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arkus-rhapsode · 3 months ago

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Gachi-Bachi: A Tale of Two Roads to Success (A Discussion)

Back again with another think piece on this blog. And while the last two came from an inspiration of topics that I had floating around in my head for awhile, this one came about from me scrolling on twitter (I'm not calling it X) recently and noticing the in real time evolution of two of the arguably biggest battle shonen releases of the 2020s. That would be Gachiakuta and Kagurabachi.

However, this isn't gonna be a simple compare and contrast of the series as works of fiction as I personally feel each one has different qualities that really distinguish them from each other in a way that doing a comparison wouldn't be too interesting. Rather what intrigues me is how they are a fascinating study in how series become big so to speak and despite the overlap in fans, there's actually some pretty key differences in their success stories that highlight greater things in the manga industry in particular. So let's ask ourselves: how did we get here, what role has fanbases played in it, what role has their respective magazines played in this, and just how truly successful are these series?

Background and Rise

Now for those who are just not initiated, I'll briefly explain the premise of these two series.

Gachiakuta by Kei Urana is a series set in a dark fantasy world where an orphan named Rudo is banished to the trash filled abyss after being framed for the murder of his adoptive father. In the Abyss Rudo discovers he has the power to use his magic gloves to turn objects into weapons, which he uses as a member of the Cleaners. He fights trash monsters and criminals in a journey to get back home and take revenge on the one who framed him.

Kagurabachi by Takeru Hokazono is an urban fantasy series set in contemporary Japan that deal with Chihiro, the son of a mystical blacksmith who had forged six magic swords. Chihiro's father is killed by a group of magical mobsters and his swords taken from him. Chihiro, armed with a secret seventh magic sword, will cut a blood path through Japan's criminal underbelly and take revenge on those responsible for his father's death.

I know Im grossly summarizing both works because I'm focusing not on the series themselves but rather the things surrounding each of them. So if you wish to know more, please check them out yourselves and see if you enjoy them. And just for transparency's sake, I have made multiple posts on this blog about Gachiakuta so I think its safe to say I enjoy it quite a bit. While my relationship with Kagurabachi is not that intimate as I actually don't read much Weekly Shonen Jump anymore, I did at least read the first volume just so I can say, I totally see why this got a following. Also just for clarity as I know the internet can flatten time in many instances, I want to point out that while I'd call these series contemporary, its worth noting that they're not exactly same time rising stars. Kagurabachi came out this year, in 2024, while Gachiakuta came out in 2022. A whooping two year lead. Hot did Kagurabachi get so hot? How?

Well if you're familiar with Kagurabachi in even a tertiary form you probably remember this meme.

This was a piece of promo art used by Jump along with a brief summary of the series before it was publishized. Now for a little context, at this time, two of Shonen Jump's biggest action staple series, My Hero Academia and Jujutsu Kaisen, were in their twilight stages. And at the time the shonen jump magazine had an interesting assortment of genres probably more than the last two decades. However, while One Piece would still be evergreen and their were action series such as Sakamoto Days and Undead Unluck, there was a hunger for a new battle series. And not just a new battle series, a long term investment battle series.

So when the news came down that WSJ would be releasing a "urban fantasy revenge sword battle series" with an accompanying art that definitely would fit alongside the heroes of the 2000s like Ichigo Kurosaki or Death the Kid, there was a reasonable excitement. Course there was also a bit of an over enthusiasm. Now like I said in my 2000s anime nostalgia post, I don't think this definitively means anything deep that there are just people who got into anime around the 2000s who just enjoy that types of series they were introduced to and were excited for more of that. However, over enthusiasm on the internet, is always prime material for ribbing.

So a lot of people on Ani/manga twitter saw slews of people posting this, and I mean this with no disrespect, kinda bored looking guy drawing his sword and being excited for a series that hadn't come out. This lead to of course memes. Lots of memes.

That this was the best jump manga of all time before a single chapter came out. It even lead to a bunch of people redrawing this promo image several times with different characters each with the same kind of expression. Now of course, this did ignore the fact that there was at least a translated one-shot released by Hokazono that people could at least check out to see if they enjoy his work. As well as the fact this kinda happens everytime there's a new jump rotation. Its just kinda in fan nature to get hyped for something even if all they have is a simple description. But lots of memes tend to flatten out context.

And so it seemed like that was that, the set up for the ultimate punchline. People had some genuine excitement, a bunch of guys on twitter made a mountain of ironic excitement, and now all the series had to come out and not live up to that hype. But then Kagurabachi did come out and the chapter was good. Sure it wasn't change your life spectacular or anything, but for a first chapter of a brand new series, it did exactly what it needed to do: Clearly introduce the stakes of the world, who the main character is, what their motivation is, mixing in some action set pieces, and leaving a little room for intrigue to watch the series grow. It hit the emotional points it wanted and hit the action beats it wanted. The end. That wasn't bad at all. Quite the opposite.

So here we are, left with what was essentially a free marketing campaign for people who probably expected it to get the shonen jump axe like a lot of new action series tended to get and instead they got something pretty okay. If there was ever a group of people vindicated it was those guys excited for Kagurabachi for the start.

Yes I know, meme popularity can be dumb or annoying. And some super fans and hype beasts who want to be there on the ground floor can be kinda cringe, but there is no doubt this was one of the most successful social media campaigns ever for a series that actually was managing to justify it. And for the next few weeks it would keep going and irony was almost completely replaced with sincerity.

The fact this was actually getting Shueisha's social media to acknowledge twitter hashtags and release a promotional trailer for it in English was such a first. Even if you don't like Kagurabachi or are indifferent to it, there is no denying this was unique.

But I've spent all this time reminiscing about Kagurabachi's social media rise. What about Gachiakuta hmm?

Well Gachiakuta was a series made by Kei Urana who had served as an assistant to Atsushi Okubo on the Weekly Shonen Magazine series, Fire Force. Fire Force itself is an odd beast we don't have the time to fully get into, but it was pretty popular for a non jump series and featured Okubo, a creator who has possibly one of the most devout fanbases ever, striking it big with many people's formative anime, Soul Eater. Urana herself was a massive fan of the series and if you've read Gachiakuta you can see the inspiration. However, when it was time for Fire Force to come to a close, WSM had announced that a new series by Okubo's assistant would be starting just before its end. And people were excited right? Well not exactly. Cause you had to be looking in the right places to even notice this announcement.

At the time, WSM series were mostly readable on Azuki. However, there seemed to be a weirdly non commutable relationship with Azuki and WSM's publisher Kodansha. As such it was kinda a gamble if a new WSM series would even show up on Azuki let alone simelpubbed. So it seemed like whatever Gachiakuta was would be Japan exclusive. But as if by miracle, the translation group, Pair of 2+ came in and dropped an English version of the chapter on release. The first chapter of Gachiakuta was pretty strong though mostly for Urana's incredibly striking artstyle. Made even better by the fact that the world of Gachiakuta was a fantasy world. And not fantasy in the way a stereotypical isekai is borrowing from romanticized European fantasy. But rather this sorta grudge world that was capable of having what looked like modern convinces, but there was things like a mysterious trash pit, a bunch of soldiers who dressed in ostentatious uniforms and a ginormous and intimidating trash creature.

I know it might seem kinda like a broken record now, but a big thing in the 2010s era of action manga and anime was a move towards more grounded and contemporary setting with stories. Juxtaposing supernatural or spectacular elements with the modern day Japan structure and order. Plenty of series were popular with this such as My Hero, Jujutsu Kaisen, Chainsaw Man, hell even Demon Slayer does the same though set in a turn of the century version of Japan. These certainly have an appeal and obviously they're not going anywhere, but there was a growing perception that fantasy worlds in manga were kinda fading. We weren't really getting a bunch of One Pieces. Were were getting stuff closer to Bleach. So of course, deny someone something long enough and they become enthusiastic for the tiniest taste of it.

So with all this, how was Gachiakuta's first few weeks. Well outside of some territory nods and the obvious "This manga is trash" jokes. It kinda stayed low key. With people relying on scan groups to handle it, there was really no guarantee of consistent momentum. Sometimes it'd take two weeks to get a chapter out in English while the Spanish versions were available. sometimes another scan group may come in a drop a chapter, making it harder to find the series in one place. However, all of this really did end up benefitting Gachiakuta. Because when you remove convenience you end up creating your strongest soldiers. If you were actively looking for Gachiakuta and not just waiting for an app update, that meant you were committed. And committed people had to use word of mouth to get this out there. If there was a moment of big promotion it would be when AniTuber Gigguk's Trash Taste podcast had well know Vtuber (Full disclaimer I know almost nothing about Vtubers or Hololive. I'm sorry in advance if I'm not going into greater detail on their significance) Mori Calliope discuss the Next Manga award winners and give Gachiakuta a shout out.

So, we had Bachibros and the twitter take over, while we had Gachibros and their slowly growing cult classic. Both methods ended up creating some real die hard fans, but the visibility and promotion of both series is very different. And ties into...

How Each Series Respective Company Has Handled Them

So before I start this section, I know I've made social media a big reference point for the success of these series. I want to make it clear that social media popularity isn't a full story. Something may be popular on twitter or YouTube but not necessarily be successful. I think social media can be a good barometer of the actual interest of a series, but not its end all be all for its results. And I think no series really knew this better than Hunters Guild: Red Hood.

For those unaware, Hunters Guild: Red Hood was a series that released in Weekly Shonen Jump in 2021 and was a big darling with Animanga twitter. Its art style, its premise on western fairytales, going for a more traditional dark fable vibe, and of course attractive characters. It was easily the series a bunch of people were calling the next big thing. And then it flopped. It was regularly last place in the popularity polls and its Japanese volume sales were really unimpressive. So it got axed by Jump.

To say this caused an outrage with people would be an understatement. This caused a trend of people really trying to find "the answer." Try and make this seemingly senseless action make sense. Well tragically if you are a manga industry watcher like me you know that this isn't actually all that unique.

For a lot of non Japanese fans, particularly Americans, we never had the accessibility of the Shonen Jump app or the Manga+ app in the 2000s-2010s. If you wanted manga, you were using MangaStream and MangaPanda which had focused on basically the biggest series in the industry. While countless series that have run in jump and other magazines have just been ended after 20 chapters. But that information wasn't available to us in real time the way it is now.

If you're around my age range and know about the shonen jump ranking system, you were probably introduced to the concept through the series Bakuman, manga about manga that was really the first popularized look at how the sausage was made in the Shuiesha offices. A big thing that was a point of tension was the rankings. If a series fell low consistently in the ranks of readership surveys filled up by the ones who purchased a copy of shonen jump and submitted it, then it would be cancelled by jump. Now its important to remember, Bakuman was a dramatized recreation of how Shueisha operated. Things were exaggerated in the name of making an entertaining and tension filled series. In reality, the ranking system is important, however the editorial department of Jump weights multiple factors when making this judgement: what is in the magazine at the time? Is something ending so we can risk having this run longer? Is there a new batch we want to role out soon so we need to free up space? How are the volume sales doing? And has this carved out a viable niche for itself?

While yes its a good rule of thumb to say something in last place is generally in danger for not maintaining interest to keep it around, its not a simple yes no.

Thanks to Shueisha's Shonen Jump App we now get everything as it comes out. We get the future best and the future failures and there really isn't a way to control it. So to see Red Hood a series with some very vocal fans, it was always at the whims of Japanese customers who seemed neither interested in voting for it over other series in the magazine or purchasing its volumes as they came out. It is a hard pill for people to swallow, to have something that they like, that they want to be invested in and tell its story to be cut short.

But I would say that in this day and age while it is hard to witness this, the benefits of the SJ app are phenomenal. The SJ app is a convent subscription service at a reasonable price that offers the first chapter of a series free as well as the latest three chapters free. So even if you want to not subscribe you can still keep up on an official platform. And Manga+ being similar and not region locked. Thanks to this any new series debuting in Shonen will have the eyes of the world audience on it. When there is a new batch of manga that enter the series, it feels like an event. It really is a high risk high reward situation-you run in WSJ and you have the opportunity for everyone even beyond Japan see your work simultaneously, however you will still have to fight and maintain interest and hype for your series on a weekly basis.

As previously stated, Kagurabachi absolutely benefitted from this. And while yes some it was ironic, the fact that the promise of a new battle series was going to be on everyone's screens and have the biggest reach to find an audience is good. Now of course, we have to remember that WSJ still doesn't let non Japanese voters participate in polls, so while you can find a foreign audience it might not be what gets people excited in Japan (Although there have been instances of foreign fans purchasing Japanese volumes). Well jump may have gone an extra mile with this one. Kagurabachi would actually really early into its run cycle be given a recommendation by Gege Akutani author of Jujutsu Kaisen.

Now for those who actually don't know, in Japan, some manga are printed and packaged with a recommendation band that acts as an extra form of promotion. Siting a famous or well liked author giving a series a recommendation and a little image of the series they worked and sometimes a quote.

Obviously getting an on the cover cosign is a bit more prestigious than say, going to your Barnes and Noble and an employee has written why you may enjoy this series. And not just any mangaka, Kagurabachi was getting props from one the biggest mangaka in the magazine with a pretty ravenous fanbase. But for me a big thing that got my attention that showed how much jump was investing was the previously mention Kagurabachi PV trailer. A simple YouTube animation to get people to check out the work, plenty of series get this. But Kagurabachi's was the first to have it in English. A Japanese company acknowledging the server of the global audience is huge and I'd say this already seemed like it was hyped up enough, but then you have an editor of Jump+ openly acknowledging the "#BachiFlex" in an official statement. There's no doubt there is a fanbase and Jump is absolutely aware of that fact. And of course you can't forget those color pages.

So that's how Kagurabachi was doing, how was Gachiakuta doing? Well first we need to talk about Weekly Shonen Magazine and get something out of the way, they do not have a ranking system like shonen jump. Weekly Shonen Magazine actually seems to operate more along the lines of volume sales. waiting for a manga to hit print and see that actual tangible interest of the people who buy it. Because of this, you can see that WSM has actually a much lower turn over rate than WSJ. And that when there is a new series its usually only one or two at a time in a year. So if the series hinges on sales, it should love having a massive reach?

Well sadly, WSM and Kodansha have been pretty poor when dealing with the global market. I mentioned earlier its relationship with Azuki getting official scans out but there was also the deals it had made with Crunchyroll to have a reader for their work. Both services were not the best received, so wouldn't it be nice if Kodansha had a web service like Jump? A simeulpub on the international market. Well enter K Manga and possibly one of the biggest fumbles ever.

I mentioned before that the SJ app was made with the mind as a subscription service, this was done with awareness of what western audience were willing to financially invest in. Well, Kodansha instead responded with a resigned version of their Magazine Pocket app that included a frankly confusing points and ticket system with just straight up micro-transactions. If you're keyed into the Webtoon scene you probably know this type of weird gamification of a service is done in Asia.

Im sure you've heard the famous quote about how piracy is a service problem and not a pricing problem. People would be perfectly happy to spend money on an official release if the way to access it was ultra convenient. And making Americans learn things like 24 hour tickets, and daily prizes, and just having you pay for each individual chapter. Its just really cumbersome and I'd rather get back to reading scans instead. Also to add some insult to injury it is region locked so even if you wanted to purchase this in countries like Europe, you can't.

I will at least say some positives, I think K manga has a much wider range of series available than the SJ or Manga+ apps. As it takes from Kodansha's many different manga magazines like Weekly Shonen Magazine, Weekly Young Magazine, Monthly Afternoon, Monthly Morning, Bessatsu Shonen Magazine, and Magazine Pocket originals. And Gachiakuta was part of the first few titles at launch and it was some good promotion as later that Fall, Kodansha USA would release the English print copies. But promotion through an app a lot of people weren't really happy with.

Speaking of the print side wasn't doing so hot either. As this may be a surprise to some, WSJ is rare in the fact that it makes manga a real center focus of why you should purchase the magazine, meanwhile many other mags use covergirls.

Look Im not gonna say Shueisha doesn't do this, their Weekly Young Jump covers are really raunchier than this with their cover girls. But yeah not exactly the most bright thing for a series when its being paired against glamor girls and quite literally pushed into a corner.

But it wasn't all bad as Urana would actually end up promoting the series through other means. As mentioned before, a pretty popular Vtuber had already devoted time to promote it of her own free will, Urana herself would even be commissioned to draw cover art for them. Urana would do the same for Jpop band cvlte. We'd even have Kodansha ambassador and professional skateboarder Yuto Horigome have Urana in for a session to talk about art and just recently, British rock band Bring Me The Horizon was promoting the series.

Now its my opinion that no series deserves success or deserves failure. It needs to stand on it own merits and the ones interested will come to it. However, I do find it interesting how Kodansha as a company has chosen to promote their work. Even when its going harder (especially post anime announcement) it feels weirdly word of mouth. Getting all these guys from different subgeneres to talk about it while internationally having such a mixed roll out. But maybe that close inter-personality is what makes the Gachiakuta rise story more unique. Sure it doesn't have the same all eyes on me as Kagurabachi has gotten, but in a way its kinda made this more intimate whether once again cultivating fans who are really really faithful to Gachiakuta's success. This comes to a head in the 101st chapter of Gachiakuta with a color page, Urana thanks her friends in it fitting several graffiti names of people who have supported her and the studio that will be making this a reality.

And hey, while I've definitely been critical of Kodansha, there's no denying that, but hey they agreed to give this series an anime so that must mean its a success. Right?

Success?

So I've been mostly talking about aspects of Gachiakuta and Kagurabachi's more social and industrial significance. How they became popular and how they're been treated by their respective companies. But what about results? Why bore you all with all this hot air when I can just give you cold hard facts? Well by sales-yeah Kagurabachi is a hit. Like there's no other interpretation. It is a hit. It debuted at number 4 on the manga sales chart, by two volume on the market it had hit 100K copies in circulation, and is receiving reprint after reprint.

Also this is a bit tacked on because this happened while I was editing, Kagurabachi just overwhelming won the Next Manga Awards print category. By a huge margin and being the second highest number of votes submitted for a series after Oshi no Ko. Like I don't really have much to say but like... Congrats to Takeru Hokazono. Like there's not denying this is a hit. Like I read the acceptance tweet, he knows. He knows people have been gasing him up as "the next big thing" like. I have nothing else to say this is a success.

The Kagurabachi train is a rolling and knowing how hotly people are anticipating it to fill the shoes of success like MHA or JJK, its showing the results to back up those expectations. In fact, this has actually been one of the few times I've seen a lot of anticipation for a series that doesn't have and anime and that anime is probably off for quite a bit. As of the time I'm writing this Kagurabachi sits at 46 chapters.

As for Gachiakuta this was actually the most surprising for me to actually see the Japanese sales figures.

So for all the anticipation its final result is... okay. Like yeah these sales are fine. There's no way it be in danger of being cancelled and like any business would look at this and say its steady. But that's kinda all it it, steady. I always kinda hate talking about sales that are kinda just doing okay. Cause no one ever wants to be told that its not exceeding expectations, but there's no like rubbernecker cratering that can be entertaining. Its doing just fine. And that's really all there is for a series that's manga only for now.

Obviously the anime is announced. Its coming and it will likely get a boost in audiences interested in it (Know if it doesn't get stuck on like Disney+ or Amazon), but that's kinda why I wanted to get this blog post out before hand. Cause I wanted to compare these series as manga. Now of course you have to remember these sales charts are accounting for Japanese sales on debut. So its likely that there is longer tails than we know of for each series. However, its kinda funny seeing Gachiakuta's figures and remember how it won a Next Manga Award in the category of "Global Special Prize." So its not too much of a stretch to say in Japan Gachiakuta is still pretty punk and underground and the value is definitely in that global market. Though I have to have a bit of laugh now a how much that's been a pretty hit or miss effort.

So Gachiakuta is a success story, but its that sort of "A first party Nintendo switch game sold over a million units" type of success. That's good, but its not like making those Mario numbers.

Conclusion

So I'm sure you're asking what was the point of all of this? Why did you spend so much time of comparing the rises of two shonen action series that outside of probably their hardcore cheering section don't really think about their success stories?

Well to me, I'm of the belief that the ultimate goal for a mangaka (And really any creative professional) at the end of the day is to be able to tell their story, entertain people, and make a comfortable living while doing so. The end goal may be the same for many, but the paths to how we get there can vary greatly. If you made it there by blockbuster success or by underground hit. And the fact that those paths can be so varied by factors ranging from independent social media movements and the actions of making a piece of media even available for an audience you want to reach.

When writing this piece, I really got the sense of just how much bigger manga in particular is effecting the more broader ani/manga subgenre. Its not just that thing where only the best of the best we're getting English translation posted on scan sites, we've reached a point where now a global audience can have a series in their reach. Yet their reach varies.

We still don't have the chance to submit surveys in jump and we still don't have physical volumes of manga printed around the same time so we can take into account global sales, but we can hashtag. We can share these on live streams. We can have our own grassroots efforts that are actually having something resembling an effects on the choices of Japan. All of this change in practically a decade.

Will Gachiakuta and Kagurabachi go onto to be pillers of the anime and manga community? Mmm maybe. Their fans are super passionate and the great thing about fans is even though they can be loud, they are the ones helping make new fans. They're the ones making the fan art and fan fictions and reddit posts. For all we know when they get anime they'll pop off harder than before. Or maybe they'll get a bunch of normies who don't get or like them and will tell you how its secretly never good.

Still its interesting to see how despite these two series having so much of the same ground, both of their roads were so different. And that maybe you can't control how things will turn out in the world of social media and corporate management. Sometimes all you can do is your best and stand on your own merits and the people will find you.

Whether they run for 200 chapters each or 700 chapters each or anything down the middle. Gachiakuta and Kagurabachi, here's to you're accomplishments now and here's to many more successful years down your respective roads.

Anyway folks that's my time. I hope you enjoyed this think piece. If you do please drop a like or reblog. It'll really tell me if you're interested in seeing more content like this. And maybe I can share more and more about this industry that I'm passionate about.

#manga #anime #analysis #discussion #think piece #gachiakuta #kagurabachi #kei urana #takeru hokazono #weekly shonen jump #weekly shonen magazine #shueisha #kodansha #rudo surebrec #rudo gachiakuta #chihiro rokuhira #jujutsu kaisen #vtuber

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