Japanese Institute Of St.Louis

Day 8: Tougen Anki

2025.09.13

September 12, 2025
A world where good and evil are reversed

The anime Tougen Anki has quickly become one of the most talked-about series of 2025. Yesterday I introduced My Hero Academia with its very American-style heroes. Today, I’d like to shift focus back to Japan and explore Tougen Anki—a parallel-world reinterpretation of the beloved folktale Momotaro.

Created by manga artist Yurui Urushibara, this story reimagines a narrative every Japanese person knows. In the original tale, Momotaro is the hero and the Oni (demons) are the villains. Tougen Anki flips that equation. Here, the descendants of Momotaro form a national organization—the Momotaro Agency—that hunts down and eliminates the last surviving descendants of the Oni. The Oni themselves are not fearsome monsters but marginalized beings hiding within society, weak and desperate simply to live.

Episode 1: The Secret of Shiki Ichinose

(Spoilers ahead.) The first episode introduces Shiki Ichinose, a boy leading a normal high school life—until one day he is suddenly attacked. While fleeing with his adoptive father, Takeshi, Shiki learns a shocking truth: he carries the blood of the Oni and is now being hunted by the Momotaro Agency.

Takeshi himself was once a member of that Agency. Years earlier, he was ordered to kill Shiki when he was just a baby. But believing that an innocent child should not be punished for his lineage, Takeshi defied orders, ignored the protests of his colleague Samidare, and walked away from the Agency to raise Shiki instead.

Through this reversal, Tougen Anki shines a harsh light on the violence of those who wield power under the banner of “justice.” It also portrays the suffocating reality of those labeled as “evil” by society. The central question it asks is: who gets to decide where the line between good and evil lies—and when?

Echoes in the Real World

These questions about inherited stigma and the reach of “justice” reminded me of a recent news story. Rika Matsumoto, the 42-year-old third daughter of Shoko Asahara (the executed founder of the Aum Shinrikyo cult), attempted to travel to South Korea for the screening of a documentary film in which she stars. But South Korean immigration refused her entry, preventing her from boarding her flight at Haneda Airport.

This was not the first time; in 2017 she faced the same rejection. She believes information shared by Japan’s Public Security Intelligence Agency lies behind it. Since being labeled a “de facto executive” by the Agency in 2014, she has experienced restrictions on travel and even in daily life. At the time of her father’s arrest for the Tokyo subway sarin attack, she was only 12 years old. It raises a difficult question: how far should the stigma of a perpetrator extend to their family?

The Original Folktale of Momotaro

Long ago, an elderly couple lived together without children. One day, as the old woman was washing clothes in the river, a giant peach floated downstream. They cut it open, and inside was a baby boy. They named him Momotaro and raised him lovingly.

When he grew up, Momotaro learned that demons on Onigashima Island were tormenting villagers. Determined to set things right, he set off with millet dumplings made by his grandmother. Along the way, he met a dog, a monkey, and a pheasant. After sharing his dumplings, they joined him as loyal

The anime Tougen Anki has quickly become one of the most talked-about series of 2025. Yesterday, I introduced My Hero Academia with its very American-style heroes. Today, let’s turn to a Japanese reimagining of folklore: Tougen Anki, a parallel-world retelling of the beloved tale Momotaro.

Created by manga artist Yurui Urushibara, the series pays homage to one of Japan’s most famous stories. But where the original tale framed Momotaro as the embodiment of justice and the Oni (demons) as evil, Tougen Anki flips the script. In this world, the descendants of Momotaro form a national organization—the Momotaro Agency—dedicated to hunting down and eliminating the descendants of Oni. The Oni themselves are not terrifying monsters, but vulnerable beings forced to hide, simply trying to survive.

Variations Across Time and Place

Momotaro’s story has many versions. Scholars trace its origins to the late Muromachi through early Edo periods, though the exact date remains unclear.

  • In Okayama, the tale is linked to Prince Kibitsuhiko, who defeated the ogre Ura.
  • In Kagawa, Megijima Island is believed to be the true “Onigashima.”
  • In Inuyama, Aichi, the Momotaro Shrine remains a rare place of worship dedicated to the folk hero.

Variations include the “fruit-born” version where Momotaro emerges directly from a peach, and the “rejuvenation” version where the couple eats the peach, regains youth, and conceives a child. In wartime Japan, the government even produced Momotaro: Sacred Sailors (1945), turning him into a national military symbol. And now, in the 21st century, the story has been reborn in Tougen Anki.

Momotaro is not merely a children’s story but a cultural mirror, reshaped again and again to fit the needs of each era.

Just Thoughts

By reversing the folktale, Tougen Anki offers a modern meditation on justice, evil, and survival. Its themes resonate not only in fiction but in real politics, war, and the lives of families marked by inherited stigma.

The series streams on Netflix, releasing new episodes weekly, and I am eager to see where it goes next. And one last thought: why are Japanese peaches so expensive? They’re unbelievably sweet and delicious—but always pricey. I miss them dearly. lol

Chiren
President, Japanese Institute of St. Louis

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(References)

Official site: https://tougenanki-anime.com/

Momotaro folktale

Luxury peaches

News (Rika Matsumoto)

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