When Dragon Ball dropped its final chapter in May 1995, Shueisha was looking for another manga to take the mantle and become the new face of Weekly Shonen Jump. Then came One Piece, Naruto, and Bleach in 1997. However, nobody dared to think that their manga will “replace” Dragon Ball.
While chatting with the creator of Detective Conan, Gosho Aoyama, Eiichiro Oda stated that after Dragon Ball ended, all the newcomers were like, ‘I want that spot!’. It basically started a period where everyone was competing against each other to fill the void left by Dragon Ball. Then, after two years, everyone realized that comparing themselves to Dragon Ball was like asking to be defeated and somehow Oda managed to survive all of that. It meant that One Piece turned out to be Dragon Ball‘s true successor.
Now that My Hero Academia, Jujutsu Kaisen, and Demon Slayer have concluded, Shonen fans and Shueisha are once again looking for another manga that can take over the mantle from Naruto and Bleach and become One Piece‘s biggest rival before that series ends too. And according to many fans, Kagurabachi is that one manga that can be a potential candidate.
The next leader of Weekly Shonen Jump
Kagurabachi is such a different kind of case from any of Shonen Jump’s debuts in recent memory. It’s unique to the internet age, as the first chapter was a viral hit among fans before it even officially released in the magazine.
On September 18, 2023, Weekly Shonen Jump issue #42 gets published with a mysterious cover page. It had the picture of Kagurabachi‘s main character, Chihiro Rokuhira, as the lead color page, announcing the serialization of a new manga.
At that time, a lot of new Shonen manga was releasing and getting axed after a couple of chapters. So the overall faith that a new manga will come out and stick around was low. Therefore, fans did not receive Kagurabachi that well at the beginning. Many of them thought it was another basic battle shonen with a lot of edginess.
As a result, a lot of fans on X began making fun of it through memes and sarcastically comparing it with the Big Three and Jujutsu Kaisen. Some of them even posted hilariously that it surpassed Boruto before Kagurabachi’s 1st chapter dropped and has become more iconic than Goku’s Super Saiyan transformation.
Even Kagurabachi‘s author, Hozono Takeru, seems to have noticed the meme comparisons of his manga with other established series. If fans check out their X profile, they’ll see them engaging with posts about their series, including comments like “Greatest manga of all time.” And the author actually believed it to be real. They really thought fans were genuinely praising Kagurabachi and thought it’s up there with One Piece and Dragon Ball.
Funnily enough, the memes have suddenly converted into genuine praise, as Kagurabachi actually turned out to be really good. It has a solid power scaling system and an interesting plot line. It wasn’t the typical edgy storyline that fans expected. Not only did many fan and official polls name Kagurabachi as the most demanded series to be adapted into an anime, but an unknown official from Shueisha allegedly stated that they wanted Kagurabachi to carry the next generation of Jump.
Is Kagurabachi the next Dragon Ball?
So many authors, like Kohei Horikoshi and Takeru-sensei’s personal hero, Masashi Kishimoto, recommended Kagurabachi to My Hero Academia and Naruto fans. Its first chapter was the world’s most viewed in its first week of publication on Manga Plus, and the series has received over 99 million page views on the platform by April 2024.
With just 3 volumes being dropped, Kagurabachi ranked seventh on AnimeJapan’s “Most Wanted Anime Adaptation” poll in 2024 and won the 10th Next Manga Award in the print category in 2024. Fans have never seen a manga get such a rise in fame so quickly. But the real question is, will Kagurabachi‘s hype stay on or dwindle as time goes on.
There’s a reason why series like Dragon Ball and One Piece stood the test of time. The God of Manga, Osamu Tezuka, name-dropped Akira Toriyama as his “heir apparent,” basically calling him his successor to carry forward his will to show the beauty of manga to the world. Similarly, Toriyama read One Piece and knew what the fuss was about. One Piece surpassed Batman to become one of the best-selling comics in history.
Hence, it’s too early for fans to decide whether Kagurabachi will really take up their mantle and become Jump’s next best thing. But given how the readers’ retaining power and patience have reduced, it’s less than likely that Kagurabachi will run for as long as Dragon Ball or One Piece.
Kagurabachi is available to read on Manga Plus and Viz Media.
