You might have been wondering how Gachiakuta, a series so unconventional and unique, came to life. Kei Urana, the mangaka, was the creative mind and hands behind the story, art, and character designs, but they collaborated with a graffiti artist to bring the world to life by providing the background.
With Ando Hideyoshi, the graffiti designer for Gachiakuta, it complements Urana’s art style perfectly. His art adds so much personality to the already chaotic world, and you can tell how much fun they have collaborating as two creative individuals. It’s also rare that a graffiti artist will be involved in a manga series.
This only makes the series and art all the more special. Kei Urana has put her heart and soul into making Gachiakuta, and now she’s enjoying the fruits of it with the upcoming anime adaptation. When discussing the making of the series, she notes a hilarious recurring Easter Egg as her favorite aspect of the manga.
Urana and Hideyoshi think the “find the poop” Easter Egg is the best, much to the fans’ chagrin
The premise of Gachiakuta involves a world full of trash. While the series is a commentary on class disparity, the environment is quite on the nose. Trash isn’t a symbol or a metaphor for anything; the upper class quite literally dumps their trash into The Pit, and the protagonist has lived there his whole life. The conditions are terrible, and the world is full of chaos and violence.
With how outlandish the artwork of the series is and the ton of personality Hideyoshi adds to the world, there’s bound to be a few weird scenes and panels.
Urana, in particular, loves to add tiny doodles of poop in random panels for her fans to find, and her assistants also make sure to draw them in. Some characters even openly swear, and it’s almost always poop-related. However, she’s also fond of adding memes.
In an interview published on the official YouTube channel for Gachiakuta, named “GACHIAKUTA” Anime Official Channel, Urana and Hideyoshi talk about their collaboration.
When asked about their favorite thing to draw, both of them replied it was the poop. Urana comments:
There’s a whole “find the poop” thing. Even the assistants ended up drawing random poop, so I hope people have fun with that too. Damn, maybe we went too hard on the poop theme.
The Easter Eggs aren’t the only times they’ve added it to the manga, and it probably won’t be the last, even though Kei Urana seems sheepish at how much they use the theme.
The poop fights in Gachiakuta are a bit excessive
Aside from the “find the poop” theme, Kei Urana seems to enjoy incorporating it into other parts of the manga. While it might be fun for her and her team, is it necessary to have fights with poop flying around?
In the trash-filled world of Gachiakuta, poop will be present throughout. The upper class, after all, doesn’t care what they throw in there, as long as it’s away from them. It’s the people in The Pit who suffer. So, it’s actually realistic to have random poop flying around.
That being said, Kei Urana’s obsession with poop being a motif in the storyline has to be studied. Their enthusiasm for the Easter Egg is rather funny and endearing, but we wonder how the anime adaptation will pull this off. Perhaps there will be one dedicated fan who will find all the Easter Eggs.
Gachiakuta can currently be read on K MANGA.
This post belongs to FandomWire and first appeared on FandomWire
