No, Kagurabachi Is Not The Next Big Thing

Since it debuted last fall, Kagurabachi has become a fairly popular title in the pages of Shonen Jump despite only having a few dozen chapters to its name. After rereading each chapter, I can safely confirm that no, Kagurabachi isn’t going to be the next big hit from Shonen Jump.

Given the years I’ve spent watching and writing about anime, I’d like to think I know a hit when I see one. Whether it be commercial successes or critical darlings, while I have been wrong about many things before, I think I have a pretty good idea of which anime or manga are going to become popular. And since it debuted, I’ve been actively reading Kagurabachi each week and I’ve consistently felt nothing while reading it. It failed to elicit any emotional reaction in me, either positive or negative. It was just a series I read because I had nothing else to read between One Piece breaks.

So when I see all of the hype surrounding this series as the next big hit from Shonen Jump as it pulls respectable sales numbers, such as moving 200,000 copies of the first volume in a month, I have to tilt my head and ask what everyone else is seeing in this series that I’m not. When I read Kagurabachi, I’m not seeing a dark action series about a young boy seeking revenge over the death of his father. I’m seeing a series that is conventional to the point where it has nothing that makes it unique. Rather, it takes inspiration from every major Shonen Jump title of the past decade and feel iterative rather than innovative. This reads to me as Shonen Jump putting the cart before the horse out of a dawning realization they will face problems in the next few years.

But let’s back up a little bit. If you’ve never heard of the series before, Kagurabachi is an action series that follows a young man named Chihiro. His father was an expert blacksmith and forged six Enchanted Swords have magical abilities and were used to end a long war. Sadly, his father was murdered and the swords were stolen with the exception of a secret seventh sword, one that Chirio would grow up to use.

With that sword, he begins to hunt down the people responsible for his father’s death while also searching for each Enchanted Sword before they’re used for evil. This will lead Chihiro and his allies into conflicts not only with criminal organizations, but government agencies looking to acquire the blades for their own purposes.

As far as a general hook goes, it’s a sufficient one. We have a clear end goal and solid motivation for Chihiro, as well as the promise of magical fights and enemies to combat. But even after finishing the first chapter, the problems with the manga already started to crop up. When I read the first chapter of the series, I thought that Chihiro was a dull character and now that we’re 33 chapters in, that hasn’t changed. Chihiro, and Kagurabachi in general, lack an emotional depth.

Oh sure, there are emotional moments in the series, such as when a girl that Chihiro is taking care of named Char is kidnapped and we flashback to her upbringing, but the majority of the series isn’t interested in trying to empathize with the viewer. It seems more interested on delivering action above all else.

That’s fine to a point. I love some Shonen action series like Yu Yu Hakusho, Dragon Ball Z, and Chainsaw Man, but all three of those titles use emotions to heighten the tension of each battle. Kagurabachi doesn’t seem to understand this since it just barrels from fight to fight without stopping to let the characters or the mood have a chance to breathe. The fights themselves are fine, but without a solid emotional stake that the characters have in it, they tend to fall flat. Plus, when the series adds in so many side characters for our heroes and villains to fight against only for them to be quickly killed off, it prevents me from actually caring about anyone.

Killing characters in a story is a tricky thing to do that only a few titles can meaningfully pull off, but Kagurabachi is doing everything a series shouldn’t do in regards to character killing, only introducing random characters with the express purpose of being people for the main characters to kill to show how powerful they are.

There is a power system present in Kagurabachi, but it’s hard to explain what it is. Not in a metaphysical way like in Jujutsu Kaisen where trying to explain how its power system works is meant to be difficult and convoluted, but moreso that it’s just poorly explained. While the Enchanted Blades are straightforward enough – they’re swords made from a powerful ore that grants them magical abilities – there is also something called spirit energy and the people who can use them are called sorcerers.

Basically, everyone has access to spirit energy, but not everyone can use it. Those who can can gain magical abilities, but there’s no rhyme or reason to them. Some can teleport, some can sprout trees, and some can do multiple things, but it’s very clearly stated why that is. Kagurabachi only seems to be interested in the end result rather than the how or the why, making this power system come across as painfully generic.

And the more I read Kagurabachi, the more difficult it was to read it. It wasn’t because of the quality of the story, though I will say I was pretty unimpressed the more I read, but because I was so bored reading it. Nearly everything that Kagurabachi does can be traced back to the “Dark Trio” of modern Shonen Jump titles that made waves across the industry because of their grim tone. Those three titles – Jujutsu Kaisen, Chainsaw Man, and Hell’s Paradise – are all represented here in different ways. The magic system is very reminiscent of Jujutsu Kaisen, Chainsaw Man’s minimalistic art style is replicated here as well, and the edginess of Hell’s Paradise and uniquely Eastern aesthetics are on full display. But while each of those titles utilized those elements to enhance its story, it comes across to me that Kagurabachi is aping those series solely because they’re popular and not because it’s doing anything special with them.

That mentality really does become more and more blatant when you start to think about the current state of Shonen Jump. Mining trends until they’re dead is nothing new for the publication, but there’s a certain soullessness to Kagurabachi that feels especially cynical. To anyone who’s been a casual observer of Shonen Jump or the anime industry in general, you’re probably aware that a lot of major Shonen Jump titles are nearing their end. My Hero Academia and Jujutsu Kaisen are set to conclude this year and Jump’s biggest cash cow, One Piece, is preparing to end with its final saga underway. It’s an end of an era at Jump and they haven’t found a strong replacement for any of those series yet.

There are some contenders, but they’re not exactly lighting the world on fire. Kaiju No. 8 got a lot of publicity, mostly thanks to its new anime adaptation, but a lot of the hype around that show is fizzling. Sakamoto Days is doing okay, but is rarely known in the States. Dragon Ball Super has gone on indefinite hiatus following the death of Akira Toriyama, and Shonen Jump has been trying desperately to find its next hit. Even then, it can’t help but cancel titles when they don’t manage to become mega hits immediately.

Take MamaYuyu. Never heard of the title? It released one week before Kagurabachi and starred a young boy who was destined to be a hero and defeat the Dmeon Lord, but his adoptive mother is said Demon Lord and he obviously doesn’t want to fight his mom. It was an inventive little series, one that had some good artwork and felt unique and different. It was canceled in April after a little over six months, never having the chance to develop a fanbase despite critical acclaim. Out of the 11 new manga published by Shonen Jump last year, more than half of them were canceled.

Shonen Jump is quickly realizing that when its big series end, they need something to replace it. They’re throwing everything at the wall to find some suitable replacement, but quickly canceling any title that doesn’t immediately seem like it’ll be a hit. So it shouldn’t be surprised that a title like Kagurabachi, which is effectively a greatest hits of modern Shonen Jump tropes, was able to find an audience. Then again, given how aggresively Shonen Jump were advertising the series before it was even realized does seem like they’re forcing people to accept a mediocre title as the next big thing simply because they say so. I mean, they’re already talking about an anime adaptation of the series despite it being less than a year since it debuted.

This isn’t to say that Kagurabachi is a bad title, but it’s an aggressively mediocre one. It’s a series that lacks any and all heart and seems to be content with just giving people what they think they want. If people are talking about a “Dark Trio” of Shonen Jump manga and those titles are super popular, then making a series that caters to that crowd is the logical next step. But other creative efforts are being stifled by that. Titles like MamaYuyu are killed before they have a chance to shine and Shonen Jump is all too eager to elevate the same old trends rather than risk finding the next big thing.

Then again, for a company that seems worried about its output post 2024, playing it safe may seem like the safe bet financially. Maybe not creatively, critically, or artistically, but at least it’ll cash in on edgy trends while ignoring the actual next big thing.