Tokyo Revengers: Is Shinichiro's death a form of punishment?

Ever since Tokyo Revengers manga's progress came to a crucial stage, several questions have remained unanswered. Fans have constantly complained about how time-leaping as a concept has many plotholes in the series. On top of that, Ken Wakui has complicated the whole thing by introducing new concepts and plot twists, leaving the entire fanbase confused.

However, the latest chapter of the series revealed additional information about time-leaping and the respective events that took place in the current timeline. Fans want to understand if Shinichiro’s death in the alternate timelines is a form of punishment for his actions in the original timeline.

Let’s take a look at the events that transpired in the latest chapter of Tokyo Revengers and understand how it impacted Shinichiro Sano.

Disclaimer: This article contains major spoilers from chapter 271 of Tokyo Revengers.

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Taking a look at the events that transpired in chapter 271 of Tokyo Revengers

Shinichiro approaches the deranged man (Image via Ken Wakui/Shueisha)

In one of the panels of chapter 271, we see Shinichiro Sano in the original timeline as he approaches an old, homeless person.

Mikey’s death deeply impacted Shinichiro’s mental health, so he went to the deranged man and asked him to show how to travel back in time. The unknown man questioned Shinichiro if he had it in him to time travel and revealed that he was forced to kill someone to gain this power.

Man reveals how he received his time-leaping powers (Image via Ken Wakui/Shueisha)

But what shocked the Tokyo Revengers fanbase was that Shinichiro showed no hesitation in picking up a metal rod to strike the deranged man in the head. He ended up killing the man in the hopes of being able to travel back in time.

However, soon after killing the man, he was unable to time-leap. He lost the will to live and attempted to take his own life by falling off the bridge. When Shinichiro faced a near-death situation, he was able to go back in time and see Mikey play with his beloved Concorde scale model that he had gifted.

Shinichiro successfully went back in time (Image via Ken Wakui/Shueisha)

A popular concept that is often seen in many anime shows is that reviving someone from death usually has extreme consequences. This can be seen in Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Erased, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, among several others.

In Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Alphonse and Edward Elric end up losing their limbs and entire physical body when they try to bring their mother back from the dead. In The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, Makoto Konno puts everyone's life in the present at risk with her constant alteration of past events.

But in the case of Tokyo Revengers, we can look at Shinichiro’s death as a sort of exchange, interpreting it as the price being paid for bringing Mikey back to life. On the other hand, this can also be seen as a punishment for killing someone to obtain these powers.

Shinichiro kills the man in order to gain time-leaping abilities (Image via Ken Wakui/Shueisha)

In the original timeline, Mikey was supposed to remain dead, but Shinichiro wanted to alter reality to bring him back to life. This could be one reason why a series of events took place in order to kill Shinichiro in the alternate timeline.

Even the old, deranged man in Tokyo Revengers, who claimed to travel back in time, was forced to kill someone to gain those powers. While it wasn’t mentioned in the series, he might have also faced a similar situation in his attempt to save someone he loved.

However, it's not altogether impossible because Shinichiro killed him in the end, and this could be the price he paid for saving a loved one.

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Stay tuned for more manga and anime updates as 2022 progresses.