This isn’t a review (i’m working on something like that, though), and i’m fairly sure i’m late to the party, but since i’m not watching the anime, yet i have decided to give the Gachiakuta manga a try, since i did like the look, the theme, i’m a bit of a trash boy myself (i do review a lot of trash, by choice) and apparently editors/publisher are REALLY pushing it to be the next big shonen series that becomes huge (on terms of other popular series having ended in recent years)…… let’s do a “vibe check”.
Again, it’s a bit early for a proper review, but it is a modern shonen, 4 volumes i think it’s a fair enough chunk to base these impressions on, i could have stopped at volume 3, but i decided to give the series a bit more leeway.
And yes, i’m a bit late to the party, but who cares.
(as a side note, one of the variants for the Italian release of the first volume had a literal “trashbox”, that’s cute)
Also, i had to catch myself mispelling the title almost everytime.
Starting with the positives, i do like the art style and theming of garbage, the punk aesthetic big on dirt, tattoos and graffiti, junk, the designs are pretty good, i think Rudo is an enjoyable variation of the angry edgy kid protagonist of a modern shonen, even though he feels like a trash themed version of the Fire Force protag, heck, even the artstyles draw-tap into a similar aesthetic to Ohkubo’s Soul Eater (i really can’t say more since i dropped Fire Force after the first 2 volumes).
Unsurprising the author, Kei Urana, was an Ohkubo assistant before, for Fire Force too.
the power system is solid, is basically a shonenization of the “if you care for things they will last longer” japanese philosophy, novel enough and fitting the themes of recycling and enviromental disaster, nothing too impressive but also not that unimaginative, and it’s a really frisky read, in the sense each volumes (and its events) went by fairly fast but also i was curious enough to see where it would go next.
On the negatives, i do find the “good guys” to be a bit too good and trusting.
Like so much that it kinda strides with what the worlbuilding says, with this enviroment and social structure the series lays out…. even the good guys should be a bit more cynical, even if i get why they aren’t, to make the young readers believe they can actually trust some adults or older people than them, i get that, isn’t inhetently bad to actually not brutalize the kid but actually welcome him when he’s obviously scarred and pitiful.
But especially since the series already lays out how cruel and unsympathetic is the supposed “clean/heavenly” stratum/chaste from which Rudo hails, it’s a still bit weird how immediatly trusting of Rudo these people living in the lower echelons are, and they kinda feel stupid, as they do fall into obvious ambushes even if they pretty much known that they’re going i, despite being aware that the enemy faction powers aren’t this predictable, not with how it establishes the rules of the power system.
Again, it might sound like i’m being “cruel”, but i have been reading shonen mangas for more than some of you have been alive, i have seen many iterations of the formula, so if this feels new because it’s your first or one of your first shonen series…. it’s exactly because for you this is all new.
And frankly, this isn’t even a bad series to start with, at all, so i’m not going to chastize your for enjoying anything, though i’d prefer you do because otherwise…. what are you even doing?
I do think (from reading the first 4 volumes) that Gachikauta is pretty decent, if not more, by most standards it’s good, but personally i think there’s absolutely nothing special about this series that actually makes it stand out among its many peers, past or present.
It doesn’t do anything bad, per sè,i’d argue it’s more interesting than stuff like Demon Slayer. but – again – after decades of reading shonen (especially of the battle variety), this series really doesn’t showcase anything worth of note either way, heck, you can argue how, after a solid first volume it immediatly retreats into formula,
It does fly be nicely, the characters are fine, it has some good style to it, but outside of looks it doesn’t do anything that hasn’t already been done and done and done in more interesting or better ways… again, at least to the extent i’ve read, but this isn’t the 90s or late 80s, these big magazines aren’t giving any new series the time to grow if it doesn’t immediatly makes numbers, the super young demographic (and not only them) these series are targed with has even of an attention span, and modern authors do know this.
It’s a fine shonen series, but there’s nothing about it that made me go “OOH”, nothing that made me feel like this is the supposed next big thing that the industry wants it to be… then again this isn’t even being serialized on Jump, and after looking at some of the numbers, i’d say the manga this is actually selling well, but not enough for the insane, unrealistic expectations publisher still have, maybe hoping that since now shonen series last way less, there’s a chance to “swap around the crown” to the next series that gets any traction and is subsequently hyped into the heavens.
I do feel Kodansha and editors are being a BIT desperate to make this the next Jujutsu Kaisen, as not only there’s already 1 season of the anime that came out last year (with a second one confirmed) that even had Mori “Dad” Calliope sing the outro, but also a full flegded videogame, Gachikauta Breakout, releasing next year.
Then again, the series isn’t over, the manga has just 19 volumes, there’s no planned “ending window”, it most likely will resume after the author took a break in early August, so there’s plenty of room for anything, really, who knows, it might actually turn out to be what publisher want is to be.
