the major events that causes the Tokyo Manji Group in the past to go bad, Takemichi does his best to try and stop it from happening. Sometimes he can't stop it from occurring, but he can still influence events in a way to make sure that others don't misunderstand and make mistakes that will cause the Tokyo Manji Group to become the massive problem that causes Hinata's death. While a new problem crops once the previous one is solved, every change Takemichi makes has a notable effect that extends into the future. While he has a long way to go before he will be able to save Hinata for good, his unending resilience and resolve might be more valuable than his ability to travel through time.