Gachiakuta is a new shonen anime series that expands the phrase “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure” into a full-blown revenge saga. Animated by Studio Bones, known for its work on My Hero Academia, its story follows Rudo, a boy cast into the Pit, a literal abyss at the edge of an apartheid world, after being falsely accused and exiled from the floating city of Spherite.
From there, the thrust of the show sees Rudo join up with a group of superpowered misfits known as the Cleaners, who wield treasured items with personal meaning as weapons as he claws his way back to the surface world to exact his vengeance.
As the anime wraps its first cour and gears up for the second half of its 24-episode season, io9 spoke with voice actors Bryson Baugus (Rudo) and Christopher Wehkamp (Enjin) about stepping into the booth to portray a fresh take on the classic shonen mentor-student dynamic, and what it means to bring these characters to life in a series that turns trash TV into something trancendent.
This interview has been edited for brevity.
Isaiah Colbert, io9: Fans are already calling Gachiakuta the next big thing in shonen. What do you think gives it that special spark that sets it apart from classic and contemporary action anime that came before it?
Bryson Baugus: Very much the art style of [Gachiakuta] is key—the first thing that you notice about it. Nothing out there right now looks quite like Gachiakuta does. The character designs are so unique, the fashion is there, [and] the graffiti art is wonderful. With the anime, the music is crazy good. All you really need to do to get people to check something out is to have that eye catch. And once they get in there, they see these characters interacting with each other. They see the relationships that are building, the world’s mysteries, and it really hooks the viewers.
What makes this stand out as opposed to a handful of other shonen that I’ve seen in the past is that it really likes to take its time in establishing these characters, their relationships, and this world-building, as opposed to jumping from fight to fight to fight to fight.
Christopher Wehkamp: I agree with all of that. The only thing I would add to it is just that once you get past that eye catch and you start checking [Gachiakuta] out, the power system in this story is really interesting. It gives you something to think about yourself, and it gives you something to kind of ponder on—the way that the power system seems to really indicate the backstories and the key moments of these characters.
Even just seeing a new character and then seeing what their “jinki” is gets your mind going on “What does that mean for them? Where did that come from?” and “How does that tie into what I’m seeing with this character?” That’s a really cool recurring theme. Once you get in the door, there’s a lot to dig into here. It does have good fights too—every shonen needs to have good fights—but like Bryson said, there’s a lot more to it there.
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