Black Torch

BLACK TORCH

7.0(11,038)

MAL Score

Ranked #4845

Popularity #2621

Action
Supernatural
Urban Fantasy

Duration: 23 min
Aired: Jul 4, 2026 to ?
Status: Currently Airing

Synopsis

Seventeen-year-old Jirou Azuma leads a tranquil life with his grandfather, using his unique ability to communicate with animals to form deep bonds and provide protection. Both are heirs to a storied shinobi lineage, dedicating themselves to mastering ancient combat techniques. However, Jirou's peaceful existence is shattered when he saves a seemingly ordinary black cat named Ragou, only to discover that Ragou is a mononoke—a malevolent spirit embroiled in a centuries-old conflict with humanity. When a dangerous mononoke tracks them down, Jirou leaps into action, but is gravely injured in the process.

In a twist of fate, Ragou opts to sacrifice his own energy to save Jirou rather than consume his life force. This act of selflessness not only revives Jirou but also imbues him with formidable supernatural abilities that enhance his shinobi skills. Witnessing this extraordinary event is Ryousuke Shiba, a member of the Bureau of Espionage, who offers Jirou and his grandfather a chance to join a new elite unit known as Black Torch. Together, they will confront and combat powerful mononoke that threaten innocent lives, embarking on a journey that blends ancient traditions with the supernatural.

Otaku Consensus

Black Torch has opened as a solid rather than breakout supernatural shounen, reflected by its 7.39 MAL score and 72/100 AniList score: the early appeal is its brisk urban-youkai framing, Kei Umabiki’s clean action direction, and the sharp Jirou-Ragou two-hander. Its clearest strength is how 100studio packages ninja combat as the series’ physical language, while the recurring criticism is that the familiar battle-shounen spirit-hunting template has not yet produced a truly distinctive signature arc.

Why You Should Watch

Watch Black Torch if you want a compact urban-fantasy battle shounen that favors old-school ninja physicality over technique-explaining overload. It scratches the same itch as Blue Exorcist and early Jujutsu Kaisen: humans colliding with hostile spirits, an organized response to supernatural threats, and a volatile human/nonhuman central pairing, but with a leaner animal-linked identity and shinobi training as its action grammar. The appeal is weekly momentum: Kei Umabiki’s direction and Gigaemon Ichikawa’s series composition frame it as a clean supernatural action ride rather than a lore maze. Viewers who like youkai stories, hand-to-hand combat, and a central duo built on suspicion, debt, and reluctant trust will get more out of it than anyone looking for a deconstruction or slow-burn ensemble drama.

Key Characters

J
Jirou Azuma(VA: Ryouta Suzuki)
Jirou stands out as a shounen lead whose animal empathy and inherited shinobi discipline make his aggression feel protective rather than merely impulsive.
R
Ragou(VA: Youji Ueda)
Ragou is the series’ volatility engine, a black-cat mononoke whose gruff self-interest and unexpected restraint give the central partnership its bite.

What Makes It Stand Out

1
The production comes from 100studio, giving Black Torch a distinct place in the 2026 supernatural-action slate rather than the usual high-profile shounen studio ecosystem.
2
Its genre mix is unusually specific: AniList weights it most heavily as Urban Fantasy at 80%, with Youkai at 66% and Ninja at 50%, making the show less of a pure exorcist series and more of a hybrid between street-level spirit conflict and inherited martial tradition.
3
The credited design pipeline is larger than the main character list suggests: Gou Suzuki handles character design, with Masahiko Suzuki, Yumi Nakamura, and Mariko Kinoshita on sub character design and Shunya Kikuchi on design works.
4
The available main-character billing is tightly focused on only Jirou Azuma and Ragou, which positions the anime around a two-character dynamic instead of immediately selling itself as a squad ensemble.
5
Black Torch began airing on July 4, 2026, so its MAL score of 7.39 from 4,239 votes and AniList score of 72/100 represent early-airing reception rather than a settled post-finale consensus.

Fun Facts & Trivia

Fun fact 1: Black Torch is based on the work of original creator Tsuyoshi Takaki, whose name is foregrounded in the anime’s key staff rather than buried as a source credit.
Fun fact 2: The series composition is credited to Gigaemon Ichikawa, a role that matters especially for a currently airing action title because it determines how the manga’s battles, reveals, and downtime are portioned across weekly episodes.
Fun fact 3: The background side of the production lists two art directors, Sachi Takahashi and Seiko Imaizumi, rather than a single credited lead for art direction.
Fun fact 4: Despite ranking #2662 on MAL, Black Torch sits at #3333 in popularity, indicating that its early viewers are rating it more warmly than its current audience size would suggest.
Fun fact 5: AniList lists 521 favourites for the series during its airing window, a useful signal that the Jirou-and-Ragou core has already built a niche fanbase beyond raw score averages.