Takemichi Hanagaki would love a second chance. At 26, he has no girlfriend, does odd jobs and sinks into depression. To make matters worse, his childhood sweetheart dies, collateral victim of a settling of scores between gang members. While he himself should have died under the wheels of a subway, the young man is mysteriously transported back twelve years. Will he succeed in changing destiny?
Published in Japan between 2017 and 2021, Tokyo Revengers is a furyô, a manga featuring young delinquents. With the exception of the classic GTO, the genre struggled to reach a very wide audience before the arrival of Tokyo Revengers, whose cartoon adaptation caused an explosion in sales. In 2022, for the second consecutive year, more than one million copies were sold in France.
Le Figaro met Ken Wakui, the atypical author of this bestseller whose volume 24 (out of 31) has just been published in French by Glénat.
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LE FIGARO. - Tokyo Revengers is a furyô manga, a manga of thugs in French. How would you define gender?
Ken WAKUI. - By violence. The furyō do not seek to solve problems through dialogue but through violence.
What attracts you to furyō?
I myself have experienced as a furyō, so I never asked myself the question. Choosing this theme was natural. It is a rather violent world that exerts a real power of attraction among a certain fringe of young people. And it's a universe rejected by adults. All this gives its charm to the genre.
Why does such a large proportion of young people not fit into the norms?
Young people do not become furyō to reject society. Most of the time, they come from a disadvantaged background and social background, but there are also exceptions. Some children from good families become furyô to deceive boredom or by refusal of authority. All are in an environment that suits them at a given moment. They don't see themselves as unhappy or to be pitied.
How do these tapes work?
Among the furyô, there is a real culture of hierarchy, vertical relations where we respect the elders of the band while refusing to listen to what the adults, the teachers, say. The word of the elders is very valuable and they will stick to it until the end. Abroad, I do not think there is that type of vertical relationship. It is important to have an immutable benchmark.
Do you have such a relationship with your publishers?
I listen and respect what they tell me but in the end I always get yelled at (laughs). My current editor is always tougher with me than with other mangakas. It me off (laughs).
Even if they follow a code of honor, thugs are not samurai
Ken Wakui
The first boss we meet in Tokyo Revengers is named after a former daimyo (local lord). Is there a connection between furyōand samurai?
Many furyō love the era of internecine wars, in which the samurai lived. And the way the daimyo functioned at the time, the divisions by region, the defenses of territories... All this is reminiscent of the way bôsôzoku (biker gangs, editor's note) and the mafia operate. However, even if they follow a code of honor, thugs are not samurai. Bōzoku have their own ethics and follow their own rules, which evolve over time. Each new group tends to want to break existing rules and build new ones. It is therefore difficult to determine the proper ethics of the furyô. At the beginning of Tokyo Revengers, Draken explains: "We can fight each other, we have very violent conflicts between us but we don't mix family in that." It's this type of image, pretty cool, that I tried to represent in the manga. This corresponds to the furyô of yesteryear, no longer too current, but which still arouses a form of admiration.
What led you to become a mangaka?
I worked in a ramen restaurant where manga was available to customers. I wanted to become a mangaka by reading one of these mangas, published in the Morning, which is called Hataraki Man, by Moyoco Anno (unpublished in France, Editor's note).
Who noticed your potential?
Whatever the professional environment in which I evolved – whether it was that of the night, host clubs (clubs where a female clientele is welcomed by beautiful boys) or that of manga – I always met people I admired and who made me want to move forward and surpass myself. They saw the potential in me and that motivated me.
Excerpt from volume 1 of Tokyo Revengers. TOKYO REVENGERS Ken Wakui / Kodansha Ltd.
Do you feel like furyō mangahas evolved over time?
Yes, there has been a great evolution. Expression inside manga was much free before. Today, we are much more limited, both graphically and narratively. The importance of furyô has decreased, these mangas are no longer aimed at the same readership.
Have you felt any frustrations related to these limitations?
Having a certain restriction is of interest. It forced me to get out of a frame, a comfort zone.
In your manga, Takemichi goes back in time to try to prevent a tragedy. If you could go back, what would you change?
Maybe I'd be more down to earth and look for a way to make a little more money (laughs). Takemichi doesn't have that vile aspect and that's what readers particularly appreciate about the character.
Why a trip back only twelve years?
This choice was made quite naturally. This jump in time had to not be too far back, otherwise no one would have identified with compassion with the character and it would have become a fantasy world that readers would not have understood. Conversely, if the jump had been too short, there would not have been enough difference with the current world of young people. It is this dosage, between too far and too close, that made me choose this period of twelve years.
Perhaps the fact that Takemichi is trying to fix the mistakes he made is a way to make readers understand that we need to pay attention to our daily actions.
Ken Wakui
Whenever Takemichi thinks he's solved a problem, the past catches up with him. Can we not escape our fate?
The idea is not that he is confronted with a spirit of death that he would fight. This choice would have led me to reach a slightly younger readership. That's not what I was looking for. The fact that Takemichi is trying to fix the mistakes he made is perhaps a way to make readers understand that we must be careful about our daily actions. That actions, no matter how benign, have consequences.
Hinata wants to be a boy to protect Takemichi. Why do you have to be a boy to protect someone?
My first answer is that the world of furyō is exclusively male and girls cannot enter it. The physical balance of power justifies Hinata's desire to be a boy rather than defend herself as a girl.
And yet, sukeban (rogue girls) exist. Will we see them in Tokyo Revengers?
No, I don't think so. That would not work. I'm not trying to reach the readership of sukeban fans. I do not intend to involve them. Historically, there is not, a priori, a correlation point between furyō boys and sukeban girls.
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Mickey's strength, Draken's righteousness, Takemichi's empathy, Hinata's insight... Your characters have many qualities. What is the quality, the character trait of your characters that most resembles you?
The character closest to me, the one I imagined as I would have liked to be, is Kiyomasa. Even if my publisher doesn't care about my ambition.
Interview by Valentin Paquot
Some covers from Tokyo Revengers. Glénat / Le Figaro
Tokyo Revengers (24 volumes published), by Ken Wakui, éditions Glénat, €6.99 per volume.