BLACK TORCH

Black Torch is a TV anime based on a manga by Tsuyoshi Takaki. The manga first ran in the Japanese magazine Jump Square from December 2016 to March 2018. Then it moved to the online app Shonen Jump+ until July 2018. The whole story is short: 19 chapters in 5 books. In English, Viz Media publishes it in North America. Years after the manga ended, it got an anime. The studio 100studio made it, and Kei Umabiki directed it. It aired 12 episodes from July 4 to September 19, 2026. Yutaka Yamada wrote the music. Crunchyroll streams the show, and an English dub came out at the same time as the Japanese episodes.

The hero is a teenage boy named Jiro Azuma. Jiro seems like a normal student, but his family has a long history. They are ninja, and his grandfather has trained him in old fighting skills since he was small. Jiro has another unusual gift. He can talk with animals and understand them. Animals are his best friends. He is often more comfortable with them than with people.

One day Jiro finds a black cat that is badly hurt, and he helps it. The cat's name is Rago. Rago can speak, and he is not a normal cat at all. He is a mononoke, a kind of powerful spirit from Japanese folk stories. In this show, most mononoke are dangerous monsters that hide among humans. Rago is one of the strongest and oldest of them, and he has a scary nickname: the Black Star of Doom. Other mononoke want his great power for themselves.

Soon a mononoke attacks, and Jiro is hurt so badly that he is close to death. To save his life, Rago joins his spirit with Jiro's body. Now the two share one body. Jiro gains strange new powers, but he also carries a very dangerous being inside him. This makes him a target. Many enemies want to take Rago's power, and the government watches him closely.

A secret government group called the Bureau of Espionage fights mononoke in the shadows. Jiro becomes part of it. He joins a team called Black Torch. His teammates include Ichika Kishimojin, Reiji Kirihara, Hana Usami, and Ryosuke Shiba. Each one has their own skills and personality, and at first they do not fully trust the boy with a monster inside him. Together they face many mononoke enemies. A mononoke named Amagi is one of the main villains.

The show mixes several things together. It has ninja martial arts, spy-agency action, and Japanese spirit monsters in a modern city. It also has a funny and warm partnership at its center. Jiro is kind and loves animals. Rago is proud, grumpy, and a bit rude. Watching the two of them learn to work together is a big part of the fun. The story also asks a simple question: can a monster and a human really trust each other? Because the manga is short, the story moves fast, with lots of fights and little filler. It is a good pick for viewers who like supernatural action with a small, tight cast.