Shiki Ichinose's blood is Oni, and his father's is Momotaro. Normally, those of Momotaro's bloodline hunt the Oni, but Shiki's father refused to kill him upon finding him as a baby. Instead he adopted Shiki and lovingly raised him, despite the rebellious attitude and dangerous temper that comes with Oni blood. When a member of the Momotaro Agency kills Shiki's father years later, Shiki vows to avenge him.

Tougen Anki feels like it was assembled from parts of other, more popular examples of darker shonen anime. It's like bits of Chainsaw Man, Demon Slayer, Jujutsu Kaisen and Blue Exorcist put together--hell, I've even seen it being called a grimdark edgelord version of Blue Exorcist. It doesn't have a lot of big ideas it wants to showcase, it's just a punk-ass teenager who discovers he can turn his body into guns when his adoptive father gets murdered in front of him. The minute recently expelled delinquent Shiki tells his old man "I never want to become a lame adult like you", we know that the man's gonna die before the end of the premiere. Shiki himself is a little too oblivious to realize he's the protagonist of a "kid suddenly finds he can transform into a demonic ultimate weapon thing" anime, so he doesn't know he's just signed his dad's death warrant, but that's simply what happens when a kid mouths off to their parent in a show like this. How else is he going to feel guilty and revenge-motivated enough to kill the bad guys in however many episodes this series is set to produce?

And y'know what? I think I had more outright fun watching it than almost any other new show this season.

Take the first scene: Shiki sits at his desk in his room full of airsoft guns, chuckling on the phone about how he was expelled from school. He hangs up, and his body language shifts, now looking uncomfortable and lost. In the space of just a couple minutes, I feel like I know something about this boy, and I didn't have anyone sit down and give me an "As You Know" speech or have an omniscient narrator explain it. The dialogue continues in this manner--not exactly naturalistic, but smooth and able to avoid clunky exposition by showing instead of telling whenever possible, having characters explain things only at points where it makes sense. Is a punk with a heart of gold the most original or exciting protagonist in the world? No, but he has a real personality and it's competently conveyed through the animation and voice acting. That goes a long way.

The action direction is just as slick, outside of some clunky shifts into CG and an ill-realized smoke effect. Shiki's power, being able to form guns out of his goopy red oni body, is not only seeded well with his airsoft obsession, but it's...kinda cool, to be honest. The climactic scene takes place in a big, empty warehouse, making for a fairly straightforward fight of characters running at each other with weapons without interacting with the environment, which isn't the most thrilling, but the reds and golds of the lighting set the tone and mood just right. I liked how flashy everything looked with the oni blood powers, even if it did just feel like I was watching footage from a Marvel game at times. I'm not just saying that because the powers of the Oni look like a Carnage knockoff--the action seems to make a lot of use of cell-shaded 3D models to go for some more intense choreography. This works when the Oni are CGI because the blood texture on their body hides that well, but when it's just some guy swinging swords around, it really does look like some obscure video game cutscene.

The fight Shiki has against his father's killer is genuinely pretty badass. The choreography is good, the animation is consistent, and the show takes full advantage of Shiki's specifically gun-based blood powers. I actually began thinking about how I sort of miss the days when a comic could have heroes and villains alike whose entire catalogue of superpowers was having an infinite amount of giant guns to pull out of whatever hammerspace arms factory they generated them from back in the 90s. That whole aesthetic is gloriously stupid and weirdly nostalgic, and Tougen Anki channels that vibe with a single-minded purpose. You WILL be impressed by how many guns Shiki can shoot guys with, dammit!

In short, Tougen Anki is pure junk food, like the anime equivalent of a big bag of Doritos, and sometimes that's exactly what you're in the mood for.