i think the thing is tokrev doesnt show the bad things as in the drugs, addiction, and whatever else (sorry im not too familiar with these kinds of scene). it only says the bad things but never shows it. we're told toman did drug smuggling but we're never shown. tokrev is a shounen manga series and tbh idont think theyd allow that much of bad things to be published. also tokrev doesnt neccessarily focus on those things, ordinary ppl in the story say that gangs are bad and the whole school seems to be scared of our characters but because our mc is takemitchi, the more he has connections to gangs, the more we see what happens inside and we get this image of children who come from broken homes bond with each other and rely on this group to get them through their otherwise hopeless lives. so in turn, as we get to know their story, we become attached to them.
this is not to say your experiences are invalid or false or anything but that the manga itself never says anything about the illegal stuff they do. all we ever get are fights and the most extreme is the well known characters killing their friends.
Yeah I think you're absolutely correct, I've definitely been looking at it from a bit of a biased position. It's pretty easy for me to fill in the blanks from experience which the average reader probably (hopefully) can't do. So from their pov they won't realise how serious all this stuff actually is. The manga itself can also be quite comical at times so people are likely copying the light hearted nature too.
I think the only really dark things we've seen is Pah's friend's girlfriend being raped and numerous character deaths. I honestly feel like the rape scene feels out of place in the manga now. It's definitely accurate and happens a lot but it almost feels a bit too serious compared to everything else in the manga. It makes me wonder if Wakui was going to take the manga in a darker direction at first but changed his mind.
As for the death's I don't think readers particularly link them to gangs anyway. Like there's a lot of death in shounen, it's not something that's solely associated with gangs. I think most shounen readers are at least a little desensitised to it now, like you kind of expect someone to die. Also a lot of the deaths in tokyorev are reversed so they don't really seem that heavy.
