The Stars of ‘Gachiakuta’ Say the Anime Is More Than Just Its Fights

Gachiakuta is a new shonen anime series that expands the phrase “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure” into a full-blown revenge saga. Animated by Studio Bones, known for its work on My Hero Academia, its story follows Rudo, a boy cast into the Pit, a literal abyss at the edge of an apartheid world, after being falsely accused and exiled from the floating city of Spherite.

From there, the thrust of the show sees Rudo join up with a group of superpowered misfits known as the Cleaners, who wield treasured items with personal meaning as weapons as he claws his way back to the surface world to exact his vengeance.

As the anime wraps its first cour and gears up for the second half of its 24-episode season, io9 spoke with voice actors Bryson Baugus (Rudo) and Christopher Wehkamp (Enjin) about stepping into the booth to portray a fresh take on the classic shonen mentor-student dynamic, and what it means to bring these characters to life in a series that turns trash TV into something trancendent.

This interview has been edited for brevity.

Isaiah Colbert, io9: Fans are already calling Gachiakuta the next big thing in shonen. What do you think gives it that special spark that sets it apart from classic and contemporary action anime that came before it? 

Bryson Baugus: Very much the art style of [Gachiakuta] is key—the first thing that you notice about it. Nothing out there right now looks quite like Gachiakutadoes. The character designs are so unique, the fashion is there, [and] the graffiti art is wonderful. With the anime, the music is crazy good. All you really need to do to get people to check something out is to have that eye catch. And once they get in there, they see these characters interacting with each other. They see the relationships that are building, the world’s mysteries, and it really hooks the viewers.

What makes this stand out as opposed to a handful of other shonen that I’ve seen in the past is that it really likes to take its time in establishing these characters, their relationships, and this world-building, as opposed to jumping from fight to fight to fight to fight.

Christopher Wehkamp: I agree with all of that. The only thing I would add to it is just that once you get past that eye catch and you start checking [Gachiakuta] out, the power system in this story is really interesting. It gives you something to think about yourself, and it gives you something to kind of ponder on—the way that the power system seems to really indicate the backstories and the key moments of these characters.

Even just seeing a new character and then seeing what their “jinki” is gets your mind going on “What does that mean for them? Where did that come from?” and “How does that tie into what I’m seeing with this character?” That’s a really cool recurring theme. Once you get in the door, there’s a lot to dig into here. It does have good fights too—every shonen needs to have good fights—but like Bryson said, there’s a lot more to it there.

io9: We talked about Gachiakuta’s world being unique. I ascertained it being like a chaotic blend of Mad Max‘s grit with a graffiti punk Borderlands flair to it. Plus, there’s some trash kaiju monsters thrown into the mix. Do you have any voice acting rituals or mental prep you use to tap into that energy before stepping into the booth?

Baugus: I just generally try to stay hydrated. Rudo has a bit of a raspy kind of grittiness to his voice that I don’t typically do in a lot of other characters, so I try to make sure that I’ve got some warm tea, and then I just go into it. I just jump into the deep end as soon as I’m there to record.

Wehkamp: I developed a ritual back in 2018 or so. I had a particularly busy season where I was voicing something like seven different characters in seven different shows. Not all of them were big characters, but they were all kind of starting to blend together in my mind. I would go into the studio and depending on what I had that day, I started associating different characters with different musical genres or artists. And so I would make a little playlist and I would listen to songs on my way in.

Now, anytime I have a recurring character, whether it’s an anime, video game, or whatever it happens to be, I’ll associate some kind of music with it. If I get to drive into the studio to do it, I will just put that on, and that helps to get me in the mindset that I’ve associated with the character. That way, when I’m walking into the both, I’m already there. I’m in the zone for that wolrld for that character. It doesn’t always work when I’m recording from home. I have to sit in the booth and turn on Spotify for a little bit that’ll get me there too. I don’t do this all the time, but it helps with characters that I know I’m gonna be coming back to as I associate it with music in my mind.

io9: What’s a song that you play to get into the mood for Enjin?

Wehkamp: I have what I call a roots rock playlist, and so it’s not necessarily any one band. I like the fact that when I put in a playlist versus a band, it’s gonna throw songs at me that I’ve maybe never heard from artist I’ve never heard. In a way, that actually creates the association in my mind even better. It’s less about the band and the actual song; it’s more about the vibe. I couldn’t even tell you one off the top of my head right now, honestly, I just put on a playlist. It’s a lot like five-string bass, blues progressions, really deep-throated, dirty rock, so that really seems to be the vibe for me. I really like your Mad Max comparison, too! I’m a huge Mad Max fan, and that’s a great comparison.

io9: Shonen heroes often feel like they carry the weight of the world on their shoulders as they venture off into an adventure. Rudo’s, however, is one steeped in a Greek tragedy vengeance tale. How did you approach voicing a character constantly balancing between rage, grief, and hope?

Baugus: I try to think about where he sits at his core. I feel like he does have that anger to him, and I feel like he definitely has those moments where he lets it overtake him, for sure. But at his core, he’s still just a very misunderstood kid who’s trying to find his people out there. He’s been rejected his whole life. He’s had Regtoas a father figure, [but] that’s about all he’s had. He hadChiwa when he was up in the Sphere as a good friend that he grew up with, but when things happen and he no longer has Chiwa around anymore, he’s on the ground looking to recapture a lot of those relationships—trying to find that family he never really had.

And so, I come at him from a vulnerability as opposed to lashing out in anger at everything. He has those moments, but I feel like his default state is a little bit more introspective. He’s thinking to himself about what’s going on, and he’s taking in what’s happening around him. I think he’s learning from everyone around him how to handle certain situations that he’s never encountered before, or how to better handle situations than he used to.

io9: Enjin joins a long line of shonen anime mentor-type characters. If you could describe Enjin’s philosophy in a few words—something he’d pass on to Rudo as sage advice—what would it be?

Wehkamp: I think right away he’s drawn to what he perceives as Rudo’s potential. I could think maybe there’s something in there beyond, “He would be a great fit for the Cleaners,” or “He could sure kill a lot of trash beasts.” There seems to be more that he recognizes as valuable in that. For me, I think he’s going to end up being the reason why Rudo is able to acclimate and find a place for himself on the Ground. Where that goes from there, obviously, we don’t know, but I’m so interested in finding out.

I do think that the Cleaners, as an organization, seem to be really hyper-focused on hunting down trash beasts. But there’s so much more to being a giver than just using these things to kill beasts. Potentially, there could be a whole lot more to do in this world for these guys.
There’s still so little we know and so I’m very excited to see how this all comes to fruition. Within these first 11 episodes, [Bones has] given us so many little tantalizing clues about where it could be headed, so I can’t wait to find out.

io9: If you lived in the world of Gachiakuta and had a giver power, what personal item of yours would be your vital instrument, and what ability would it give you?

Baugus: I have a little old copy of a Game Boy Advance game for Mega Man Battle Network 2 that the label has been completely peeled off after years of being through hell and back. I put a little Sharpie with the name on it and everything. I’d probably treasure that, and that would turn into something like a like a catch-all game card that lets me say, “I want to play this right now,” and it becomes that game. I think that’d be cool.

Wehkamp: I was a drummer in bands all the way through my 20s, so that was a a big part of my life before I ever started doing VO work. I still have my drumsticks that I started cutting my teeth on back when I was 14 or 15 years old. They’re beat up, destroyed. But I would love to be able to pull those out anywhere I am, and a ghostly drum set will appear, and I could start jamming anywhere. And also it’s full volume to me, but nobody else can hear it, so I don’t have to bother anybody at the sandwich shop. I think that would confuse a lot of people around me to see that, but I would love it; that’d be great.

New episodes of Gachiakuta air every Sunday on Crunchyroll.

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