I can be really hard to please when it comes to anime, especially with shonen anime. All the shouting, the minutes-long exposition required before anyone makes a move, the protracted action scenes that appear to only cater to teenage boys. I am, however, highly susceptible to good-looking art and animation, which is the whole reason why Gachiakuta caught my eye in the first place.
Ahead of its anime release in July, I had the opportunity to attend an advanced screening event for the first two episodes of Gachiakuta. I came away impressed with its devil-may-care attitude and honestly stunning animation, but was left underwhelmed by its odd pacing and nothingburger fight scenes. This is, I suppose, emblematic of a lot of shonen manga and anime series. It’s all about looking cool and saying cool things and occasionally doing a funny thing to make the audience laugh, but is there any substance there? Does Gachiakuta have a real story? Well that remains to be seen.
First, the preamble. Gachiakuta follows the story of Rudo, a boy who lives in the slums section of a civilization known only as The Sphere. There are hints of this early on and it’s made very apparent by episode 2, but The Sphere is a large floating landmass, and criminals are sentenced to death by being dropped off its edge, into what the Sphereites call The Pit. The Sphere is split into two halves: one for the poor, and one for the rich.
The rich are, of course, awful. They live in their little privileged bubble, tossing things out when they no longer serve them. The story opens with Rudo making a name for himself as the trash raider who sneaks into the garbage disposal areas of the rich to steal usable trash, fix them up, then sell them back in the slums. He’s also got some sort of weird condition where his hands are completely black and deformed, and he’s an orphan who’s been taken in by a kind, if sometimes crude, man named Regto. Their lives are tough but simple, and Rudo seems, for the most part content with his lot. He has flashes of violence and anger, though, particularly when he recalls his last memories of his father, who was a criminal sentenced to death in The Pit.
Episode 1 of Gachiakuta primarily focuses on the world-building and suffers from really sluggish pacing as a result. Now don’t get me wrong, I love a good bit of world-building, and it’s clear that Gachiakuta has a really neat idea to expand on here. But there’s no juice. Apart from Rudo, who sports a really unique and striking design, the side characters are boring and largely forgettable, including his bait-and-switch love interest who quickly turns out to be a spineless wimp.
It’s only in episode 2 where we’re introduced to our second major cast character in the form of Enjin, your classically cool anime boy with blonde spiky hair. The entirety of episode 2 takes place in The Pit where Gachiakuta‘s pacing improves marginally, with more lore tidbits thrown out like candy. What is The Pit exactly? It sure looks a hell of a lot like our world, but how can that be, when The Sphere looks so fantastically dystopian?
Episode 2 is also where the action begins, as Rudo faces off against large, literal garbage monsters. You see, the Sphereites have been throwing all their trash down to The Pit, creating a polluted wasteland and causing these monsters to rise up. We’re then introduced to Enjin, who calls him a Cleaner and wields an umbrella that’s capable of emitting such power capable of disposing of those monsters. Episode 2 introduces the idea of a whole civilization living down in The Pit. It’s full of people who hate the Sphereites for throwing their trash down, and when they see Rudo, they’re eager to sell him off into what I assume is slavery.
There are flashes of intrigue in Gachiakuta. As I alluded to previously, Rudo is very much capable of violence and he shows no mercy to the Pit dwellers despite them arguably being the wronged parties in this world. When Rudo awakens to his Cleaner-adjacent power — thanks, I’m sure, in no small part to his hands condition — he nearly kills the Pit dwellers, and is only stopped when Enjin steps in again. I like my anime protagonists a little crazy and immoral, and Rudo certainly has the potential.
At the same time, Gachiakuta also loves beating the audience over the head with cheesy fable-like morals like, treat your belongings with care and a soul may come to inhabit it. Don’t throw your trash away carelessly or it may turn into a monster. Is the entire show an allegory for climate change and environmental preservation? I can appreciate that message, especially in 2025, but the presentation is so heavy-handed and the pacing so sluggish that I found myself hoping the show would just get on with it already.
So yeah, I walked away feeling underwhelmed. At the same time, I’m also inclined to give this a shot as new episodes release. After all, Attack on Titan proved me wrong once. It was everything I thought I hated about shonen anime, but it ended up being one of the most important pieces of media I’ve ever consumed. Jury’s still out on Chainsaw Man, but it’s well on its way to showing me that it’s more than just a “cool boy does cool things and saves the world” story as well. Gachiakuta could do that too. And if not, well, at least it looks cool.
Gachiakuta is set to premiere on Crunchyroll on July 6.
