Premiering earlier this year in July, Gachiakuta is the latest installment in shonen anime. Adapted from the ongoing manga created by Kei Urana, it is a dark, fantasy anime. In this review, I will be covering what’s come out of this season so far. I want to explore why I believe this will be the next shonen to blow up in popularity.
The General Overlook
We follow the main character, Rudo, living in a city called the Sphere. Rudo is a scrappy young man who loves collecting trash and loathes the higher up people in their society. The anime kicks off when he’s framed for his father’s murder and sent to the Pit. This is where all of their trash goes. Usually, you die after hitting the ground. However, he survives, and when faced with a trash monster, someone saves him.
This anime, while it does seem to be another shonen where the main character is ripped from everything they know and we follow their journey, it’s got a unique spin. Urana worked as an assistant in the production of Soul Eater and Fire Force. I haven’t seen Fire Force yet, but Soul Eater is one of my top animes of all time. You can really see the inspiration for Gachiakuta pulled from both shows. It has a similar art style from both shows. The unique twist is the graffiti art shown all over the new world Rudo is in. In one episode, we even see a location called Canvas Town, where it’s covered with graffiti art.
There’s a lot of good characters we meet along Rudo’s journey. In later episodes it explores some heavy subjects in a genuinely disturbing way. But it is careful to give the subject the care it requires. We’re also introduced to the central conflict that revolves around Rudo, along with some suggestions of things to come.
The plot
Before I continue, please note that this anime is still ongoing. As of writing, 15 out of 24 episodes of season one are out. Since its release, I’ve been closely following this show with great interest and I’m definitely eager to see what’s next. However, I’ll be getting into spoiler territory from this point forward. I do highly recommend checking this anime out!
Rudo is rescued by our first introduction to a group called The Cleaners. They are an organization in this world they called The Ground. They rescue people and destroy the trash monsters that plague their world. However, the monsters aren’t the only dangers, as we soon find out.
The Cleaners have abilities that’s called being a Giver. Every Giver has an object they care so deeply for that it can transform into a combat weapon, which they use to fight monsters and raiders. Rudo finds out that his gloves that his father, Reggio, gave him, enables him to be a Giver. So, he joins the Cleaners to learn how to fight in this world and his ultimate mission is to find a way back to the Sphere to get revenge.
Amo and the Art of Portraying Heavy Topics
This segment will cover themes of sexual abuse. If this makes you uncomfortable, feel free to skip over this part.
This couple episode long segment begins with a tip that this person, Amo, may know a way to get to the Sphere. They meet her, but she’s very strange and wants to talk about love to them. The group has no interest so she uses her Giver abilities to manipulate half the group into fighting against the rest, so they can’t attack her. After a lengthy fight, it ends when one member steals one of her boots, which activated her Giver abilities.
The following episode is a calmer one, where the group learns about Amo’s past and takes care of her after the fight is over. She Her mom couldn’t take care of her, so she sold her to a raider. The raider raised her and claimed to love her, but he was sexually abusing her. But, because she was a child, she thought this was love. The anime depicts it as such, where we see what a child might think of the situation, and even explained in crude childlike drawings.
Eventually though, as Amo grew up, she began to realize the situation for what it was. Thankfully, the raider dies, so Amo wasn’t harmed anymore. But understandably she acts the way she does in order to cope with her life. The group becomes friends with her and wants her to tag along, but she stays at her tower, where she is kidnapped.
This episode was gut wrenching to watch, as the anime portrays this abuse as tastefully as possible, but it was still a hard watch. However, I am glad they would explore such a heavy topic with the tact it needed. It was well done, but I would not be eager to return to this episode.
This is one of those reasons why I think this anime has the potential to be the next shonen to blow up online. It doesn’t shy away from hard topics, but it can depict them in a way that is given the weight needed.
The Raiders
After the events of the Amo fight, the group befriends her. But the raiders kidnap her. Rudo and others run into what we now know is the leader of the raiders they previously fought. They’re after Rudo for reasons we don’t fully understand yet. We just know they know he’s a Spherite and want him.
In the final two episodes that are out, Rudo and company are lured into a trap by the raiders to be teleported to an underground, remote location. They’re all separated, Rudo alone with the leader, and the others isolated against a raider. The leader wants to convince them to join their side, appealing to his desires to get to the Sphere and revenge. I would assume that the rest of the season will center around this conflict that’s been building up during the course of the season.
I’m really curious how this plot will go. Will Rudo be righteous enough to stay the course on being good, or be too tempted to join the raiders? Rudo, compared to protagonists like Tanjiro from Demon Slayer, is not a wholesome character. He is an angry, sullen boy dead set on revenge. One of the Cleaners, with her Giver abilities, even hints that she sees a rage in Rudo that could destroy the world. I can totally see a potential where Rudo will go to extreme lengths to get what he wants.
However, he is not a downright evil person either. He punched Amo after the events of their battle because of what she did to them. But he felt guilty after and apologized. He also feels strongly about others, reacting with anger towards the raiders when he finds out they took Amo. Rudo is an angry, impulsive character, but I can see him sticking with the Cleaners. Which is why they had to trap them and corner Rudo to make any progress with retaining him.
Conclusion for Now
With nine episodes left, I’m really eager to see how this season will play out. For some time, it is a slow burn type of show, building up the new world and learning about it. It follows a similar formula that a lot of shonens do, but I think it will be the next shonen to blow up as it has a unique art style and a wholly different environment from other shows we’ve seen before.
We also don’t have a super wholesome main character, like how Tanjiro or Yuji from Jujutsu Kaisen are. Rudo is different from those morally righteous characters; Rudo has some morally grey parts about himself that I’m excited to see how they manifest over the course of the show. Once this season concludes, I’d love to come back with another review to wrap it up and see if any of my predictions comes true.
