Author: Yuto Sano
Publisher: VIZ Media
Volumes in Series: 6
Status: Ongoing

The first thing that drew my attention to Gokurakugai was the art. It’s fucking fantastic and manages to immerse the reader from page 1. Scratch that- the cover art catches the eye and draws you in. The story starts with a few soft but detailed and inviting panels, and then we’re thrust into action that doesn’t sacrifice any of the detail of the art for the sake of portraying movement. Characters are incredibly distinguishable from each other without diluting the art style, expressions are distinct, and the backgrounds are incredibly detailed. Even the side characters are detailed and memorable, which makes their introductions feel less like, “Okay, here’s a throwaway character” and more like, “Who is this and what am I going to learn about them?”.

One of my favorite nuances of Sano’s art is that the female characters aren’t presented for fan service. Their bodies are feminine, of course, but there is no over sexualization, and characters are drawn appropriately for their ages. Panels that include full body shots focus on the posture of a character or what they’re doing, which is incredibly refreshing in a genre that often reduces the physicality of female characters to sexualization.

Character relationships are articulated through interactions and casual banter rather than dialogue that spoon feeds the reader background information. Introductions to the cast left me feeling as if I’d already known them for a while and was just picking up where we left off.

Given that it is Shonen, I was expecting a bit more gore, but I think what was given was enough. It’s not a gore-fest, but action is meaningful, and we don’t have to use our imaginations to determine something that happened outside of a panel. Nothing feels like violence for the sake of violence- everything’s earned and relevant.

The pacing was done incredibly well and transitions felt natural. Given that this was the first volume in the series, I didn’t walk away feeling overloaded with information, and there wasn’t any ambiguity about what I was getting myself into. There was also plenty of character and plot development to solidify the premise and set reader expectations. There were enough breadcrumbs given to leave you wanting more without feeling like you’d been left with a bag full of riddles.

Sano’s definitely left me hungry for more, and I can’t wait to dive deeper into this series and find myself attached to yet another set of characters.

Join me over at Yap Sessions to discuss story development and spoilers as we get deeper into the series.