This series is very dark, which is to be expected from an ultra violent demon slaying anime. It harkens back to the older Doomed Megalopolis anime.

At the end of the first episode we find out what Ranmaru is up against in his search for the truth behind what happened to his parents. While investigating his first murder scene with Ichiro, Ranmaru is taken back by the fact that his first crime scene looks a lot like what he saw five years ago. Hearing screams Ranmaru and his fellow Tokko officers rush in help only to find zombie like men tearing some police officers to shreds with their bare hands. They open fire to bring these guys down but guns seem to have to no effect on them. The flying bullets eventually tear the zombies clothing to reveal small faces that have grown out of the bodies of these zombified people and appear to be controlling them.

At the last moment, when Ranmaru and his fellow officers are overrun by these zombies the mysterious officers in the second division of Tokko show up with their bladed weapons to bail them out. Awesome hero poses abound as each of these zombies are dispatched with ease by different members of the second division. After these zombies are eviscerated it is revealed that those little faces are really bug larvae like demons that use people's bodies as hosts. And Ranmaru comes face to face with the girl from his dream who gives him the warning that the survivors of the Machida massacre are all being hunted.

The animated fight sequences are pretty cool in Tokko and there is a ton of detail in the gore and environments.

Overall this series is very dark, which is exactly what I would expect from an ultra violent demon slaying anime. It feels very much like the older Doomed Megalopolis anime where there is a certain claustrophobic feel to the world that our characters inhabit and that the evil that is being fought is like a freight train on a collision course with our hero. The animated fight sequences are pretty cool and there is a ton of detail in the gore and environments. All the movement is very fluid with some cheating here and there. Masashi Abe does a good job of keeping the tension within the battles despite the fact that we know our hero will make it. So many times in shows like this one, the tension is lost and then quickly become a snoozer.

There is some cel-shaded 3D animation that appears in weird spots and can actually be distracting because it isn't consistent. For instance in one scene a car will be heading toward the camera and it is obvious that they are just scaling the car up to give the impression that it is getting closer. In the very next scene a different car will pass by the camera but this time its perspective shift is so accurate that it is very apparent that a 3D car was used for the shot. It's a small thing I know, but it was enough of distraction that I couldn't help myself from noticing. Unfortunately the advanced screening disk I was given to review only had an English dub audio track on it, but as it turns out it was actually pretty good. There is a little awkwardness between the intensity levels of the characters voices in some of the scenes that pulls the viewer out of the moment and some of what feels like forced dialogue. But for the most part it is forgivable. One nice touch that Tokko has to offer is the addition of Fujisawa's style of humor. A lot of the same sexually charged humor that is so apparent in GTO makes its way into this story, as well as a hero that is often flawed.

I find it really refreshing to be able to laugh a little at the hero instead of him being the cookie cutter type tough guy. I really feel that it makes Ranmaru more believable and helped me to care about him and his struggle to understand everything that is happening around him. As a fan of this genre I found Tokko to be a good deal of fun and I would recommend it. While I don't feel it is an instant classic, it is fairly sophisticated enough for the seasoned anime veteran, and lots of eye candy filled action for the attention deficit disorder crowd. So if you are in the mood to kick some demon butt, check it out.