Kagurabachi, the Smash Hit Born from the Modern Manga Hype Machine

• Author: James Parker

• Editor:  Alex Henderson

Have you seen this man? If you’ve been anywhere near online manga fandom in the past few months, you probably have—though maybe not in his original context. Pictured is Rokuhira Chihiro, protagonist of the manga series Kagurabachi, created by Hokazono Takeru, which began its serialization in Shonen Jump on September 17th, 2023. That same fateful day, a hype cycle swept the otaku community off its feet. In one chapter, Kagurabachi had people both praying for its downfall and swearing that it would be the next big hit. Voice actor Aleks Le started receiving messages congratulating him for his role as Chihiro in the anime adaptation, a thing that could not possibly have happened given that the series did not have an anime adaptation announced, let alone an English dub. The image of Chihiro unsheathing his katana became a meme, being featured in all kinds of places you wouldn’t expect. The imagery of Kagurabachi was suddenly everywhere, inescapable, and transforming in all directions.

Five months later, when Kagurabachi’s first volume dropped in bookstores, it was sold out all over Japan with reprints quickly announced. It received a recommendation by Kohei Horijoshi, creator of My Hero Academia. It spawned the hashtag #Bachiflex, which people used to show off that they had successfully gotten their hands on a physical copy—something so widespread, especially outside of Japan, that Momiyama Yuta, editor-in-chief of Manga Plus and Shonen Jump+, commented on it.

What is happening? How did a brand-new manga instantly launch to such memetic popularity? The answer to this question reveals much about what’s going on lately in the manga scene, reader culture, and the hype cycle that can (and maybe must) surround a new series.

Let’s start before September 17th. Kagurabachi is part of a trio of manga that Shueisha pitched as being their next big hits. This initiative has a name, NEXTWAVE, with creators selected from nominations of the Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize award, one of many like it that tries to cultivate talent for the manga industry. No manga that makes it into Shonen Jump is chosen randomly, but Kagurabachi has unmistakably been bred for success. There has been speculation that the current tentpole manga of Shonen Jump, like My Hero Academia, Jujutsu Kaisen, and One Piece, have started to close their curtains and are expected to wrap in the next year or two (though, who really knows with One Piece). This could be viewed as reason for this initiative, with the editors and publishers eager to fill the big shoes these monolithic series will leave behind when they end. While English speaking audiences seem to enjoy discussing ambiguously defined “generations” of Jump, it seems clear here that there is a genuine forward-thinking effort on their part for the magazine’s future.

If we look at the other two manga featured in the NEXTWAVE project, Kagurabachi certainly seems to stick out to anyone with the battle shonen affinity that Jump readers so often have. The image of a character with an X-shaped scar, black coat, and katana are striking. This is not to dismiss Yoshihiko Hayashi‘s MamaYuyu (a book I’m quite fond of, myself!), or Elck Itsumo’s Two on Ice. But from 10 feet away and keeping the energetic, vocal fandom that fighting manga seem to create in mind, it’s easy to imagine that the sword-fighting series might build more pre-release hype than the ice skating one.

That spirited community is the next major factor in Kagurabachi’s explosive debut. While not necessarily representative of the entire manga fandom, it’s important to note the so-called “hypebeast” fan and their role in the cycle here. To try and make it clear who I feel holds at least partial responsibility for that explosive debut, these are the fans who most anxiously await sales figures and view counts. The folks who check up on how other series are doing to pray for their downfall if they feel threatened. Aggressive levels of posts the very second a chapter or leak drops. They treat the success of their favorite characters and series personally, and with pride, much like a sports fan rooting for their team to make it all the way. Much like sports fans, spectating actively is part of the fun: posting reactions and memes, for example, and cheering along as loudly as they can. Given we’re in the era of social media, singing the song of your favorite series is easier than ever, and fans can all chant along together in retweets, shares, or in public hashtags.

If none of that made any sense to you, carry on with this: this type of behavior isn’t totally unwarranted or uncalled for. In fact, it has a measurable impact. When it comes to English simulpub manga (anime too!), oftentimes all we can do is shout about our GOATS and share our enthusiasm in a way we think it’ll be seen. Word of mouth is a powerful force, and in the age of social media, is often one of the best ways to get eyes on a new series. Hype generates hype: creating the sense that “everyone is talking about” a series will encourage more people to get on the train, leading to even more people talking about it (whether out of genuine interest, or out of good old fashioned FOMO). 

In English-language publishing, social media phenomena like “BookTok” have measurably increased the visibility and sales of novels; in a similar way, ravenous hypebeasts on platforms like X (formerly Twitter) have measurably increased the success of manga like Kagurabachi. And view counts do matter: on Shuiesha’s MangaPlus app you can even see weekly view counts and comments sections as if they were YouTube uploads, and series with more views get rocketed to the top. Even the English Shonen Jump Twitter made a gag of the attention Kagurabachi was earning—they noticed! 

In other words, all this hype is not just people shouting into a void—hashtags, aggressive recommendations, enthusiastic sharing, and yes, crunchy memes, all have a tangible effect on a series’ success. While obviously Shueisha has set this series up for success in some ways, its explosive presence in online fandom is arguably driving the machine. Kagurabachi is a child of the internet era and a symbol of the success that this can get you. 

So, hype is nothing new. But how and why did the hype for Kagurabachi spark so quickly? A slightly more negative outlook would be that some people simply want to get in on the ground floor of a new series, before it becomes hip and mainstream. This is ridiculous for many reasons, but when we’re talking about fandom, we’ve got to touch on it. I mean, have you ever thought anyone was cooler, wiser, or more important just for liking a manga before adaptations start calling? Manga is huge now! We are the mainstream audience.

Regardless of your answer, though, it’s worth noting another element of the industry: sometimes, the life cycle of a manga can be sadly very short. Shonen Jump has been known to be rather aggressive in culling series that don’t mark themselves as the next big thing. Fabricant 100, mentioned in the ANN story linked above as possibly getting cut to make room for NEXTWAVE, was one of my personal favorites. Even keeping the publishing abilities of digital in mind, Shueisha and Viz can only reasonably allocate so many editors and so much advertising for manga at any given time. For every My Hero Academia, there are a handful of series that unfortunately never got to thrive beyond a few chapters before getting the axe.

I would argue that playing speculator market with a series’ success would be detrimental to the reading experience and your own self discovery. The purpose of manga is not to get made into other things that matter more. Something is not necessarily a flop or a waste of your time, if it doesn’t become the next big thing. Reading comics is an amazing hobby all its own, even if that can come with heartbreak at premature cancellations.

Still, despite my personal position on the nature of art and reading, the manga industry is an industry. Everything I’ve described above has been a known factor in the Shonen Jump manga culture for a while. We’ve all been here before. Jujutsu Kaisen, My Hero Academia, Chainsaw Man, Demon Slayer, take your pick (and go back way further than that, if you’d like!). They all had their first chapters and went through their speculative periods. In those examples, we saw them get explosive new popularity with anime adaptations and growing fanbases. While I’ve gone to bat for the comics experience as comics, for a lot of fans, this is a cycle and this is simply how it goes. This is what’s supposed to happen, and will always happen with true hits. 

So well known is this cycle, and with more otaku than ever before, that Kagurabachi even smelling like a hit means we all know what happens. So we think, anyway. For those with ground floor type feelings, this is their turn to step up and be part of something special. For those who have gone through this kind of thing, Kagurabachi immediately turned into a hyper-parody of its own existence as a hit manga. It’s not a story unique to this manga, but it is a fascinating example of the quick timeframes in which this hype explosion can, and arguably must, happen in the modern manga landscape. 

Kagurabachi is also a great example of how international fandom plays a part in the modern measure of a manga’s success. Briefly, let’s go back to that tweet from Momiyama Yuta. Translated, one passage reads…

“The era of ‘becoming popular overseas only after it was made into an anime’ is over, and with MANGA Plus, new series can now be read in Japan and all over the world at the same time.”

Exactly. Simultaneous translations on (legal!) apps have made new manga more accessible to a worldwide audience than ever before, meaning “hidden gems” can be unearthed, and series that are projected to be popular can be launched at an international readership—and into an international spotlight—way more easily. English-language fans can keep up with the ebb and flow of the Jump publication cycle, and they can be part of it, discovering and rooting for their faves in tandem with the local Japanese audience and ensuring that new series make a bigger splash than was ever possible before.

Kagurabachi’s explosive, immediate, and meme-tastic success is not some freak accident: it’s the perfect result of the turning of the modern manga hype machine. We did not “ironically” make a new series popular. There’s a precise combination, a perfect, forecasted storm where promotion, talent, and a growing worldwide manga fandom created a success faster than almost ever before. In a way, the success of Kagurabachi is a self-fulfilling prophecy that goes in loops: the publisher positioned it as the next big thing, so fans reacted as if it was (including satirizing it for this), therefore making it the next big thing. 

This is what a hit manga series looks like now, and it is going to happen again. Kagurabachi is the blueprint going forward, not the exception. Whenever, and wherever it comes, I strongly believe it will look almost identical to this.

And we’ll be there to gas it up, and cheer on our next hero.