OLD MAN OTAKU / ANIME REVIEW • AUGUST 3, 2026
BLACK TORCH Is Finally Popular. But Did Anime Arrive Too Late to Save Its Identity?
Eight years after its manga ended, Black Torch has returned as one of Summer 2026's more visible new anime. RogueVerse examines the comeback, the identity problem, and whether this adaptation can become the version the manga never had time to be.
LIVE REVIEW • THROUGH EPISODE 5
By RogueVerse Studio | August 3, 2026
Review status: Anime through Episode 5. The manga is considered as the complete five-volume work. Anime-related scores are live ratings and may change as the season continues.
Black Torch is popular, but it is not a breakout phenomenon yet
Black Torch has reached the unusual middle ground where the comeback itself is already a success, even if the anime has not become one of the defining hits of 2026.
As this review was prepared, the series had climbed past roughly 52,000 AniList users and sat among the more popular titles of the Summer 2026 season, with an average score in the low 70s. That is healthy exposure for an adaptation of a five-volume manga that ended in 2018, especially one without the gigantic active readership normally attached to a current Jump franchise. See the current AniList listing for the live numbers.
The more remarkable statistic is not the number itself. It is that the number exists at all.
Tsuyoshi Takaki's manga ran from late 2016 through 2018 and ended after only five collected volumes. Years later, fans still recommended it, collected it, and talked about what it might have become with more runway. The anime therefore arrives less like the routine adaptation of a current hit and more like an industry resurrection.
The official anime site makes the revival story even more explicit. Takaki credits fans in Japan and overseas for helping make the adaptation possible and says he has supervised settings and storyboards. Director Kei Umabiki describes the work as a classic Shonen Jump-style mixture of friendship, action, humor, ninja culture, mononoke and military-flavored science fiction.
The anime arrived with real support behind it
This is not a bargain-bin adaptation dragged out of a forgotten catalog. 100studio is handling animation, Kei Umabiki is directing, Gigaemon Ichikawa is responsible for series composition and screenplay, and Yutaka Yamada provides music. The Japanese release has broad streaming distribution while Crunchyroll carries the anime internationally in many territories.
The cast also gives the project immediate weight: Ryota Suzuki voices Jiro Azuma, Yoji Ueda voices Rago, and the wider cast includes performers such as Junichi Suwabe, Reina Ueda, Toshiyuki Morikawa and Nobuhiko Okamoto.
That production package tells us the committee did not view Black Torch as a curiosity. It was given a real second swing.
The chronology problem
The anime's biggest obstacle may have nothing to do with whether it is well made.
An anime-only viewer encounters a young protagonist with unusual supernatural abilities, a dangerous nonhuman entity bonded to him, a secret organization policing supernatural threats, specialized fighters, Japanese occult mythology, rival personalities and escalating spiritual combat.
That vocabulary immediately invites comparisons to Bleach, Jujutsu Kaisen, Chainsaw Man, Blue Exorcist, Kaiju No. 8, and pieces of Naruto.
But Black Torch began in 2016. Some of the works viewers now instinctively compare it against either began later or reached their massive cultural prominence after Black Torch had already disappeared.
RogueVerse calls this chronological genre displacement: a work appears during one phase of a genre, disappears, and returns after later stories have polished similar ideas so successfully that the older work suddenly feels derivative.
That does not make every complaint about familiarity unfair. Black Torch itself inherits decades of battle manga, ninja fiction, spirit mythology and secret-organization storytelling. Chronological precedence is not the same thing as originality.
The more accurate criticism is this: Black Torch now has to compete with stories that evolved the same genre language while it was gone.
Jiro and Rago are the reason it still works
The series' greatest weapon is not its organization chart or supernatural taxonomy. It is the relationship between Jiro and Rago.
Jiro's ability to communicate with animals sounds like a gimmick until it begins defining his personality. He is rough, impulsive and quick to fight, but his instinct is to protect things others ignore. Compassion arrives before ambition. He is not initially trying to become the strongest, the greatest or the next legendary whatever. He reacts because something vulnerable is in front of him.
Rago works because he is not merely a supernatural battery attached to the protagonist. Their relationship has friction, humor and genuine personality. When Black Torch slows down long enough to let those characters interact, the series begins separating itself from the broader supernatural-shonen shelf.
Popularity is healthy. Evangelism is less certain.
The available community signals show strong curiosity but a less certain path toward breakout status. Episode discussion on r/anime opened with substantial attention and then softened through the first five episodes. Reddit karma is not viewership data and RogueVerse does not treat it as television ratings, but it can still serve as a rough measure of how loudly a community is talking from week to week.
That makes the current picture interesting: AniList registrations have continued climbing while weekly conversation appears less explosive than the premiere.
In other words, Black Torch may be attracting viewers faster than it is creating evangelists.
A seasonal success gets watched. A breakout convinces viewers to recruit everybody they know. Five episodes in, Black Torch has not clearly crossed that line.
The manga's greatest strength is also its wound
Read by itself, the manga is frustrating precisely because so much of it works.
Takaki's art has strong silhouettes, readable action and confident supernatural imagery. Characters arrive with personality quickly. The world suggests more geography, politics, rivalries and mythology than five volumes can comfortably explore.
Then the runway ends.
That is why reader conversations have carried a similar tone for years: not simply that the series was short, but that it felt capable of supporting considerably more story. Black Torch did not become a cult favorite because readers believed it was perfect. It became memorable because they could see the shape of something larger behind the material that survived.
The adaptation has a rare opportunity
Most manga readers approach an anime adaptation by asking what will be cut.
Black Torch creates a different question: what can the anime restore?
Takaki's direct supervision gives the production an unusual chance to strengthen transitions, expand character moments and potentially give the story a sense of breathing room that publication circumstances did not allow the manga.
The official site even frames the anime as a reconstruction that respects the source while making it work better as animation. That is why the anime-plus-manga perspective currently receives RogueVerse's highest score.
If the anime simply reproduces the manga's compression, it inherits the same ceiling. If it intelligently expands the material, it could become the definitive version of Black Torch.
Anime Watcher: 7.6/10 • Very Good
Viewed without any knowledge of the manga, Black Torch is an easy anime to keep watching. The action is clear, the character designs work, the supernatural rules are digestible and the Jiro-Rago partnership has immediate appeal.
The problem is distinction. Anime-only viewers are justified in asking what this series offers that the current supernatural-action market does not already provide elsewhere. Through Episode 5, the strongest answer is its character chemistry rather than its larger plot.
Verdict: A highly watchable supernatural action series whose execution is currently stronger than its apparent originality.
Manga Reader: 7.8/10 • Very Good
The manga earns a slightly higher score because Takaki's visual storytelling and character work remain consistently appealing. It looks and feels like a series built for a much larger mythology.
But RogueVerse cannot grade the hypothetical masterpiece readers imagine might have existed. We have to grade the five volumes that actually exist. The compressed conclusion and unrealized story space keep it below the 8s.
Verdict: A very promising supernatural battle manga that never received enough space to fully prove what it could become.
Anime + Manga Reader: 8.2/10 • Highly Recommended
This is currently the most rewarding way to experience Black Torch. A manga reader knows where the original story begins running out of road, so every adaptation choice carries extra tension. The anime is not merely adding color and voices. It has an opportunity to change how the completed work is remembered.
Verdict: The adaptation is currently doing more than translating Black Torch. It is rehabilitating it.
Story Critic: 7.2/10 • Good
Remove the comeback story, nostalgia, sales history and production sympathy. What remains is a fundamentally sound supernatural action narrative with stronger central characters than its macro-story.
Jiro has a clear moral architecture. Rago is a genuine relationship rather than equipment with dialogue. The premise, however, is assembled largely from established genre vocabulary, and the manga's compressed structure prevents several themes and worldbuilding ideas from reaching their strongest payoff.
Verdict: Better characters than its premise initially suggests, better ideas than its length permits, and an ending structure that keeps those strengths from fully maturing.
The RogueVerse verdict
Current RogueVerse Consensus: 7.7/10 • Very Good.
The number alone is not the interesting part. The disagreement between the four perspectives is.
The anime-only audience sees a solid supernatural action series. Manga readers remember an unfinished-feeling opportunity. The hybrid audience sees something neither group experiences in quite the same way: a second draft happening in public.
Black Torch probably does not need to become the next Jujutsu Kaisen. That comparison may actually distract from its more interesting achievement.
Its opportunity is becoming something rarer: the anime that proves a commercially short-lived manga was not necessarily a creatively worthless one.
Eight years after the manga ended, tens of thousands of viewers are now following Jiro and Rago. Whatever the final score becomes, that already changes the story of Black Torch.
It is no longer simply the manga that ended too soon.
It has another chance to finish the sentence.
Sources and further reading
- BLACK TORCH Official Anime Website
- BLACK TORCH on AniList
- Crunchyroll: BLACK TORCH guide
- r/anime Episode 1 discussion
- r/anime Episode 5 discussion
IP / Image Rights Notice: Black Torch and its characters are the property of Tsuyoshi Takaki, Shueisha, and the applicable anime production/licensing rights holders. RogueVerse Media does not claim ownership of Black Torch, its characters, logos, or official promotional artwork. Featured material is presented for editorial commentary, criticism, review, and news coverage. The RogueVerse rating design, written analysis, layout, and editorial treatment are original RogueVerse material.