English Dub Review: Black Torch “ONCE AGAIN.”

Overview

A superpowered Amagi stands before Jiro while, cloaked in a Rago force field, a defiant Jiro awaits.

Our Take

Picking up from the previous episode, we’ve now reached the season finale of Black Torch. The final confrontation gives Jiro his toughest challenge of the season, pushing him further than before while introducing some interesting abilities along the way. The fight itself is solid and carries the kind of energy you’d expect from a climactic final battle, although its conclusion feels somewhat underwhelming. With so much of the story still unresolved, it’s difficult not to feel that the series could have benefited from more time to properly develop its characters, world, and overarching plot.

When it comes to grandiose anime battles, the finale delivers some strong animation, particularly during its more intense action sequences. The visuals give the confrontation an appropriately climactic feel, while the character designs, effects, and overall presentation work well even if the execution isn’t consistently spectacular. There are also a few quieter moments following the battle that provide the season with a modest sense of closure while leaving certain elements open-ended. Unfortunately, these moments also serve as a reminder of how much potential the series had but never had enough time to fully explore.

Overall, Black Torch is a decent action series with occasional flashes of genuine epicness, but its rushed storytelling and familiarity with similar anime prevent it from fully establishing its own identity. The second half is considerably more engaging, and the finale has some memorable moments, but its ideas, story, character tropes, and battle conventions can feel derivative of works such as Bleach and Yu Yu Hakusho. The manga this show was based on was cancelled in 2018 after just five volumes before it could realize its full potential, leaving the adaptation with even less room to develop. Whether this anime will help revive the series or lead to its continuation in some capacity remains uncertain. For now, Black Torch remains an intriguing glimpse of what could have been, held back by the works that came before it.