Anime: Gachiakuta

Very underrated, the art is cool and maybe not innovative but unusual, and the plot is something very different but made in an interesting way. I hesitated to start watching because of lack of hype I guess, but I'm so glad I did(I'm on episode 7 at the moment). It's kinda difficult to find something different and good outside of all the Sword Art Online and Clannad type of Anime. Because it's not set in the usual japanese setting but rather an alternate universe, the overall design and humor overlap withe the western culture a little while retaining the story telling mechanics of conventional anime (same editors I guess XD) 100% recommend.

Despite garnering a modest wave of anticipation from its existing manga readership, Gachiakuta aired alongside Dandadan season two, which swiftly captured the attention of the action genre’s entire demographic. With Dandadan monopolizing the core viewer enthusiasm, Gachiakuta was left struggling for relevance.

Even in the absence of such formidable competition, however, Gachiakuta would still have encountered significant difficulty in distinguishing itself. At its core, it is an unabashedly traditional shōnen series, reminiscent of Black Clover or Fairy Tail. It offers very little in terms of innovation and visually-wise it only has shallow motifs such as graffiti on the walls and drip clothes made out of trash to somehow be memorable. Even there, there is no explanation for why the poor wear the same type of clothes as the rich. Logic suggests the rich should have opulent garments, while the poor would walk around in tattered rags. So why are they all wearing fancy clothes? How do they even acquire those clothes? It’s certainly not from the trash of the rich, so where do they get them from? You never get an answer because the show is dumb.

The obvious meta- explanation is because the protagonist needs to look cool. Who would like a shonen hero who wears rags? It doesn’t matter if it has no in-series logic, the same way ninjas in Naruto should not be wearing bright-colored overalls. It’s the spectacle that comes first. Well then, even there Gachiakuta stumbles because its characters inhabit a world that reeks of filth. What kind of a shonentard could tolerate a hero that is caked in grime, and is surrounded by stenches of all kind? By extension, who would find any sort of appeal in a cast of characters who permanently smell like rotten eggs? The answer is nobody. Back to watching Dandadan!

Gachiakuta also attempts to evoke a darker, more mature atmosphere, yet its execution is clumsy. This is best exemplified by its treatment of the relationship between the social classes. It has a city that is divided into the rich side and the poor side. This attempt at social commentary doesn’t develop any further. How does the wealthy class sustain itself? Who supplies their goods and services? How do the poor acquire food or shelter in a system that denies them the means to labor, trade, or even scavenge? Why do the wealthy elite tolerate the physical proximity of the impoverished masses, whose squalor pollutes their environment, despite the rich having no apparent economic, social, or logistical need for them? The poor neither produce goods nor offer labor; they are not even permitted to collect refuse, despite the rich possessing an apparently inexhaustible supply of disposable resources. Even the most rudimentary solution, a waste-for-labor exchange system, wherein the poor are allowed to recycle refuse in return for basic sustenance, would have lent the setting some plausibility. But nope, no symbiosis exists, no plausible incentive justifies their cohabitation, and no explanation is provided as to why the affluent don’t simply exile the underclass entirely. Instead, the elite wait for crimes to occur in order to selectively punish a few. It’s ineffectual and collapses under the slightest scrutiny.

Beyond that Gachiakuta is definitely not refreshing for any particular reason. Not when it smells like feces. The plot is a chaotic string of combat sequences and shouted exposition, revolving teenagers doing silly emotes every few seconds. It is not crafted for viewers seeking narrative sophistication or thematic substance. Rather, it caters to the action meatheads, who are content to be fed a steady diet of kinetic chaos and recycled tropes. It can also be appealing to edgy watchers who love derpy faces. There are lots of silly facial expressions, a trait that the mangaka inherited from her mentor and then made it trice as ridiculous. It’s supposed to make the characters to come off as insane, but it only manages to paint them as clowns.

Gachiakuta further undermines itself through excessive exposition. In classic shōnen fashion, characters frequently explain aloud what is happening, even if it’s already plainly visible, just so you won’t have to actually look at the screen. Sometimes it’s semi-excused since it’s about information the protagonist has no idea about. Even then you have to tolerate several minutes of each episode getting wasted on him, standing still with his mouth open, as others yap about stuff in the setting. It’s crude and smells like your granny’s mouth when she kisses you.

Other times, all this talking is not needed. It’s very awkward when you know the characters are talking about things they already know about, just so the audience can get the basics in an artificial way. Stuff like the protagonist’s backdrop on episode one. Like, really, nobody knew about that all these years? And why bother to show it in a flashback when you can say it, right? It’s not like these characters who emote as if they are sitting on a bicycle without a seat are worth staring at.

Moreover, the show attempts to engender empathy for its vomit-smelling protagonist, by portraying him as falsely accused of murder. But even this is portrayed superficially. Why didn’t anyone see the killer running out from the front door of the house in broad daylight? Why did the police arrive instantly and immediately accused the protagonist without any motive or evidence? It’s all done to victimize him in a hurry and it falls flat on its face. The reason it worked so well in other anime such as The Rising of the Shield Hero or even Redo of Healer, is because the audience knows who the actual culprit is and sees them taunting the falsely accused. In Gachiakuta the assassin is masked, emotionally opaque, and devoid of motives or even emotions. In a dumb action show where everyone emotes as if they got a dozen suppositories up their butt, this means nothing and nobody will care. True to that, the revengeporn aspect of the show is practically forgotten past the first episode.

The final nail in the coffin is what follows the exile of the protagonist into a trash hole. Somehow falling several miles and crushing on the ground doesn’t kill you. Somehow the trash there is sentient and turns into ugly CGI that wants to eat you. Somehow you gain superpowers when you fight with trash. And somehow there is another society down there who recruits the discarded and together they form the Toxic Avengers (Garbage edition).

Essentially, within one episode the anime jumps genres entirely, from a social drama to Alice in Garbageland. Then the plot follows a bog-standard (the irony) formula, where a supernatural organization of smug magicians becomes interested in the dog-poo-smelling protagonist. Guess what other show airing alongside Gachiakuta did that. Why, yes, it’s the Lord of Mysteries, which happens to look far more polished and doesn’t have characters who emote like clowns with constipation. And, guess what, after he joins this organization, the show instantly loses all its themes up to that point (the city of two classes, and the revengeporn) and turns into generic missions where they fight with shonen powers and constantly pause mid-fight to infodump their every move to the viewer.

Like, seriously, who greenlit this? It’s no longer the same show anymore. Imagine the disappointment of all those who really liked the themes. And what is that I see in later episodes? Some underage girl getting groomed into becoming a slut? And it’s presented as a sexy thing so that the teenage boys watching this will be drooling over a most horrible and inhumane case of treatment of human life? That is certainly not going to alienate the remaining watchers. Seriously though, were there no editors during the making of the manga?

As a whole Gachiakuta is not simply about trash. It smells like trash, treats underage girls like trash, and turns the taste of the males watching it into trash. It’s also airing in a season with far better offerings, so why are you consuming trash when there is quality food out there?