GRAVITATION

DESCRIPTION

CAST

CHAPTERS

ANIME ComedyGravitation
OVA ComedyGravitation OVA
MANGA ComedyGravitation EX
MANGA ComedyGravitation dj - Gravitation Remix
NOVEL ComedyGravitation: The Novel
NOVEL ComedyGravitation: voice the temptation
MANGA ComedyShindou-ke no Jijou: Gravitation N.G.
MANGA HentaiGravitation dj - Megamix Gravitation

REVIEWS

• 

  kimoiXXraisin

  70/100
  It's the Ghost Stories dub, only on paper, about music, and gay.

  

  Gravitation, in a nutshell, is like when you go to a lowdown convenience store and you see a colorful but super tacky pack of candy and you just know it probably tastes like shit but you buy it anyway out of pure curiosity and then you eat it and it actually does taste like absolute shit but you can't help but keep eating it because the stuff is like some weirdass drugs (and at this point you're starting to suspect whether it possibly could be laced with it) and by the time you snap back to reality you've finished the entire bag and all you can think is "Fuck, that was bad. I could've lived my entire life without tasting that. But I'm kinda glad I didn't."

  I've been hearing about Gravitation ever since I was a wee young wee(BL)et browsing the interwebs, hanging around places like AarinFantasy and Yaoi Haven Reborn back then, it was sort of obvious I'd stumble upon it. I also remember seeing the books at the local bookstore near my house back when I lived in Canada. Through some God-given miracle, though, I managed to pass through into adulthood without ever actually consuming it. Until now. And Lord, am I glad I didn't read or watch this as a kid. I was (am) already trash who already (still) liked trash, my small brain was (still is) absolute mush and I don't think I needed anymore of that. But I enjoy suffering so fuck you, supposed adult brain.

  Listen, I have absolutely NOTHING against artistic freedom. On the contrary, being an artist myself, I know how important it is and how the fact that art isn't to be and shouldn't be judged by objective standards. But do you ever get the feeling that some people may have a bit too much of it? And by "some people," I mean Maki Murakami specifically. This woman wields the most dangerous and destructive power known to mankind--to completely fuck your mind upside-down, right-side out, in the most Ren and Stimpy way possible. And she did that singlehandedly with Gravitation.

  Am I overexaggerating? Maybe, maybe not. Honestly, you'd have to read the manga to see my point. It's a roller coaster. And reading the Tokyopop localization? May as well be an airplane on the verge of crash-landing. It's like the Ghost Stories dub, only on paper.

  It's just...I still don't believe Gravitation was supposed to be a shoujo on top of everything else included in it's genre/tag cocktail. Like, if I didn't know better, I'd think it was missing the "Dementia" tag because it's just THAT bizarre at times. I took the liberty of browsing through the other titles that were serialized in the magazine it originally ran in; none of them seemed that out of pocket. They're your run-of-the-mill, preteen/teen romcom stories.

  But then again, maybe that's exactly what made it such a cult classic. I mean, this thing is the most unironically NSFW supposedly-SFW manga I've come across thus far, and no, I don't give a fuck if that doesn't even make sense, that's literally what it is. And the cherry on top is Murakami herself constantly whining in the sidebars about how much she wanted to just go fullblown lewd with it (and if you check the "Others" section in the entry, you can see for yourself the madwoman eventually managed to accomplish that with another dangerous power--"Doujinshi." Well? Did they manage to relieve your lady-boner, Murakami? Because after reading them, I think you need more than just a bonk and a trip to Horny Jail.)

  It's not just the rampant juvenile 12-year-old boy-birthed sexual innuedos that make Gravitation the acid trip it is. It's also how much hypothetical (or maybe not) crack cocaine and marijuana it's stuffed with. One moment we're talking about a character's serious and traumatic experience, and literally the next we're fucking bashing our heads into a vending machine until alarming amounts of blood is drawn. Band managers are fucking assassins with more guns and heavy duty weapons than the fucking Expendables and enjoy shooting people right through the fucking brain (REPEATEDLY.) Illiterate 30-year-olds are running around playing tag and sucking on bunny plush ears, and music labels are at war with each other, not through sales numbers, but through actual war machines in the form of giant fucking robot pandas. I don't remember seeing Sci-Fi or Mecha amongst the tags, but you do you, I guess, Murakami.

  It's not like I don't like this kind of balls-up-the-walls batshit insanity; on the contrary, Beavis and Butthead Do America is my favourite movie and Brandon Rogers is the only YouTuber I find funny. I eat this shit up for breakfast. And it's not like I don't know it exists in the animanga scene, either. Gintama, Pop Team Epic, Popee, etc., I think I've got a pretty good idea of how stuff like gross humour and dark, surreal comedy works in either parts of the world.

  It's just that Gravitation isn't any of what I mentioned. It's its own breed. It's the fact that despite it's batshit out of pocket-ness, that didn't stop it from breaking through the genre(s) mold it was placed in and becoming this sensational. To put it into perspective, it was a manga that ran for 12 entire volumes, had not one, but TWO different sequels/spinoffs, spawned both an anime and OVA, with some of the most prolific VAs in the industry on it's cast list, and still has a faithful fanbase that refuses to consider it anything less than a masterpiece to this day. And honestly? That's pretty kickass, all things considered.

  I'm well aware the time frame Gravitation unleashed it's pink and sparkly, leather-clad 10- inch whopper unto the world was an entirely different time, with a different degree of what rolled and what didn't, but I think even Murakami herself was well aware that what she birthed would probably be a bit hard for the world to digest. Evidently, though, it didn't stop it from getting a nice, long, sucking-off anyway. The whole thing was purely indulgence and self-gratification on Murakami's part. She never failed to remind us that she was drawing and writing exactly what she wanted, how she wanted, and when she wanted, editors and publishers be damned. I feel like she's the type of person who'd eat a baby and be like "Fuck you, I /am/ going to do it, and I don't care what laws I break or who's mom I offend." Her brain process exists on a different plane from us peasants. For Christ's sake, the woman introduces herself as "The Scum of The Earth," what do more do you expect?

  Gravitation is basically Maki Murakami's grand middle finger to the entirety of BL and shoujo and it's plethora of depression-inducing melodramas and I was just too small-brained to truly comprehend her artistic genius until now and I apologize for that. I respect the hustle. I respect the insanity. I respect the rebellion. I respect the throwing of all reason and logic to the wall and fucking it sideways, I really do. I actually think the world needs a bit more of that, especially now. Sometimes what you need to do is just turn your brain off and just watch characters with the most hideous fashion taste and hairstyles for rock stars and the cheesiest lyrics to songs drive each other to utter distraction. The point is that it's fun.

  Gravitation is fun. It's not bad, it's not good, it's not an award-winner by any means. It's just a hell of a lot of fun. And that should be the only reason anyone should read it or watch it. Murakami wrote it for fun, for someone to pick it up and think "damn, whoever wrote this needs therapy, but that's not stopping me from finishing it." And the anime, which although I didn't mention as much specifically since it wasn't as out there as the manga, everything I said applies to it as well. In fact, the anime was even more fun because of the stellar voice-acting and the music and visuals which were products of their time. It's a great way to de-stress and get lost in the crazy world of fiction and remember just how far people get to take it in there. Maki Murakami is the poster girl for "IT'S JUST FICTION" and it's making present-day Twitter-raised teens shake in rage while she unbotheredly sips on their very tears, and I fucking LOVE it.

  Now I don't drink or take any substances, but if one ever needed an anime to watch or manga to read while they're drunk or high out of their minds, I'd say Gravitation would most definitely do the trick.

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