Akachi Comics is bringing new things to the table

Can this OEL manga publisher win?

Feb 27, 2024

Hi everyfurry. This week I’m reviewing select works published with Akachi Comics.

If you’ve never heard of them, they’re an OEL (original english-language) manga publisher. To access any of their works, you must create an account on their website and purchase the chapters/books from their storefront. Some of these are available for free, and those are the ones I'll be reviewing today.

Warning for spoilers!

1: Souls of Chaos, Chapter 1

Creator/Writer: Matthew Jones

Artist: Cyrus Romanes

Summary:

The ring of Solomon, said to make demons submit, has been long passed down through generations. The demons are on the hunt for the last of the Solomon bloodline. Will they succeed? Or will our hero, Thema..get the best of them?

As I said in the intro, I chose which of Akachi Comics I’d want to read by looking at the price tag. Anything costing $0 was added to my cart, nothing else mattered. But oh, silly silly me, I should’ve read the description to know what I was getting into. Because you absolutely need to read the description to know what’s happening.

Nowhere in the text of chapter 1 does it say what the Ring of Solomon actually does. I just know from reading this manga that there’s a ring, it’s a family heirloom, and the main guy’s girlfriend keeps eyeballing it. This story made so much more sense once I grabbed the summary for this post. Which absolutely sucks - this is easily something that could’ve been fixed with a quick rewrite.

Even with this shortcoming, this is the strongest of Akachi Comics work, and I wouldn’t mind sticking around for part 2. Visually, its got all the strong points of the best shonen manga - dynamic and expressive but very clean and easy to read.

The only thing I’ll dock the art for is the similarity in their female character designs. It’s fine if the mom and sister look alike, but the sister and the guy’s girlfriend also look suspiciously similar.

At least have the girlfriend part her hair the opposite way, jeez.

Otherwise? I love how this looks. Just check out the opening page:

It’s so vibrant, this is an adventure I absolutely want to be apart of. And when shit gets real, that’s also taken to really fun heights. The demons are rendered with heavy dark tones and hatching, the illustrations do a great job of giving that feeling of otherworldly fear.

Cool shit, very cool shit. The artist, Cyrus Romanes, has absolutely mastered monochrome ink illustrations. Just check out his Artstation portfolio - each piece exhibits insane technical skill. This makes earlier pages where the characters are just hanging out even more impressive. It shows he knows how to pull back on rendering and simplify the page, so he can really flex when shit gets real. The balance of dark/light tones throughout the story - no matter the mood or setting - are consistently balanced and interesting.

Now for the big spoiler, and why I would want to read more of this.

But in the last few pages we get a protagonist shift. Thema, the little sister of the K, is now taking over as protagonist after K’s killed by demons. The story did such a good job of hyping up K’s status as a shonen protag. His design, personality, and goals feel pretty standard for a shonen protagonist - so it makes it all the more surprising having the rug pulled under you. So even with the initial macguffin confusion, it was still an overall solid experience.

2: Vanessa, Chapter 1

Creator: Matthew Jones

Artist: Renzo Cardenas

Cover Artist: Mikhail Sebastian

Summary:

A Bounty Hunter on the search for answers, Vanessa chases down a widow possessed by a demon. Can she find her in time before more bodies pile up?

Vanessa is very much a Chapter 1 Of A Story. There’s a whole lot of setting up pieces, which I assume will be payed off later. The problem is I honestly don’t have any reason to care about what they’re setting up.

The art is Pretty Good. Character art is decent, but what elevates this is the attention to care in the backgrounds and objects. Just look at the way the motorcycle, trees, cityscape, and other background elements are rendered with all the love:

It’s definitely good, but not strong enough that it compensates for the nothing plot.

I think what could save this is if it went harder with fetish material. There’s a whole lot of the Two Hot Girls Fighting, but it never feels bloody enough or sapphic enough to satiate anyone’s fetish. And if the intent is to be “just” an action series, that’s fine, I guess - but again, the plot didn’t entice me enough to stick around, and the fight scenes weren’t crazy enough that I needed to see more.

The character designs feel like they’re implying something adult- that is, I assume the cleavage or skintight outfit would be altered if this was aiming for a younger audience. But an implication of “adult” is all we get.

Which is pretty standard. I could go to any comic shop and find an infinite supply of comics featuring women with this exact body type, showing off this exact amount of skin, getting into high-stakes action adventures. And that’s what makes this so disappointing. You’re an indie comic - give me something different! At least give one of the girls a fat ass, cat ears, a questionable transformation scene - absolutely anything to make it stand out. Maybe in chapter 2 a girl with huge tits will show up or it takes a jarring left turn into being a vore comic. Just give me anything, man.

This is what makes this series uniquely disappointing. Because I know it could be great. If this showcased any element of deep personal interest other than “cool chicks fighting”, this would be an all-around decent indie comic.

And I keep using “fetish” but it doesn’t have to be something sexual. Just look at all of the (completely SFW!) indie furry comics that are printing money just by the virtue of it being a semi-decent furry comic. There’s so many because it’s giving people what they want, that they can’t necessarily find in mainstream art. I want to support indie works that give me something different than what’s been market tested to death. But Vanessa isn’t giving me anything unique.

3: Dessaline, chapter 1

Writer/Creator: Matthew Jones

Art/Colors: Sam Gungon

Art/Letters: Mike Banting

Summary:

Find the balance between peace and rage. Dessaline, a young fighter, channels his uncles words as he is chased for unknown reasons. This is the origin story of Andre Mosiah's master!

Of all the comics reviewed today, this is the most skippable. After reading I just sat kind of dumbfounded, like, what the fuck just happened? It was a lot of action whizzing around but I couldn’t parse what was happening or why it’s important.

I guess the reason to read it is to see how bad colors can ruin a comic, because woof do these stink. Everything’s so bright and garish, which is strange because the actual drawings themselves aren’t bad. Here’s some sample pages:

Good anatomy, good character art, decent panel flow, but what the fuck why is everything so saturated and bright? I guess if you want to declare that you’re not manga, blasting a bunch of MS Paint colors in your reader’s face is how you do it.

But that’s not the only distracting part. Background elements are pretty rough, which makes this look sloppier than it actually is.

When you use the rock/tree/leaf brush for a monochrome manga, it’s easier to make it all blend together … in color, you realize what a jarring mishmash of elements it actually is.

To add to the hurt, we actually do see what this manga would’ve looked like in monochrome. The opening splash page is kept in greyscale, and it’s way sharper than anything else in the chapter.

See what I mean about the rocks? They don’t particularly stand out as the artist using The Rock Brush, since it’s all in monochrome it all smooths together. Anyway I give this one a “skip it” out of 10.

4: Denise, chapter 1

Creator/Writer: Matthew Jones

Writer: Stephaine Kuklish

Artist: Sebas Riera

Summary:

It’s easy to love Denise for her charming character. And even more for her captivating story of zombies, death, betrayals, and the fight for what’s right.

Denise was like every other girl until she was ripped from her home, experimented on, and almost murdered. In her quest for answers, she continues to unlock deeper parts of her abilities as a necromancer.

I will start by saying this art is absolutely, unquestionably, gorgeous. If this ran with Shonen Jump or Kodansha, it would be forever canonized as a stand-out beautiful manga, a manga that would forever make numerous Top 20 Most Beautiful Manga listicles, a manga that even non-manga readers would be urged to consume just on the basis of how goshdarn gorgeous it looks. Here’s a few sample pages so you get what I mean:

They keep up this beautiful ink-and-marker approach for the entire 60 pages. The world is fully realized: we see cityscapes, abandoned buildings, farms, forests - all given a tremendous amount of love and care. There are none of the standard mangamaking shortcuts to be found here. Every panel is an enormous flex of skill.

And the 60 pages is important - because at the halfway point, I peeked at the PDF to see how much was left, and let out an audible groan realizing I still had 30 more pages of this horseshit.

I will say it again: the art is incredible.

But this plot absolutely fucking blows.

This is the only one of Akachi’s comics that I struggled to finish. The tremendous art did not make up for the awful writing. If I want to look at cool art, there’s easier ways that don’t require me to be mentally locked into a subpar comic. If Vanessa and Dessaline were just a middling shrug of a nothing story, Denise was actively difficult to read. It’s real bad, you guys.

The comic starts with quite the infodump, to the point where I feel like I’m getting the previous 5 seasons of a TV show summarized. The actual story doesn’t start until page 11- when the narration announces “And this is where her story begins”. But don’t worry, there’s still plenty of other random narration infodumps to be found throughout its 60-page runtime.

And the character dialogue and writing stinks just as much. The main girl sure is quorky, and she loves using cutesy little abbreviations and nicknames for everything. Which is irritating on its own, but with this being a fantasy series it just adds an extra layer of shit to keep up with. And when she’s taking a break from giving adorable pet names to everything, she’s strutting around like a Marvel character who wandered off set or a Forespoken Trailer Parody. Here’s a refresher, courtesy of Know Your Meme:

I had the unique misfortune of learning about the Forspoken Trailer Parodies a few weeks before consuming Denise, so it was easy to imagine the protagonist punctuating plenty of sentences with “Yeah, okay, that is something I do now.”

And what’s worse is there’s two very specific instances where this line is completely appropriate. Twice (twice!) the protagonist randomly gets a new power, with no explanation, just in time to save the day.

Here’s the ultimate Denise page:

It has it all:

Quippy dialogue
Character interactions that go nowhere
Half-assed narration to speedrun through what would be the plot
All inexplicably held together with stunning art

In short, I hate it. I fucking hate it. The fact that the worst written Akachi comic is trapped in the one with the best art makes it all the more painful. I gave Dessaline “Skip it/10”, so Denise is a “use a time machine to actively stop yourself from reading it/10”.

5: Final Nitpick: What is actually wrong with their website

Now that I’ve screamed, cried, and puked over all of these free comic books, now’s the time for me to bring my hard-hitting neckbeard opinions to their website design.

If you weren’t already reading this post in a whiny Comicbook Guy Voice, I implore you to mentally make the shift now.

The fact that you have to make an account and download each comic is something I’m not crazy about, but I will defend. Artists need to be paid for their work, and forcing all readers - even those just there for the freebies - to punch in their address and credit card does set a certain precedent. You’re more likely to actually buy it if you’ve already done this big step. It’s a way of mentally putting you in the mindset that their art is worth paying for. So that’s neat.

The thing is, this account creation was a certifiable pain in the ass. I wanted to review something, anything, by Akachi months ago. I only bothered to go through making an account and downloading their comics once I was too hazy from the stomach flu to write about anything else (I know I sound tsundere but that’s the truth). Nothing about their comics looked so exciting that I absolutely needed a taste of it.

Now let’s say I do want to buy some of their comics - like I said, Souls of Chaos chapter 1 ended on a strong note. I want more of that. When I look at Souls of Chaos chapter 2, all I see is the price. It’s not saying how many pages, when it was made, when the next chapter is planned - just that it’s $0.99 (Prices range from $9.99 to $0.99, and how much content you get in each is always a guess).

If this is an abandoned project, I have no reason to buy this. And which ones are abandoned? Which ones are going to update next? I have no idea. Here’s the options given in the menu bar:

The “Preorder” section hypes up a preorder campaign for Voidbeast (which ended September 2022), but no other information about other series.

The “Welcome” section just gives a bunch of corporatespeak about their company vision, but I have no idea who anyone is, what they’re doing, what’s the goal here. I called them OEL in the beginning of this post- does Akachi consider themselves OEL?

“Manga” brings you to their homepage, which is a collection of chapters for sale. So that delivers what its promises, I guess.

Their Twitter feed is much more lively and shows WIP’s and updates - I suspect I’ll find the answers I seek here. But digging through a Twitter feed actively sucks and I hate it, so I am not going to do that.

Here’s what I want to be able to easily find on this website:

What series Akachi is running
When’s the next update
What I can expect when I buy something from Akachi (such as page count, if its in color, any discounts and bundles I could earn if I buy multiple)
(Bonus round, not necessary but would make it better) A little “About the Artists” page so we know who’s cool and who’s cringe and who I can add in Pokemon Unite

That’s it! And I’m sure this has all been conveyed somewhere on Akachi’s social media, since their Twitter does seem fairly active. But if the twitter is so active, why can’t the website give me a little more?

Now bare with me but I know I am going to sound a bit entitled. Since, you know, “everyone” is on Social Media, except I’m not because I hate it. But give me a chance to talk through how I’m feeling before you dismiss me as a curmudgeon.

I’m already here, on your website. I want to stay engaged on your website and go deeper into your works. In my search for very basic answers about your product I don’t want to get distracted by a bullshit social media timeline. When you put your work on social media, you’re competing with the evil forces of Musk and Zuck and there’s a million things buzzing around to distract your would-be deep readers. You’ve lost me when I start digging on Twitter - I’m not spending all day on your feed, I’m going to see that I have all these unanswered DM’s and then I’m going to click on my own timeline, and now your product is has permanently VANISHED from my mind. So I want to stay on your website! Give me more reasons to stay on your website.

SOCIAL MEDIA ESCAPE CLUB

, run by

Seth Werkheiser

, explains this better than I ever could (the last few sentences were paraphrasing ideas he’s conveyed in his newsletter). If by chance anyone from Akachi reads this and you’re interested, I will gift you a premium subscription to this newsletter.

Seth Werkheiser

is the goat when it comes to marketing in new, creative ways without relying on social media.

I’ve been pretty harsh throughout this post but here’s what’s up. I want Akachi to succeed. I see they’re putting in the work, they’ve put out a decent enough products, but the overall presentation is leaving me a little confused. Nevermind what I think about the individual comics, because my tastes are shit and I know what they make could definitely find an audience. For the record, I am bored by all of Studio Ghibli and Toriyama, yet love garbage like Isekai Smartphone. My reviews are never an indicator of taste or quality.

I have such an “I know this could be great” feeling about Akachi Comics. Plenty of guys will talk big about how they want to someday make a manga- these guys made multiple, enough that they have their own company. That shit is cool! I want to cheer that on. That’s why this lackluster website hurts so much and why I’m digging in so hard.

And back to offline marketing- I need to mention Sablecon. This is their annual IRL event.

I know there’s been other Sablecons before this - but there’s nothing about that on their website. It’d be cool to see who the guests were, a look at the artist’s tables, maybe some panels? For all I know, previous Sablecons could’ve taken place in a rusty shed and had exactly 0 attendees. But at least we know when the next one’s scheduled, I guess.

Throwing an anime convention is proof that this company has solid IRL connections and isn’t just existing in the Twittersphere like I was just kvetching about. The fact they have enough pull to do this multiple times is another enormous accomplishment. But this is all just my implication and speculation based on the fact that there’s been Sablecons before this one. Hype me up for the next one!

Alright I think that’s all I have to say. Please send all complaints and hot-take clapbacks to my shitty opinion in the comments section, so it drives engagement. I actively ignore all negative emails and DM’s. Thank u 🫶

Tapir Tuesday 📚 Manga • Light Novels • Furry • Otaku Chaos

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