The season that just keeps coming keeps on coming with a Monday of big premieres. Hot on the heels of a Sunday like none before in terms of volume (for me), after a Saturday that was no slouch either. I knew with 27 shows in the season preview that premiere week was going to be a war of attrition, and so it has. Mental fatigue has definitely set in, but Gachiakuta is a big one and it demands attention. I have a history with this title in more than one sense. I’ve been reading it since the week it premiered (originally I think because a couple of big mangaka recommended it), and it’s made more than one appearance on My Taste is Better Than Yours (including in the “Next Big Thing” episode).

For the record, it was just over a year ago that Samu picked Gachiakuta as one of his two NBT (and it was a runner-up for me). Now it has an anime adaptation, and a Bones one at that – an honor generally reserved for prestige titles or ones with huge commercial expectations. The fact is, the series has not had the kind of commercial ramp-up I think both of us were expecting. It’s successful, to be clear – but it hasn’t exploded. In fact volume sales have dipped quite a bit from their earlier peaks. I’m not sure why that is – we delved into the topic in our Gachiakuta episode. But sales for the next volume are going to be fascinating to watch – will it get the huge anime boost kaijuu series always seem to enjoy?

We’ll see. With Bones at the helm, there’s never really any doubt you’re going to get quality at the very least. Judging by the PVs it seemed as if we might be in Tengoku Daimakyou (Production I.G.) territory here, a real jaw-dropper. I’m not seeing that yet – the production on the premiere is Bones great, but it didn’t shock and awe me the way Tengoku’s premiere did. Even if we slot in a notch below that – say Nige Jouzu no Wakagimi or Dandadan – that’s probably enough to goose the numbers if indeed anything is going to.

I recommended Bleach in that podcast episode, because now that I’m reading that I really see how Gachiakuta is cut from the same cloth. Urana Kei draws more detailed backgrounds of course (low bar), but the two series vibe very similarly to me. We’re talking about an “it” factor, a coolness and swagger. Gachiakuta almost as much as Bleach is a manga that I find difficult to imagine in anything but black and white, which was always going to be an interesting challenge for the anime staff (the usual line of of superstars in a Bones priority show). In fact there is a lot of black and white/greyscale imagery in this episode, which has the effect of making the few bursts of bright color really stand out. It’s very effective.

Gachiakuta (“Legit Trash”, more or less) is set in a world that vaguely might be our future. The city is split between an extremely wealthy sanitized zone and a slum where the “tribesmen” live. There’s some talk that they’re the descendants of criminals, but that’s hearsay at this point. Speaking of criminals, anyone caught (or framed for) committing a serious crime (which one assumes is always a tribesman) is cast off the edge of the world and into The Pit, a legendary Hell no one has ever seen and returned to tell the tale. In the slums lives Rudo (Ichikawa Aoi), an orphan boy in his early teens. Rudo lives with his stepfather Regto (Morikawa Toshiyuki), who strongly disapproves of the raids the boy makes into the white city to steal trash.

Rudo is the son of a renowned killer, or so people tell him. He wears gloves to cover the black wounds on his hands, wounds he believes were given to him by his father. He’s quietly crushing on Chiwa (Itou Miku), who seems about as high-class as anyone in the slums might aspire to be. Regto urges Rudo to give her the stuffed dog he salvaged from the trash, and generally loves and supports the lad, who returns the favor. It’s a rough life but not an unhappy one, which comes to a calamitous end when a strange masked figure enters their house, fatally stabs Regto, and steals a book, leaving Rudo to be framed for the murder.

There’s a bit too much exposition by explanation here (as is the case with the manga), but on the whole it’s a solid introduction to the Gachi-universe. Urana is phenomenal at world-building, and this is really just the prologue – the real world of the story is only seen in the final moments of the episode (after a brilliant “fade to black” transition that’s the visual highlight of the episode). Rudo is the strange, awkward, beating heart of the story and there’s far more to him than we see in this introduction. The story really begins next week, and that’s when the full measure of Gachiakuta’s charms will really begin to make it seen, heard, and felt.