365 Days of Manga, Day 107: Gacha Gacha: The Next Revolution

GACHA GACHA: THE NEXT REVOLUTION (Gacha Gacha) (ガチャガチャ) • Hiroyuki Tamakoshi • Del Rey (2006-ongoing)) • Kodansha (Weekly Shônen Magazine/Magazine Special, 2002-ongoing) • 16+ volumes (ongoing) • Shônen Romantic Comedy • 18+ (language, brief mild violence, nudity, constant sexual situations)
This sequel to Gacha Gacha is really an entirely different series with a new cast of characters. Due to a malfunction in the Gacha Gacha virtual reality video game, Akira, a gangly, porn-renting high school student, changes back and forth into a petite girl every time he sneezes. He uses his new female form, “Akira-chan” (which looks nothing like his male self) to make friends with Yurika, the teenage waitress he has a crush on. The gender-switch premise is used almost entirely for voyeurism (”Well, I didn’t get to see her nipples, but at least I got to see her face light up when she tried on that new bra”); there is little characterization or humor, and Akira barely even bothers to conceal his transformations, running out of the room as a boy and coming back as a girl in oversized boy’s clothes, but his friends never put two and two together. The processed artwork consists mostly of pin-ups of women with unnatural-looking, mugging facial expressions and undetailed, rubbery breasts. The art style is notably different from the original series, apparently due to a new staff of assistants. In Japan, Gacha Gacha: The Next Revolution was published as volumes 6+ of Gacha Gacha.

Today’s winner is Art R. of California. Congratulations, Art! Soon you’ll get a bunch of manga, just like Shannon B.!

It’s the New Year, and that means it’s time to sweep out the old and sweep in the new. I use the word “sweep” intentionally, since I’ve just finished an article on the most common type of clothes in manga (after school uniforms): maid uniforms and the maids who wear them. Yes, go now to comixology.com for my latest article on the pseudoscience of Maidology. It’s more than an easy way to sell manga to maid fans: it’s a fusion of Akihabara geekiness, “Kamen no Maid Guy,” ninja and exotic Euro-fetishism. Check it out!