Anime / Revenger

Our Revengers. ^note From left to right: Teppa Murakami, Nio, Raizo Kurima, Yuen Usui, and Soji.

Revenger is an original anime series written by Gen Urobuchi that aired during the Winter 2023 anime season.

Early 19th century Japan.

For some, revenge against those who have slighted them is not always possible, whether due to a weak body, lack of resources, or the untouchability of your target. For those with a strong enough hate, a gold mon coin with a bite mark in it is the payment needed to make your revenge possible. Those who enact this punishment are known as "Revengers."

Raizou Kurima is a samurai who is tasked with killing his own father-in-law amidst an accusation of opium trafficking, unbeknownst to him, he was being used by the actual criminals behind it. Following the death of his fiancée, he is asked to join the titular Revengers to find out who was behind it and to find some new meaning in his life.

Revenger contains examples of the following tropes:

• Arc Symbol: The ornate red hairpin Yui was wearing at the time of her suicide becomes one, with Raizou eventually coming to feature it heavily in the artwork he draws of her, and it serving him as a tragic reminder of his lost love. In delivering the hairpin to Yui after her father's death, Usui accidentally lead her to assume the worst about Raizou after learning he assassinated Hiraka, driving her mad with grief and rage and marking her own bitten gold coin against him as punishment, providing the revengers a moral quandary over how to deal with Raizou's ultimate fate.
• Awesome, but Impractical: Fitting with the improbability of their particular weapons, each of the Revenger's fighting styles have drawbacks that can make them difficult to pull off, especially against skilled or prepared opponents.
  • Raizou's Jigen-Ryu fighting style is powerful enough to let him slice a man in two with a single blow, but it has a lot of obvious wind-up to get him in the proper mentality to unleash that strike, and he always attacks in a straight line from a middle distance, making it easy to predict. Furthermore, the style draws a lot of power from proper footing, enabling Raizou to unleash even greater strikes once he starts using a pair of boots with retractible spikes for extra traction, but it also means his sword blows lose a lot of power if his footing is disrupted. His fight against Liu in episode 7 emphasises this, as Liu blunts the effectiveness of his charge by rushing into him before he can fully unleash it, and entangles his legs to prevent him being able to swing properly, even able to pull off a Barehanded Blade Block when he knocks Raizou off the ground and he can't swing at him with full strength from mid-air.
  • Usui uses golden sheets plastered over his target's faces to suffocate them until the gold hardenens once all the oxygen is sucked out of it by their frantic gasping, but this means he has practically no close-range fighting abilities, and always either ambushes his targets when they're off-guard or unprepared for him using stealth and his swift speed to lay the sheet on their face before they can react. Furthermore, though the target is usually too panicked to do so, sufficient force will shatter the hardening sheet before they fully suffocate, enabling them to survive. Usui and Soji both spare two of Liu's men by breaking the sheet with a finger-flick when they're almost unconscious as a means of subduing them non-lethally in episode 6.
  • Murakami uses a massive compound bow to launch whaling spears like the equivalent of a human batiste, but its repeatedly emphasised that he needs to be absolutely ripped to be able to draw the bow that far, and even then it's an exhaustive effort, and he's never shown rapid-firing, meaning he cannot use the bow for long periods.
  • Soji using razor-sharp playing cards to attack, but the small size (about the width of two fingers) means he has to precisely aim in a fight to hit a vital spot and take the target down, and his throwing motions are easy to predict where he's aiming if his opponents get a bead on him. The knife-throwing member of the Doan Company circus is able to throw his own blades with enough accuracy to knock Shoji's projectiles out of the air, forcing Soji to use a scattershot move with all his remaining cards to disguise his real target of his flame-spewing ally instead.
  • Nio's petite frame means that they can't directly confront anybody in a fight, and often use their child-like appearance to get them to lower their guard instead before luring them into a trap, or preparing beforehand for the target to get entangled in their Razor Floss kite strings. When Liu gets the drop on them, Nio can only try to run away and is swiftly knocked out once he grabs them, and likewise, when one of Sada's revengers surprises them instead, Nio's only option was to swing at them with some kite string to create enough distance to flee.
• Big Bad Ensemble: The series has a few overall antagonistic forces the Revengers have to confront over the Opium trade occurring in Nagasaki.
  • Though he's killed in the first episode and is little more than a Starter Villain to facilitate Raizou joining the Revengers, Raizou's master, Matsumine Jonoshin, continues to have an overall influence throughout the story through his Opium dealing. The extremely large cargo he was selling becomes a Macguffin that motivates several groups to antagonise Raizou and the Revengers under the belief that he knows its location within the providence and betrayed his master to gain sole control over it. Raizou's Guilt Complex over blindly following his orders to kill Hirata and the fallout from that resulting in his fiancée Yui committing suicide forms his Character Arc as he strives to find a way of life outwith that of a mindless killer. The assassination he ordered also causes interpersonal issues for the Revengers as well, as Yui jumped to the wrong conclusion upon hearing that Raizou killed her father and bit gold against him, leaving them with the Sadistic Choice afterwards of upholding their beliefs of settling every grudge and killing Raizou, or ignoring Yui's Dying Declaraton Of Hate due to their own morality.
  • Saimon Shishido, Leader of the Nagasaki Trade Union later emerges as the overall antagonist of the story, having monopolised the Opium and increasing the sale of it around Nagasaki for his own purposes. As he's already incredibly rich from his ordinary day job, it transpires that he's doing this not for profit, but because he's a Soft-Spoken Sadist who can only derive pleasure from watching others suffer, finding others succumb to drug addition to be an incredibly enjoyable pastime, and intends to turn the city into a drug-filled hell just to enjoy himself at their expense. He increases the threat level brought against the Revengers, exposing their hand in several justified killings to the magistrate to increase official police pressure against them, framing them for a public attack on Chinatown to further drive them under ground, hiring an equally-skilled rival group of Revengers to combat them, and successfully turning the Chapel against them with his schemes.
• Bilingual Bonus: In-Universe. Usui's business is called "Riben-goto", which is a subtle reference to the English word "Revenge" (in Japanese, "ribenji"), which is its actual purpose.
• Bittersweet Ending: The opium operation is completely wiped out, freeing Nagasaki (At least for now) of the epidemic. But the church is still functioning without any repercussions, and Raizou is fatally stabbed in revenge by Sute after the deed is done.
• Beard of Sorrow: Raizou during episode 2 has grown one, still mourning the death of his fianceé and his father-in-law, though it looks more like five o'clock shadow. He shaves it off after Usui convinces him to use his skills to do some good to the world by joining the Revengers. It returns in full force during the epilogue, indicating how, even after cleaning up the Opium operation, Raizou was unable to find true happiness in a world without Yui.
• Book Ends: Raizou first meets Usui when he's pondering his circumstances after assassinating Hirata underneath a bridge, with Usui approaching him under the excuse of his brooding presence upsetting the locals and making them anxious. In the epilogue, a still-grieving Raizou returns to the spot, thinking back over their first meeting, before he's ambushed and stabbed by Sute from behind. After Sute runs off in frustration after seeing Raizou's peaceful and happy expression, Usui later discovers his body sitting in the same position he was brooding in, gently holding Yui's hairpin.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • When enacting a hit upon corrupt official Sakata in episode 3 and turning it into a competition over who can kill the most, Soji slices his ankle from behind to stop him charging towards Raizou and make him turn towards him for an easier kill shot. Shishido later bring in the bloodstained ankle footwear Sakata was wearing before the magistrate of Nagasaki as proof that his death, widely said to be due to illness, was in fact foul play and increase official police pressure on Usui's Revenger group.
  • Yui's ornate decorative hairpin, featured prominently in the opening, becomes one later on. As Soji deduces, despite Hirata commissioning Usui to make it as a wedding gift for his daughter, Raizou assassinated him before he could deliver it, yet Yui was wearing it at the time of her death, evidenced by Raizou repeatedly including it in his realistic artwork featuring her, meaning somebody had to have journeyed to Satsuma to deliver it to her before Matsumine's death. Usui admits that he delivered it, as he was shown collecting it alongside Hirata's bitten gold coin, but hid this fact from Raizou because the meeting ended with his revealing Raizou's part in her father's death to Yui, unaware of their relationship, and her jumping to the wrong conclusion about Raizou marrying her, biting her own gold coin against him in retribution, and contributing to her suicide after the funeral. If not for said hairpin, Yui might have lived, and Raizou would not have an irrevocable kill order against him the Revengers are duty-bound to uphold.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: A lot in episode 12.
  • The sniper from the other assassin group is impaled from shoulder to ass by a whaling spear.
  • Sada is sliced in two at the chest by Raizo.
  • Shishido is choked by Usui's gold before tumbling backwards out of a balcony and having his face smashed against the concrete.
• Dark Secret: Episode 11 has Soji putting the details together to realise that Usui has one of these. Specifically, that the reason he brought Raizou into the Revengers was because he visited Yui to deliver a hairpin that Hirata visited him to make as a wedding gift for them, and told that Raizo was the one that killed her father, unaware of their engagement. Yui jumped to the wrong conclusion and assumed that Raizou only married her to gain the family land, and bit a gold coin to have Usui kill him for it. Though he accepted the coin and her grudge at the time, finding out the truth and the depth of Raizou's remorse had him change him mind, only for Yui's suicide to prevent him returning the coin and annulling the hit, leading to him trying to Take a Third Option by giving Raizou a lifestyle where he could put his sword skills to work for good. Soji points out that regardless of the facts, they're not able to refuse Yui's Dying Declaration of Hate, and are duty-bound to kill Raizou regardless, only for Usui and Murakami to point out that Raizou's kindness and obvious self-loathing make it difficult for any of his companions in the know to follow through.
• Double-Meaning Title: "Revenger" (pronounced in Japanese as "ribenjya") refers to a person that enacts a revenge in English. In Japanese, however it is almost homophonous with "Revenge Shop" (ribenji-ya), referring to the business the main characters run.
• Drugs Are Bad: The series' main antagonists are involved in drug trafficking and opium. Episode 7, for example, portrays a group of nuns that turn men into prostitutes by getting them addicted to opium, even their own customers.
• Dying Declaration of Hate: The theme of the series. Any individual who bites down on a gold Koban coin hard enough to mark it with their teeth can request an assassination against those who have wronged them, which will be carried out regardless of the time or effort spared. Many of these requests often come on the individual's dying actions, to fulfil their revenge against their enemies from beyond the grave. Usui uses this as proof that Shishido's request for revenge for the Chinatown massacre is fake, as the Koban he paid with is unmarked: Shishido being incapable of inflicting that much hate against others. Yui, upon coming to the wrong conclusion from learning that Raizou killed her father, bites into her coin so hard it almost tears the coin in two and visibly broke her tooth doing it, underscoring the intensity of her hate for her fiancé.
• Entertainingly Wrong: Both Liu and the Ribenji-ya think that the other is involved in the drug trade.
• Evil Counterpart: The second team of killers introduced in episode 8, having a one-to-one parallel to Usui's original 4-man team, and even having similar archetypes - both Usui and Sada have religious connections, but whereas Usui hides his christian tattoo unless enacting a hit, Sada goes around in the guise of a buddhist priest to lower people's guards. Unlike the genuine desire of the Revengers of helping the helpless and taking vengence against awful people where their victims couldn't, the second team are genuinely just killers for hire. This is illustrated when they take a pile of money from Shishido after he pretends to bite them, but leaves no mark, indicating his "revenge" is impersonal and transactional compared to the others.
• Evil Plan: Shishido's plan is to flood Japan with an opium crisis not unlike what is currently happening in China, and gain profit and power by becoming the main source of opium.
• Fire-Forged Friendship: Soji initially has a dislike for Kurima due to him being a Samurai who blindly followed orders to kill his father-in-law. After being forced to live with him and going on an assassination mission together, Soji ends up turning into more of a Vitriolic Best Bud, remaining prickly and taking issue with his Stoicism, but also going out of his way to help him find a day job upon realizing how bad with money he is.
• Foreshadowing: In episode 1, Usui collects the ornate hairpin Hirata was intending to gift Yui as a wedding present alongside his bitten Koban coin, and in several episodes is seen staring contemplatively at a bitten Koban coin even when the Chapel have not explicitly provided the Revengers any new targets, hiding it from Nio and Soji when they enter. As Soji realises later on, Yui was wearing the hairpin at the time of her death, evidenced by Raizou including it in his artwork of her, meaning Usui had to have met her before he met Raizou. Usui confirms this, revealing that he hid the truth because their meeting resulted in Yui getting the wrong idea about Raizou marrying her after learning of his role in her father's death, unaware of the opium smuggling, and bit the coin to mark him for death. Even after Usui learned the truth, Yui's suicide means her grudge remains, and the revengers are now duty-bound to kill a repentant and remorseful man for a killing he was tricked into committing, leaving them deeply conflicted over carrying it out.
• Frame-Up: Kurima killed his father-in-law believing he had been involved in the Opium trade. Realizing that his father-in-law was actually innocent and was in fact investigating the true mastermind behind it who was the one who had sicced Kurima on him, had him crossing the Despair Event Horizon.
• Hermaphrodite: Nio.
• The Hero Dies: Raizo dies at the end of the final episode, killed by Sute. He seems, however, happy to finally be Together in Death with his fiancée.
• Hidden Depths: Despite spending most of his life focusing on swordsmanship and never studying art in his life, Kurama turns out to be an incredibly talented artist, able to make near-realistic drawings simply with a brush.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: One the evil countarparts for the Revengers is ended by his own weapon, returning at him like a boomerang but in an umpredictable angle.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Murakami uses whaling spears as arrows against his opponents, so this is a common way for his enemies to die. One of the opponent assassins dies by his arrow piercing him through the shoulder and out his leg while he is crouched.
• Improbable Hair Style: Kurima's extremely spiky and asymmetrical hairstyle should not be possible considering the story takes place several decades before hair gel would be invented.
• Improbable Weapon User: A trait amongst the Revengers; Usui uses gold sheets to suffocate his targets, Nio uses kite string that is coated with glass shards, and Souji throws extra sharp cards that can cut into anyone. It's rather telling that the only "normal" weapon belonging to those in the group prior to Kuruma joining was Murakami's mechanically enhanced bow that he uses to fires whaling spears. The rival group of Revengers they go up against, in comparison, has much more conventional weaponry, with the most exotic being Sadi's Buddhist staff being a concealed sword.
• Inspector Javert: Liu turns out to be an agent of the Chinese Government seeking to stop opium from flooding his own country. The only reason he starts antagonizing the Revengers is because he mistakenly thinks Kurima stole and hid a large stash of opium that Matsumine had acquired.
• Loophole Abuse: In episode 7, a group of monks is seen hiring male prostitutes. As they say, the sin is to lie with women, so as long as their partners are men, it doesn't count.
• Misblamed: Played With, in that nobody disputes the deed that was committed, but the understanding for the actions behind it greatly differ. Raizou's killing of his father-in-law Hirata was done under his master Matsumine’s orders, telling Raizou that Hirata was smuggling opium and needed to be assassinated for the good of the clan, before a scandal arose from it being discovered. However, it was actually Matsumine who was the smuggler, and Hirata trying to uncover this, with Raizou merely being his master's Unwitting Pawn, much to his horror when hearing the truth. Episode 11 further reveals that Hirata predicted this outcome, and specified to Usui that his bitten Koban coin was for those behind the opium smuggling, rather than his killer, showing that he never blamed Raizou for his death. However, when Usui informed Yui that Raizou killed her father, unaware of their connection, she jumped to the wrong conclusion about why he married her, believing that he only did so to gain the family lands after killing her father, and marked a coin for Raizou herself, ultimately killing herself before the misunderstanding could be cleared up.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
  • The series starts with Raizou assassinating his father-in-law Hirata on his master Matsumine’s orders, apparently for the crime of smuggling opium and to prevent a scandal for their clan should it be publicly revealed, only for it to be afterwards revealed that Matsumine was the real smuggler, and used Raizou as his Unwitting Pawn to prevent Hirata exposing him. Even after avenging Hirata, Raizou is haunted by having killed an innocent man who was like a father to him, especially when his fiancée Yui commits suicide after Hirata's funeral in utter despair over having lost both her father and her fiancé together, unaware of Raizou's survival. Furthermore, the deed continues to haunt Raizou throughout the series, with the police on the lookout for him and both Soji and Neo making their low opinion of Raizou's Blind Obedience clear throughout their interactions with him, as well as the massive hidden opium shipment Hirata was trying to uncover becoming an up-for-grabs Macguffin for several parties in Nagasaki after Raizou killed its owner, causing further chaos.
  • Episode 11 reveals that Usui did this by accident when informing Yui of the circumstances of her father's death, revealing to her that Raizou was his killer, unaware of their relationship. Already in despair over having lost her father, and with no idea of the opium smuggling, Yui assumed that Raizou only married her to get her father's lands, and enraged by his 'deception', violently bit a gold coin against him, asking Usui to fulfil her revenge against him no matter what. Even after discovering the truth behind Raizou's actions, Yui's suicide afterwards prevented Usui returning the coin to her or annulling her vengeful desire against Raizou, leaving the revengers in the difficult position of having to choose whether to uphold their creed of fulfilling vengeance regardless of the circumstances against Raizou, or betraying Yui's Dying Wish.
• Nun Too Holy: One of Usui's superiors has a nun assistant hat is totally aware and participating in the assassinations. Meanwhile, a later episode shows a group of buddhist nuns that holds men in capitivity, gets them addicted to opium and turns them into prostitutes. That said, the leader of said nuns is implied to not really be a nun herself, as she doesn't have a shaved head like the others.
• Repulsive Ringmaster: One of the Revengers' targets is the ringleader of a circus that routinely abducts poor children with unique appearances. Furthermore, the leader is implied to have less than wholesome desires regarding the children taken in.
• Professional Killer: The titular Revengers take up jobs to take revenge on people that are beyond the means of those who want revenge. Usui mentions that despite whatever nobility there is behind it, it is still murder.
• Revealing Cover Up: Matsumine orders to his corrupt retainers to kill Kurima after tricking the later into killing his father-in-law. Not only does this fail, but this betrayal allows Usui to convince Kurima of Matsumine's corruption.
• Sadist:
  • Shishido. According to Usui, he feels no anger or indignation, exemplified by him being unable to crave his teeth in gold; instead, all he feels is pleasure at the pain of others.
  • Nio, though a lesser example, very clearly gets a thrill from violently killing people during their assignments.
• Screaming Warrior: Raizou has a tendency to scream before delivering his final blow. Truth in Television, as being a Samurai from Satsuma, he most likely studies Jigen-Ryu, which is known for it's distinctive Kiai when delivering a lethal strike.
• Seppuku: Kurima attempts to do this upon realizing he had been tricked into killing his father-in-law on false charges with resulted in his fiancée being Driven to Suicide and committing the feminine version of this known as jigae, which involves slitting her own throat. The Revengers save him however and convince him to stay alive to put his skill to use instead.
• Shout-Out: Episode 5 is called Love Never Dies. Like the play, it also features a freak show.
• Sinister Minister: The Chapel, the organization backing the Riben-jiya in their mission, is represented by a Christian priest who insists that fulfilling vendettas is sanctioned by God. Morally ambiguous as this may be, what really pushes him over the edge is his desire to use the chaos caused by the opium trade to gain more power for his church. Unlike Usui, who cares about the suffering of those who are affected by opium addiction, he just dismissively states that the truly righteous would never succumb to opium in the first place.
• Tattooed Crook: Usui has a tattoo of the Virgin Mary on his back, which he'll reveal to his victims after he gets them with his golden cloth before delivering a Pre Mortem Oneliner.
• To Be Lawful or Good: Of all the people to suffer this, it's Soji. After realizing that Yui shouldn't have had her hair pin if her father was on his way to deliver it when Raizo killed him, Usui reveals that he delivered it to her in his stead and informed her of Raizo's actions, to which she bit a koban requesting that they kill him to avenge her father. Upon learning of this, Soji's conflicted between his Fire-Forged Friendship with Raizo and knowledge of his guilt over his actions, or their oath as Revengers to fulfil Yui's request, which isn't help by his resentment of Raizo for dragging them into the whole opium debacle. While the both are acting as bait for their Evil Counterparts, he seems close to actually stabbing Raizo In the Back before Raizo pushes down out of the way of sniper fire.
• Uncertain Doom: The last we see of Isarizawa, he's in a brothel...with one of the serving girls being the unnamed nun assassin from the church, implying his end is about to befall him.
• We Help the Helpless: The Revengers specifically work for those who are unable to gain revenge by themselves.
• The Worf Effect:
  • During episode 2, a large, hulking man is introduced wearing a massive armor. He is set up as the opponent to be defeated during that episode, but to establish Murakami's strength as an archer, a single attack from his arrow sinks the boat he is in and impales him. But to be fair, it was an impressive longbow shooting what looks more like a harpoon.
  • In episode 7, Raizou gets his ass completely whooped by Liu. The first fight he's seen outright losing.

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