When I found out they had made an anime to Togainu no chi I was over the moon, couldn’t wait to watch it, bouncing off the walls. It’s based on a BL game and while I haven’t played the game because I have no idea how to get an English patch for a Japanese game I do have all the SG’s (screen grabs). This means I know all the characters and all the possible pairings and endings. It’s one violent and explicit yaoi game so I was very looking forward to watching it play out in anime. While the characters still look great and have good voice actors for them the rest of the anime was a bit of a let-down. The basic story is that Akira, the number one street fighter, is framed for a murder he didn’t commit. While his sentencing is being completed he is visited by a mysterious woman who gives him the option of rooting in prison or taking up a tag going to a district called Toshima and participating in the Igra game. Toshima is a violent and deadly district sealed off from the normal world that has its own set of rules. Igra is a game in which you collect tags from opponents, the tags are similar to cards and you have to try and get a royal flush so that you can challenge ll Re and gain the position of drug lord. Everyone is given 5 random tags and you basically have to fight people for them in the hope you opponent has a tag that will get you closer to making it to a royal flush. This leads to violent battles and a lot of bloodshed and death. Add to the mix a drug called Line that gives you super strength while turning you mad you get a great gritty and harsh environment. So far so good was nice knowing the plot behind the game and images I’d collected from it and it was a world and plot that appeals to my violent aesthetic.

But things start going wrong, for a BL game that has a lot of sex scenes between the bishonen the anime is barely recognisable as even a shonen ai show. There’s only 2 openly gay scenes in it, one is a guy escaping with love bits on his chest while a naked guy gets out of bed screaming bastard and dripping blood, obviously he literally got screwed so the escaping guy could steal his tags and the other is from the only openly gay character as he enters a room full of naked boys and starts stripping. The only gay character is a creep a really freaky pervert that while being the ruler of Toshima also has a large BDSM fetish and even has his own pretty boy gimp that acts like a dog following him about. Now while I love my yaoi and especially the dark side not so into creepy rapist BDSM perverts. As for the rest of the bishonen you have Akira who is our main protagonist and from the SG’s has about 8 pairing options so I was interested to see how they were going to show all his possible romances and see who he was going to get together with during the series. Unfortunately they play down the BL element there’s only really 2 options for a romance but mostly just strong friendships and then definite hate based relationships. I was so upset about the playing down of the BL elements, I mean you can slash the series but it’s based on a Yaoi game so come on at least let the guys have a hug maybe a kiss or at least put the possibility of a relationship into it.

The majority of the series concentrates on the drug Line and its affects and this is where the yaoi fan girl gets a bit happier because the relationship between Akira and his best friend Keisuke really intensifies. Poor Keisuke he worries so much about Akira he follows him into this crazy mess even joining the Igra even though by nature he is a timid, shy and genuinely nice guy. His gentleness and caring nature though cause him to get into trouble and Akira snaps at him saying he’s useless and in the way so Keisuke runs off. Its here when Akira realises how much he’s taken their friendship for granted and realises he wants to stay together with Keisuke, protect him and escape together. Unfortunately misguided Keisuke decided that he needs to be stronger if he wants to stay with Akira so takes Line and becomes a brutal monster convinced Akira hates him. So Keisuke tries to kill Akira and poor Akira has to fight his best friend. Thrown into the mix is the next important plot line of something weird about Akira’s blood and if a Line user tastes it they react violently resulting in poisoning. So yes you get it, as Akira is trying to convince Keisuke’s how important he is to him and how he truly wants to be with the man he was before the Line and that he wants to escape together and all other romantic and slash friendly conversations Keisuke accidently get some of Akira’s blood in him. Akira pretty much gets the fright of his life thinking he’s lost the most important person to him but luckily their strong bond is enough to help Keisuke resist death and come out alive and well. But do they hug no, this is where they were supposed to hug or kiss but instead they just smile at each other. So fan girl was happy then she was sad again and to make matters worse the last 5 eps start to make no sense at all.
You get the feeling that there was a lot more back story to the characters that we never really find out so things get confusing. If this had stayed a street fight with drug abuse storyline things would have been fine but no it had to get weird. There’s a military experiment, superpowers, perfect soldiers and mind wipes that all get revealed and dealt with so quickly there’s no time to work out what the hell happened. Just as I was getting used to another plot line about a brother seeking revenge on his older brother for killing his mates it all goes tits up in plot, why the hell did they have to bring in secrete government weapons made human. We get a cryptic guy that flies about talking about his blood and saying how to overcome your fear. Rin was an interesting character small cute boy deadly in a fight but bounced about happily, turns out he has a grudge to settle with his older hot sword wielding badass of a brother Shiki. But do we get to know the details no, why did Shiki kill their friends, how did Rin get to Toshima, why is Shiki working for pervert man delivering drugs and killing everyone in his path, what is the fear born within him he is trying to control, why did he turn into a super soldier after biting Nichole the floating weapon man, why why why. So many questions no answers and a mess really. What’s with Nichole I get he doesn’t have emotions he’s a living weapon so why is he hiding out in Toshima, it turns out his blood is the base of Line so why is he supplying it to pervert. At the end Nichole ended up in a big fight with Shiki, but why was he giving Shiki briefcases of Line, then he asks him to bite him and take his blood to pass a trial, what bloody trial and only for him to go you failed now let’s fight aahhhh!!!!! Not making sense anymore just making me confused. It’s hard to perv on all you pretty boys when nothing is making sense. In the end military, some other secret company no one thought to mention earlier and they guys who framed Akira and got him into this mess all turn up and a war breaks out, WTF!!! Why are planes bombing perverts castle, who the hell are the secret company that want the super weapon why are a load of people with guns shooting everyone, where is the plot!!
So yeah to make matters worse as our main guys plan to leave Toshima and get out of the mess when Shiki turns up all super powered and decided he wants to kill Akira and just to kick the yaoi fan girl in me he bloody well kills Keisuke. Keisuke who has gotten over his addiction to Line, survived madness and had Akira pretty much confess to him tries to save Akira and gets chopped down. I was not happy what was the point in killing the love interest, it was a very loving and beautiful farewell, and these two guys really did love each other and finally got to admit it in their own way but still No!!!!!! Akira goes a little mental luckily Rin turns up to tell him Keisuke wouldn’t want him to die but rather live on and they all escape. I’m sorry but this whole Keisuke would want you to live on, no thanks I’d rather have Akira get his revenge on Shik,i dying and then at least he wouldn’t have to live without the man he loves and instead be reunited with Keisuke in their next life (I’m a reincarnation fan). No even though Toshima is a war zone and their seems to be a battle between super human weapons Akira makes it out back to normal society and gets a job. It’s very anticlimactic, we hear that back in Toshima a new version of line is being sold on the streets, so does that mean pervert and his goons lived and his place wasn’t destroyed by all those bombs, what happened to Nichole the human weapon or poor Keisuke’s body come on people a bit more answers rather than this wet boring ending. At least after the credits we get a bit more though by this point I was all upset and mad and therefore not really paying that much attention to Akira’s speech on the meaning of life, what it means to live, what Keisuke taught him and all that jazz but he somehow as gained a sword and he makes his way back to Toshima to fight Shiki so maybe he still does get his revenge and reunites with Keisuke but we won’t know. So any way if you’re expecting a shonen ai series like Loveless, Yami No Matsuei or Sukisyo then be disappointed and then very confused. But if you don’t mind watching pretty boys kill each over than knock yourself out but this won’t be going down as a favourite and it had so much potential to do so!!!!

Please dont forget to check out Let Zoe Spoil You on facebook, i have images from all revied show’s as well as my screen grabs from the Togainu no chi game as well!!!

Based on a Shonen ai manga by Yoshida Akimi this J Drama is a beautiful and haunting tale of separation and companionship under the threat of ambition and jealousy and misunderstanding. It tells the tale of twin boys created in the lab to be perfection, strong and smart the ultimate humans. But this is also a story of how they are separated and the two very different paths they take. One of the brothers, Sei, grew up to be an elite bio-chemistry scientist in America. He was assigned to a project where he has to travel to a small island in Japan to investigate an unidentified virus that is spreading on the island. By a freak of nature, he found out that he has a twin brother, Rin, whose evil, dark personality is entirely opposite of him. But there is more to this tale Sei wasn’t always part of the bio-chemistry company no he was rescued at a young age by a women who was a scientist that developed a motherly bond for him and decided to take him away to raise him as her own. He grew up in a remote village and formed a bond with another local boy, the blind Moichi. The two were best friends, inseparable and even having their own secret codes to communicate with each other using a dog whistle. But happiness didn’t last long and the company found Sei, killing his mother, threatening Moichi and eventually bringing him back with them where he grew up to become an elite scientist for the company.

Years later Sei returns to Japan to help find a cure for a deadly virus that has been released into a small island. The entire Islands population has been killed and there is fear that this virus will spread to main land Japan. Sei comes to work on the virus; aloof and cold he is distant from the other scientists and acts with an air of superiority. Through a twist of fate he happens to be working at the same research facility that Moichi is helping with some tests on enhanced hearing in blind patients. Sei and Moichi are reunited and the obvious bond and friendship is still there between them. Sei shows real emotions only when concerned to Moichi and wishes nothing more to spend his life with him. Being based on a shonen ai manga (boys love) it is obvious that there’s more to this relationship than just friend ship, it implies a much deeper bond between them and you see real love between these boys. The care about each other and through out the series are willing to risk themselves for each other wishing nothing more than to live a normal life together. All this happiness and normality is ruined by the introduction of Sei’s long lost twin brother who doesn’t share Sei’s moral grounding and sanity. He is jealous of this friendship he wants his brother to join him and use their intellect for much bigger things. Rin seems nice enough to start with but he proves that he is far more calculating and manipulative than his brother; he plays mind games as well as toying with the feeling of those around him. He manipulates his girlfriend to carry out a lot of his dirty work and he has a sexual relationship behind her back with his bodyguard and childhood friend Takeru. Though this too in its own twisted way seems to have more to it, he does seem to have genuine feelings for his friend even though they share their bed with others as well.

It soon becomes apparent that it was Rin that created this virus; the island was a test to see how well it worked before releasing it in Japan. His goal to destroy the population of Japan and then using his own anti virus choose who lives and dies rebuilding Japanese society as he sees fit. He is quite evil and shows very little compassion towards anyone other than his Friend/lover/bodyguard Takeru. There are twists and turns along they way, politics about the state of modern Japan, conspiracy’s between the government and the bio-tech firms, manipulation from powerful families with invested interests and these two brothers stuck in the middle of it. Their different up bringing having shaped the people they became and the decisions they made. There is also a fair amount of tragedy. From the tone of the story you know from the beginning that this is going to have a tragic ending it’s all very Shakespearian and I knew I was in for tears. Do watch this drama with a box of tissues nearby especially for episode 8. But saying that you know there isn’t going to be a happy ending, the ending itself is perfect for the story it’s the only logical way it could have played out. By the end the Brothers have taken away so much from each other yet have started to understand each other they know what they need and what they want from each other and maybe in death only then can they find the peace they never found in life. After all they have lost all they love and care for in life, they were never meant to have been in the first place, created by science for the ambition of men with power, no chance of a normal life and they’ve hurt each other to much too really forgive each other. There own genetic mutation is failing them its only a choice of who will live out who, which twin will see his final sunset, which twin will give the other what he wants while the other waits for his unavoidable fate. It tragic and sad but sometimes a sad ending is really the only good choice.

The series is filmed with a lot of soft lighting and sombre moods; it has a gentle tone until things become more dangerous and frantic. Also noth the parts of Rin and Sei are brilliantly acted by Ito Hideaki. A note of interest is the use of Stings Desert Rose as the opening theme as well as using an instrumental reprise version of the song through out the series. The heart of the series lies in the relationship between Sei and Moichi, the love and understanding they share and how they complete each other. Even Rin and Takeru share a relationship similar but too twisted by their more brutal upbringing they can not love and share on the same level their ideas of love and companionship have been poisoned. The series is quite stylised even with the obvious fact that the brothers have superpowers and are inhumanly strong, they can achieve great feats but this is understated and not over done. I for one as a slash fan enjoyed this series immensely but also because of its more subtle and delicate approach. It was as much about the relationships between the characters and the human drama as it was about looking cool and have superhuman fighting and playing cat and mouse games. I recommend this little gem of a drama, well worth a watch.