Mikey’s Response to Being Pushed Too Far in This Last Episode of Tokyo Revengers Is an Entire Mood
A direct kick to the face!
Spoilers for Tokyo Revengers episode 19: Turn Around
Tokyo Revengers is currently in the middle of a rather intense arc. On the surface, Bloody Halloween is a gang fight between Toman (the main gang of the series) and Valhalla, but like any good anime, it’s far deeper than that.
There’s a lot of betrayal and hurt feelings in this arc, leading to a satisfying moment where we got to watch what happens when you push an extremely forgiving person too far.
So here’s the thing.
I know that if Mikey were to actually kill Kazutora it would set off the chain of events that’ll lead to Toman’s downfall and Hina’s death. Obviously, I don’t want that to happen.
But.
Um.
Kazutora most definitely deserved that overpowered kick to the side of his head.
Up until this point Mikey, despite being a terrifying gang leader, has shown a level of kindness that completely negates whatever awful image you could possibly have for a delinquent. That’s not just because he finds joy in kid’s meal flags and promptly falls asleep after eating (relatable), it’s because he really is willing to give those who wronged him a second chance if he cares about them. We saw this during the previous fight with Moebius when Peh betrayed Toman which, inevitably, led to Draken (Mikey’s second-in-command and childhood friend) getting stabbed.
Not only did Mikey talk to Peh and ask him to return to Toman because he didn’t want to fight his family, but he also didn’t give Peh the chance to apologize, smiling it off while they waited in the hospital to see if Draken would pull through.
Mikey is someone who is constantly putting on a brave front, making sure everyone around him is taken care of to the point of putting his feelings last. He’s the kind of guy who cries alone so no one worries about him.
Basically, he’s the kind of anime character who’s entirely too relatable, I say as someone who would routinely bottle up her feelings if it meant that the people I cared about were happy – even if I was hurt by one (or more) of them.
But everyone’s got a line and Kazutora has crossed it far too many times.
Because even with Kazutora killing Mikey’s brother (yikes) and Mikey telling Takemichi that he can’t forgive him for it (understandable), when it came time to fight Mikey was STILL offering Kazutora space!
That’s because Kazutora is someone Mikey once considered a friend. That means, no matter how Mikey’s feeling about the situation, he’s gonna at least try and talk to the person who hurt him so much.
However, Kazutora’s got this idea that it’s Mikey’s fault that he got arrested back in the day because Kazutora was trying to do something nice for Mikey and ended up committing oops that’s murder. So Kazutora has an anime recap episode’s worth of misplaced anger, and for a while, Mikey just… lets him take it out on him.
It’s so relatable that it hurts.
Because we all have that person who we know ain’t no good because they’ve wrong us in the most egregious way possible, and we might say we’re done with them, but when we see them again we’re like, “Okay, let me chase them around this junkyard, okay yes, I know they’re holding me against my will, slamming a steel pipe into my head, threatening my life, blaming me for the fact that they killed my own brother, but maybe… okay you know what, nevermind, I’m done.”
Mikey took that beating for an uncomfortably long time, over some shit that wasn’t even his fault, and was clearly waiting to see if Kazutora would realize that they didn’t have to be enemies. Kazutora’s stuck in his head, though, and it honestly felt good to see Mikey decide to not get stuck there with him.
Mikey, to me, is the embodiment of, “Aren’t you tired of being nice? Don’t you wanna go ape shit?” It’s already a lot for Mikey to be the “strong one” in the group who smiles in the hospital waiting room while his friend fights for his life because he’s trying to put everyone else at ease. Now, on top of all of that, he’s gotta be the one who just stands there while his brother’s killer has the audacity to call him an enemy before trying to kill him?!
Just because you’re a forgiving person doesn’t mean you have to stand there and take an onslaught of abuse. Whether or not this leads to Mikey making that grim vision come true is up in the air, but at the moment I’m so satisfied with watching him, at the very least, not take Kazutora’s shit anymore.
Sometimes, you gotta lift your leg (with that guy still holding onto it) and slam your foot into the side of a guy’s face.
Thanks, Tokyo Revengers.
(Image: Ken Wakui, KODANSHA/TOKYO REVENGERS Anime Production Committee)
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