 It's been a while since I let my inner weeaboo shine through on this channel, so I figured, you know what, let's talk about a manga series that I actually really liked from back in the day. This one is called Akame Ga Kill, which is, like, I know that's not a translation, but I've seen it translated several different ways. I've seen it translated as the red-eyed killer, but I've also seen it translated as Akame kills, and I don't know how that works. I don't speak Japanese, whatever. I'm just going with what most people do and calling it Akame Ga Kill. This series came out back when I was still a big reader of manga, like in the 2010s, and it was when, like, the big three were dominance, you know Naruto, Bleach, One Piece, and just a bunch of others shown in manga, which were very similar to those, were all over the place. And Akame Ga Kill got big largely because it is a subversion of that entire genre. And what I mean by subversion, that's a very, very overused term. Like, basically what it means is that something looks like it's going to follow a common trope, at least at first, and then it takes a hard turn and does something unexpected. So it lulls you into thinking, okay, here's what's going to happen, and something different happens. And this can be used for dramatic effect or comedic effect. Like, a good example of this would probably be the original Mistborn trilogy. Like, the entire first book, it seems like, okay, the Lord Ruler is going to be the main villain of the entire series, and maybe they'll overthrow him by the end, but then, like, no, they overthrow him and kill him at the end of the first book. And when you do a subversion properly, that's an amazing thing. It's really impressive if you can pull that off, because what it does is it allows you to keep all the great parts of this trope or genre, and then get rid of the bad, annoying parts. Like Akame Ga Kill, like I said, it got big largely because it was able to maintain and keep all the really great parts of the Shonen genre. Even people who hate Shonen manga have to admit that stuff like the action scenes are generally really good. The art styles are, like, bold and... well, I can't think of any other positive descriptors for them. But the art styles in Shonen manga, especially at the time, tend to be really bold and also just a lot of fun. And there are usually very clear themes about never giving up, following your dreams, and sticking by your friends no matter what. And Akame Ga Kill maintains all of those. But it also managed to avoid or get rid of the really annoying parts of the genre, like meandering stories that go on way, way too long. Like, again, the big three are very classic examples of that. Like Naruto and Bleach at least ended eventually. One piece, what are you doing, man? Why are you still doing that? Or the lack of narrative stakes, which is usually brought on by characters getting into situations where it looks like they're dead, but then they just bring them back one way or another. Probably the most egregious example of this I can think of is Byakuya from Bleach. Like, at the beginning of the final arc, it looks like he is killed. Like, he gets into a fight against one of the bad guys who shows up and is crazy powerful, and this dude takes his own power from him and uses it to turn him into a red smear on the fucking wall. And they specifically mention like, oh, his spiritual presence has disappeared. So it seems like they're saying, okay, yeah, he's dead. He's gone now. But then a little while later, because Byakuya's a fan favorite character, they weren't allowed to kill him. So they just say, oh yeah, he actually, he survived by the way. And then he just does nothing the rest of the story. But like, he survived and that takes away the tension and the stakes in the narrative, because we know, like, okay, even if good guys win fights, they're nothing bad is going to happen to them. So that's really obnoxious to deal with. And it's very, very common. And also just the constant power leveling. That's another thing that Akame Gaaki'll manages to avoid. And I'll go into that a little bit more later. But basically what I mean by it is, like in Naruto, they started off as ninjas who would occasionally do magic stuff, like breathe fire and climb up walls and things. And obviously it's not realistic from the beginning, but it just goes so over the top by the end of it. Like every villain after that has to be so much more powerful than the last one that by the end, it's literal gods destroying mountains and stuff. And it just kind of erased a lot of the series' original identity. And that is something Akame Gaaki'll doesn't deal with. We'll talk more about that later. And it also manages to be like a really dark story in terms of tone and the events that happen without being grimdark. And the main way it does that is by, well, again, it has all this hype for the action scenes and everything, which are just a hell of a lot of fun. Like it doesn't shy away from it. It doesn't try to go like, no, no, look, this is like, this is what war is like. It sucks. It's bloody. It's violent. Like, sure, there is some of that, but for the most part, the fights are just really cool and a lot of fun. And then also there is plenty of humor in there to take the edge off. So while a lot of times, yes, subversion of tropes and stuff can be thought of as like, okay, just do the same thing, but darker and edgier, Akame Gaaki'll does not have that problem. But I've gone this far. I haven't actually talked about what the story is about. It starts off with a teenage boy named Tatsumi who lives in this gigantic empire, which is, it's just called the empire. And he lives in a village like far, far away from the capital city, which is just called the capital city. And he is going to leave home so that he can join the army and hopefully send some money back home and help them because they're really poor and stuff. And he was originally traveling with some of his friends named Ieyasu and Sayo, but they wound up getting separated during a bandit attack. And he figures, hey, I'll just run into him in the capital. So he goes there, but he's not able to join the army. And all the money he has is stolen. And he winds up just being stuck on the streets by himself, but he is picked up by these, this friendly seeming noble family. And he's like, great, that the capital is awesome. People were saying how corrupt and evil it was, but it's actually great. But then while he's staying the night at their house, a group of assassins who are just called Night Raid attacks and starts killing them. And at first Tatsumi is fighting back against Night Raid, but then it turns out that the noble family was not so nice. See, they had this giant torture chamber hidden in their house, and they would just pick up random civilians from wherever they found them, and then they would bring them over there seemingly being nice about it, but then they would just torture them to death because they're just sick. They're basically just serial killers. And they were able to get away with it because that's just how the empire is run. Like there's an emperor, but he is just a little kid, so he's just being manipulated by the Prime Minister, who is just an evil sadist. And so there's tons of nobility and other high ranking people in the empire that are just stealing everything and tormenting everyone. And there's nothing that can be done to stop them. And in fact, two of the people that were killed by this noble family were Saio and Ieyasu, Tatsumi's friends. And Saio was already dead by the time he arrived, but Ieyasu is still alive, and he confirms to Tatsumi that yeah, this is what was going on, but he's been poisoned, so he dies right after all this. And then Tatsumi upon seeing this finds the noble girl who brought him and seemed so nice before, and he just immediately kills her. And then he joins up with Night Raid, and then the whole rest of the story goes on from there. And this is all like the first chapter of the manga and the first episode of the anime, so this all happens pretty quick. And just from this beginning chapter slash episode, all these subversions and the way that this series should work is pretty clear, because it starts off seeming like a regular Shonen story, but it goes in a completely different direction. Like again, Tatsumi fits the archetype for a standard Shonen protagonist. You know, he is a teenage boy who's kind of naive, but like has a strong sense of justice and is a really nice dude, I guess, and he's a really good fighter. And so it makes you think, okay, this is how the story's gonna go, but then he kills with no hesitation. Like again, but when he finds out what the noble girl did, he doesn't punch her and send her flying off into the stratosphere or something cartoony like that. He doesn't have her arrested or anything, which is how a lot of Shonen protagonists would do, because again, they, they don't want to kill people for whatever reason. He just instantly kills her. He's like, okay, this needs to be done. This bitch needs to go. So he does it. And because Tatsumi had these two childhood friends, you would assume they would play some sort of role in the story. Again, because that's just such a common thing in this genre. Like they might come back later as rivals or they might be allies. They might come back soon. It might be a very long time in the future, but you would expect them to be there at some point. But no, they're both just gone and they never come back. And Tatsumi's grief over them is not focused on a whole lot, but it's clearly there. And this gives him like very solid reason to hate the empire from the beginning and to want to change things and make it so that this sort of thing doesn't happen to anybody else. And actually, one small detail that I really liked is that it's, they never come right out and say it, which is rare for anime in general, but Tatsumi is implied to have been in love with his friend, Sayo. Like later on, they fight a guy who has this power to make them hallucinate the person they care about most and Tatsumi sees Sayo. And so they, again, they don't come right out and say it, but it's implied. Okay, yeah, he was in love with her, but he is able to move on. And again, the whole thing with the torture chamber, like I don't think I can really show images of it on YouTube or I'll get demonetized. But like both what we see and what is described is pretty horrible heinous shit. And the thing is, if you're reading something like Berserk and you come across a torture chamber full of people who have been horribly mutilated and stuff, that wouldn't be so bad. But imagine if you came across that in like fairy tale, you know, like that would catch you off guard. Like that's the point of subversion. It seems like it's going to go in one direction. It seems like it's going to be in this specific genre and then it takes a totally different term. The whole thing lulls you into a false sense of security. It's really, really interesting. And this isn't going to be like an in-depth review of a Kamega kill. Like there's a lot of stuff I could go into. I'm not going to. I'm really just going to be focusing on like the subversion aspect and how it works and why it works in this series, but it doesn't in a lot of others. And from this point ahead, there will be some pretty big spoilers. So my basic thoughts on the series. It has really good characters. Some of the humor is fun. The action and the artwork are fantastic. But the actual story is way too simplistic. And I feel that the ending of the manga is pretty weak, to be honest. Like the anime, like the last quarter of the anime actually goes off in its own direction. And it ends similarly to the manga, but it does it better, a lot better in my opinion. Like it hammers home the themes of the story better and everything. So I don't know, like whether you want to watch it or read it, they're both really good. And that was my thoughts. So spoilers from here on out. If you don't want those, then goodbye. You feel that people have maligned your character? I have been assassinated. I have been buried alive. But I'm alive. So I should mention that Night Raid, the group of assassins that Tatsumi joins, they aren't working alone. They're actually part of a much larger revolutionary army, which is working to overthrow the current government of the Empire. And Night Raid are just the assassins that work for them and take out high profile targets and just help to weaken the Empire. That way, when the revolution finally happens, they will have a better chance of succeeding. And that's kind of the whole story. Like that's, that's what I meant when I said the story is simplistic and weak. It's really just Night Raid going after this target, and then this target, and then this target, and then at the end, like the climax happens. And when they fight, they use these magical tools which are just called Imperial Arms, and they all have their own unique abilities. Like Akame has a big katana, oh yeah, there's a girl named Akame. Her and Tatsumi are kind of both the protagonist of the story. It's, it's a little weird, but yeah, she just has a katana which has been infused with poison, so if it even scratches you, then you'll be dead within a couple of seconds. There's another guy named Bulat who has this magical suit of armor which he can summon, and it makes him super strong and everything. There's a girl named Shiel with giant pair of scissors that can cut through anything. It's, it's kind of silly at times, but again, it's keeping the good parts of Shonen Manga which means like sometimes having weird silly abilities for characters to fight with. And upon hearing that you would think, okay Tatsumi's gonna get his own unique Imperial Arm at some point, but he actually doesn't. Because see, early on, like within the first couple chapters of him joining, or episodes of him joining, other members of Night Raid die, and they die in very horrible, unpleasant ways. And after Bulat dies, Tatsumi actually takes his armor and uses that for the whole rest of the series. So like, it's not a unique power, but he manages to wield it and do a really good job with it, and so he's always connected to the dead. They're like, we're never gonna forget about the people who came before. And that one's admittedly a small subversion, but it is a subversion. It seems like, okay, he's gonna do something different. Oh no, okay, it's just the same power his friend has, but it's done in a different way. Okay. And then the next major, major subversion here is when they introduce the main villain of the story, Esteth. And this is, this is one of those stories where the actual main villain is just kind of in the background doing things, and really it focuses on one of the people working for him, and they're the ones that actually go out and fight the heroes and stuff. Because like I said, the main villain here really is the Prime Minister, but then Esteth is just a general underneath him, and he tells her, hey, go out and kill these Night Raid guys. And so that's what she does. And Esteth is just an evil sadist. You know, she's obsessed with strength. She's like, well, if you can't defeat me, that just means you were too weak anyways. Who cares? And she just enjoys causing people pain. Like she tortures people for fun and things like that, which is, again, a very common villain archetype in this genre. It's just, it's honestly pretty lazy a lot of the time. Like it's just, yep, this guy's evil just because he feels like being evil. Also, she is in love with Tatsumi, which is, again, another thing that is pretty common in this. Like, okay, it's not always done in this way, but it is common for the villains to be weirdly obsessed with the protagonist for one reason or another, either hating them or kind of admiring them, usually hating them. And in her case, she is also obsessed with them. But the way it turns it on its head and does something different is that it's actually explained a little bit, like especially her sadism. You see, Esteth comes from this tribe that lives like off in the distance far away from the Imperial capital, like on the outskirts of the Empire. And that tribe has its own unique beliefs, its own unique culture, and its own unique way of approaching life. Like, there's some flashbacks we see of her where her father was a hunter and he kills animals. And she's like, oh, do you really need to kill him? And he just goes, well, that's just how things work. You know, the animals eat plants in order to survive. And then other animals eat those animals in order to survive. And then we kill and eat these guys in order to survive. And like, if I was too weak, then this thing would have killed me. And that's just the way things work. Like, they don't enjoy it. They don't take pleasure out of causing harm to animals or anything. But that's just, that's just what they do. And then Esteth takes that same basic idea and really runs with it and goes a lot farther with it. But again, like, it has actual reason and explanation for why she turned out the way she did. It's because she just comes from a much different culture than most of the other characters do. And her being in love with Tatsumi is, again, weird and kind of silly at times, but she does genuinely love him. You know, she's controlling and abusive and everything, which we see very early on. Like, when she first falls in love with him, she straight up kidnaps him for a while and he has to escape. But it's made clear that she does genuinely care for him. So again, that is yet another subversion. It seems like, okay, she's obsessed with him just because she's trying to prove her own ideology or something. No, she just, she genuinely loves and cares for this guy. And you can kind of see why. This one might not be a subversion, per se, but I'm going to call it one anyways. Basically, Esteth also forms a very early power ceiling. Because again, with what I was saying earlier about the constant power scaling in these types of series, let's look at Zabuza from Naruto, for an example. Like, Zabuza is the first major villain that Naruto and his friends fight. And he is just this very powerful, near legendary ninja. And he is a monster when they first fight him. Like, you see him and you're like, wow, how are they ever going to overcome this? And they just barely managed to do it with help from Kakashi, who is their teacher. And he's also a crazy powerful, borderline legendary ninja. And so you're realizing like, okay, the heroes have a long way to go, but one day they might eventually reach that point. But then other people start being introduced who just make Zabuza look like a chump. And then people who make those people look like chumps are introduced and more and more and more, until eventually, like I said earlier, it's just gods destroying mountains and everything. So the stakes just keep getting higher and higher and higher. And it just becomes ridiculous. Whereas in a comic, a kill, Esteth is introduced from the beginning. And we see very clearly how powerful she is. Like she can take on entire armies by herself. But we know from the beginning, like, okay, that's like the top that people can get in this, in this world. Like the most powerful people in this world are going to be at or around Esteth's level. Okay, how are the heroes going to do this? Are they going to have to use Sutterfuge? Are they going to get more powerful over time? Like, it avoids the constant escalation, which can just erase the original identity of the series, like what happened with, again, Naruto. And it also helps make sure that Esteth stays as an unfathomable beast and a massive, massive threat to the heroes the entire way through. Like from the beginning, we see, okay, she's really crazy powerful. How are we going to defeat her? And at the end, we're still thinking, okay, she's really crazy powerful. How are we going to defeat her? Like it just works a lot better. Again, I don't know if that would be a subversion per se, but I'm calling it one. What is a subversion, a hundred percent, is Esteth's squad. They call themselves the Yeagers. And those are just like a bunch of other like powerful elite soldiers from across the empire that she brings together to help her hunt down and kill Night Raid. And these guys, again, this idea of a squad of really powerful villains who have to fight the heroes is very, very common in Shonen. Like, I mean, I keep bringing up Naruto, but that's like, even though I like Naruto, it is an example of a lot of the problems that plagued the Shonen genre at this time. So we'll use the Akatsuki as an example. You know, there are these crazy powerful ninjas who show up and we're like, okay, the heroes are going to have to fight them at some point. And Yeager is kind of like that, or the Yeagers. Actually, I'm forgetting because I've heard it referred to both ways. Like the whole team is called Yeager, but also the individuals are called Yeagers. I don't know. It's a little weird. It's being translated through three different languages, whatever, let's not focus on it too much. Because if you are a fan of this genre, which I really was at the time, you're kind of subconsciously comparing Yeager to people like Akatsuki. And you're thinking, okay, they're all just going to be various shades of evil, but they're really not. You know, they're all, or most of them are very nice people. Like we have a Kame's younger sister who is like nice and personal in regular conversations, but she is a cold-blooded assassin still. And then there's like another dude who just burns people alive all the time, and he knows that what he does is wrong, but he also has a wife and daughter who he really loves. And there's a guy named Wave who has a very similar power to Tatsumi. And they are rivals, but not in a traditional sense because it seems like under different circumstances, they would be friends. Like they both have a strong sense of justice and everything, but Wave is just undyingly loyal to the Empire because he thinks that even though it's flawed, this is still the best way for things to be run. And that's what really hammers home the whole point of Yeager is that they're like heroes for the wrong side. And this is really the banality of evil, which is how it works a lot in real life. Most of the people working for like the Third Reich and stuff were not going home and eating babies at the end of the day. They were in a lot of ways very, very normal people who just didn't feel like rocking the boat and got swept up in the culture and swept up in just their surroundings. So they felt like, okay, this is just how things work. And Yeager is a very good example of that sort of thing. So rather than them just being evil just because or even having like real reasons for being evil, they aren't really evil. They're just working for evil people. There is another group of villains that shows up later called Wild Hunt and they pretty much are just evil for the sake of being evil. They're really dumb and I hate them, but I mean, they also aren't around that long. So I'm not going to complain about it too much. And by the time we get to the finale of the story, that is, like I said, the Revolutionary Army comes in, they attack the capital and Tatsumi winds up kind of merging with his armor. And then he turns into a dragon because his armor was made from a dragon's scales or something. Again, it's kind of weird. It's anime. I'm not going to explain it too much, but it is kind of weird. And then he starts like turning into a mindless beast. So Akame kills him or rather she kills the mindless beast part. And then in the epilogue, we see Tatsumi is still alive and well. Like he's just a dragon now, but he still has his old mind and memories. So he just it lives the rest of his life as a dragon, I guess. That was a weird part of the ending. But by killing her best friend, sort of, Akame unlocked this crazy power which allows her to fight Esteth and then she kills her and the Revolution wins and they lose most of the rest of the members of Night Raid while doing it. Most of their friends are dead, but they do win in the end. And actually I will say real quick that the anime did this differently, but better in my opinion. Because in the anime, Akame just cuts herself with her own sword and that makes her super powerful temporarily and she uses that to take down Esteth. And that does open a plot hole because it's specifically mentioned earlier that her sword would poison even her if she cut herself with it. But it's also pretty cool so I'm willing to look past it and it just does, I don't know, it works a bit better than what was done in the manga. In fact, I would just say the anime's ending is better overall because, again, in the manga most of the members of Night Raid die, but the ones who are still alive go on to have happy endings, like Tatsumi and another girl named Mine who he fell in love with over the course of the story just go on and are just married now. She's married to a dragon now and they get a happily ever after. And then Akame and their boss, Nagenda, who led them the whole way, just kind of go off to have more adventures and help rebuild and stuff. Whereas the anime, everyone was dead except for Akame and Nagenda, like Tatsumi's gone, like he does not survive at the end. And not only are they dead, they're forgotten. Like there's a whole voiceover in the epilogue of the anime where it shows all the members of Night Raid and the voiceover is just saying, yeah, the revolution wouldn't have succeeded without them but their actions were never made public and the memories of them just faded away and they were forgotten. And that's depressing, yeah, but it also really helps hammer home the series as themes. Like the characters didn't do this for glory, you know, they didn't do it for any sort of real reward. They just did it because it needed to be done and people needed protecting. So they were the only ones that could do it so they had to do it. And that is the final and possibly biggest subversion of this entire genre because most Shonen manga, especially at this time, just ended with, yep, the heroes saved the world and now everything is safe and then I guess they just grew up and had kids and stuff, I don't know, whatever. Like it just, the end. Like it ends basically the exact same way as Harry Potter. And Harry Potter is kind of shown in anime, just in movie form or book form now that I'm thinking about it, but whatever. The point is, subversion, it's not just doing something different. You know, like I said, it means it requires that you follow the tropes up to a certain point and then diverge in a different direction from them. And it's also different from deconstruction, which is where you take the tropes and sort of just play them out but you follow them to their logical conclusion, which is not usually done. And Akame Ga-kil is a very good example of how to do subversion right. It's not perfect, but it's a good example of how to do it right. So if you're looking for that, then go check this series out. And I don't have a strong closure for this, but see you later. Like the video, comment, subscribe, and check out the pinned comment for a link on where you can find this limited edition plushie. You know, you should check it out. It's a really cool plushie. See you later. Wow, you're still watching? I mean, I guess I appreciate it, but I'm not sure why. I mean, at this point all that we have left is all these names here. These are my patrons, including my $10 earn-up patrons. Appo Savalainen, Olivia Rayan, Brother Santotis, Buffy Valentine, Carolina Clay, Dan Anceliovic, Dark King, Dawn, Dio, Echo, Flax, Karkat Kitsune, Lexi DeLorm, Liza Rudikova, Lord Tiebreaker, Micahphone, Mistboy, Peep the Toad, RobiReviews, Sad Martigan, Silyr the Vixen, Stone Stairs, Tesla Shark, Vaivictus, and Wesley. These are all great people. 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