Togari is one of those manga I really hadn’t bumped into back in the day. It is a fairly intense action title that didn’t last super long but had an interesting story. You can feel how it starts to accelerate near the end before it has a conclusion although the series took a bold approach with the ending itself. This is a fun title. I wouldn’t call it great or anything but the battles are on point. There can be a little repetition with Tobei’s character arc and the deck is really stacked against the poor guy. Still, he will not give up!

The series introduces us to Tobei who is currently suffering in hell after living a life of brutality in the real world. He grew up in a terrible environment rife with crime and basically adapted to be just as bad. When this fighter was finally put down, his story should have ended but his vengeance is so strong that he continues to try and break out. Finally the rulers make him a deal. He can go back to the human world for 108 days and his mission is to destroy 108 Toga. These are physical manifestations of evil, basically like monsters. He has to destroy them all within the time limit and then he has his freedom back. Additionally he cannot commit any sins himself or he will automatically be murdered. Can Tobei pull this off?

The mission is harder than you might think. For starters, no sins means that Tobei can’t beat anyone up. All of the 108 Toga are basically weapons or monsters that have paired themselves with a human. So lets say there is a human holding an axe that is a Toga. Tobei has to destroy the axe without harming the human associated with it. Even a grazing blow will deal heavy amounts of damage back to Tobei. Then after that we also have to consider the time limit. Tobei has to average one monster a day but it’s not like he has a map or anything. He can sense when they are nearby but the radar’s range is fairly short. So this is unfair..but that’s the point.

Obviously Hell has no intention of letting Tobei go and they’re just using him as extra manpower. Throughout the manga these guys seem really shifty but would you really expect anything else from Hell? It’s also not like Tobei is blameless either. He did a lot of bad things initially and that’s why he went to Hell. He had a really brutal life so you understand what put him on his current path but it’s not like this completely exonerates him either. A big part of the series is about him genuinely learning to be a better person though and so he does his best there.

I mentioned earlier that the series could be a bit repetitive and i feel that is the case with Tobei. Initially he starts off as someone who is just glad to be able to run around and use violence again. So he crushes the other Toga and has a blast before softening up and starting to be human. Then he relapses and goes into monster mode, then back to human, etc. It went on more than twice which felt a bit excessive. Tobei really can’t catch a break in this series. By the end he is definitely solid with no caveats though. It may have taken a bit longer than I had hoped but it worked out. He’s a very genuine guy who really does his best. Since he was in hell for 300 years, there are a lot of modern things he doesn’t really know but he adapts well enough.

The rest of the characters would have been in real trouble without him. Ose is one of the main supporting characters and he’s generally annoying. He was basically the watchdog for Tobei for a while there and for the first half he is mainly just getting in the way. By the end he starts actually trying to help and has Tobei’s back but he’s already been power creeped pretty hard. It would have been nice if he could have been a little stronger to actually do anything. The other watchdog was way more powerful so it felt like a complete imbalance there.

Itsuki is the main heroine here and she’s not bad. Her role within the series never gets huge or anything like that but she definitely helps to keep Tobei grounded. It’s no exaggeration to say that he wouldn’t have had a full redemption arc without her. She was definitely pivotal in that sense just by existing. Itsuki also isn’t overly emotional or anything and takes the situations in stride. I appreciated that she wasn’t the kind of character who would always be panicking.

Ema is one of the bigshots of Hell although as the series goes on her status appears to be lower and lower. There is always somebody trying to give orders after all. She can be rather cruel but it does come with the job. Again if you’re someone working in Hell then you’re probably not going to trust anyone too much. They’re there for a reason after all. Her character was always interesting though and I would always be interested on just what she would do next. I wouldn’t say she gets an amazing conclusion though.

Sawazaki is an interesting character and one of the best supporting ones. He is a detective trying to make sense of all the supernatural things going on. I tend to enjoy this kind of character type because it really is a very difficult case to solve. Nothing makes sense because the villains are invisible to the average eye. Additionally, you’re probably not going to jump to demons as an explanation right away. The people being possessed by the villains don’t keep their memories and it’s not like there is any physical evidence lying around. So he does his best to keep to the clues and it takes a while. We also see bits of his past including a mentor of his own throughout the series.

He was a character who was really easy to root for. Then we have the old man who looked after Tobei. He was a very patient guy and also did his best to put Tobei on the right path. Ultimately the ways in which he could help were limited but between him and Itsuki it was nice that Tobei had some reliable figures in his life that he could count on. If he had been all by himself then he could have really been in trouble.

One of the big villains is another watchdog, Amy. (Online scans use that name at least, I forget if that’s what he was called in the manga) This guy is probably the best of the villains. For starters I liked that he was a full wildcard here. Yeah he was mainly helping the villains but the guy really couldn’t be pinned down at all. Freedom was his whole thing, he wanted to take down the system and pointed out how rigged it was. For example, Tobei’s weapon would get weaker as he let go of his hate so for all the talk of rehabilitating him, it’s as if they were actively trying to sabotage him right from the start. He definitely had a valid point there. There is just no reasoning with the system.

Of course that doesn’t mean it’s okay to just become a big terrorist like what he did. He took the extreme route but at least as a villain his motives made sense and this made him a very interesting character to me. He also seemed fairly powerful although that part we don’t get to see too much of just yet. Once we’re fairly deep into the series, we finally get to see the villain group. Their leader is a guy named Sena and they all know how to weaponize their Toga. This makes them a pretty tough organization to deal with but at the same time you know that the amount of chapters left is very limited which makes this a mixed bag.

The first member to fight is a guy who uses a Rubix cube to fight. It’s a rather unique weapon I have to say so that was cool. He just doesn’t last long. Tobei takes him out without too much fanfare so he felt like just another villain as a result and by this point in the series Tobei had taken out a whole lot of those guys. Then the second one wasn’t too strong but just made it for a while by taking hostages. Not the most impressive look for the villains right. At least from there they would get stronger.

Next up is the fog girl and she definitely has a real tragic backstory of her own. She doesn’t feel quite as mercilessly evil as the others but she is still in on the action with blowing up the city and being a terrorist so I’m not really going to be cutting her much slack either. Obviously you get why she went over to this side but no matter what the reason is, you are a villain from that point on. Her abilities also didn’t seem terribly impressive but she had the bad luck of going up against Tobei once he had gotten his resolve back so he was in prime shape.

After that is one of the more impressive villains from the group. Gaku is the power hitter who can create giant craters with a single blow. His destructive abilities are really out of this world and he keeps Tobei on the defensive the whole time. It’s a real back and forth fight with both combatants really getting in their share of attacks. The villain may have been misled about what happened to his comrade but as Tobei pointed out, Gaku was murdering tons of people so he doesn’t really get to be upset at a single death. None of the villains really have that luxury by this point. They knew the stakes.

The girl behind the computer ultimately didn’t do much and the guy with the beanie hat wasn’t bad but also short lived. You could chalk it up more to timing than anything else. Otherwise in a straight fight it would be close with the latter at least. It was about time that Tobei got a super form though so I was glad about that. He had really needed one for the longest time here since otherwise he was really not keeping up with the current power levels.

Finally we get to the leader Sena. He’s so evil that his darkness even turns white. He is able to unify the other villains through pure power which really speaks to his overall abilities. Initially Tobei is barely even able to get close to the guy and even by the end of the series it doesn’t seem like they’re on the same level. The fact that they both use darkness just feels like it will always give Sena the edge. Tobei has come a long way from his earlier limits and yet you still don’t feel like the playing field has been leveled.

The art is pretty solid here. We get some really detailed pages and the fights are on point. At the same time it can get a little cluttered during the fight scenes so mileage may vary here. It definitely does get the intensity of the story across though and you see just how scary the Toga would be to the average person. They’re just less imposing to Tobei who generally isn’t scared of anybody. I think that’s even one of the fun appeals to having an ex villain be the lead. It’s nice to see him just walk up to any opponent.

While the ending was rushed, I thought the series did a good job of covering a lot of ground in the stories leading up to that. We had plenty of time for monster of the week type fights before getting into the heart of the plot itself. Tobei even got to have some brief school adventures although I would emphasize that they were definitely very short. So don’t get too attached to that setting. By the end we’re in the middle of a climax for a long while until it just abruptly ends. It’s definitely nice that there is a sequel to wrap things up although I guess even if there wasn’t, the sequel works pretty well as it is. It definitely drums up a lot of hype.

The series still went far enough and showed us all of the major story beats, villains, and origins that we needed in order to understand Tobei’s character arc. At times all of the grim dark backstories and tension of what was going on in the present could be a bit much which is why the school moments were nice to have. In a series about fighting the physical manifestations of sin, you can expect that things will often be dark. It comes as no surprise that Heaven also seems rather shady in this series. It’s definitely one of those situations where Tobei can only really trust his new family and that’s about it.

Overall, Togari is a good manga. To an extent it may end up being a little forgettable but the concept was definitely interesting. It’s a classic story of redemption and trying to really be a better person. It takes a while to pull that off with Tobei and especially when the game is rigged against him the whole time. Still, there was lots of room to continue from where the manga left off so I look forward to seeing how that plays out. If you are looking for a classic supernatural action title then this one should serve that purpose.

Overall 6/10