Chagecha (チャゲチャ) is a Japanese manga by Yoshio Sawai (of Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo fame). It ran from issue 42 to 49 for eight chapters in 2008 in Shonen Jump Weekly.
Taking place in the city of Gre-Tokyo, a land where chaos runs free, the story focuses on school delinquents who compete with one another for total dominance.
The titular character and protagonist, Chagecha, is feared by many for his brutality and skill, in spite of his low position on the popularity totem pole at his own school. He hears that there's a power struggle going on and isn't afraid to throw his hat in the ring, but knows he can't do it alone. Along the story, he makes friends, allies and enemies in the race to make it to the top.
Unfortunately, we will never know how Chagecha's story ends as the manga was so unpopular during its run, it got pulled eight weeks after it began publication. It has since never gotten any continuation. Instead, Sawai went back to making more Bobobobo Bobobo manga, which was better-received.
Tropes:
- Anime Hair: Masoto has a spiky, hedgehog-like hairstyle. His smaller hairs resemble lightning bolts.
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Cut Short: It ended after eight chapters, making the shortest-lived manga to ever be serialized in Shonen Jump. - Gag Series: Much like Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo, Chagecha thrives on this type of comedy. Some of the most stupid and ridiculous things in the manga include students hiding cannons in their body parts, students inexplicably having eyeballs for heads and vegetables for bodies, Chagecha defeating an opponent by throwing a giant turd at them, and a rabbit being one of the heroes (he's also a veteran of a deadly rabbit war, which is never touched upon again).
- Gilligan Cut: The first chapter has Masoto feel too confident about the titular Yankee badass Chagecha taking on a whole Yankee gang from Guerrilla High.Masoto: This may be foolish talk but... with you, I feel we can win...
[cut to Guerrilla High School where they are facing HUNDREDS of Yankee gang members along with their mechanized leader which is a basically LITERALLY a GIANT head]
Masoto: I'm sorry Senpai... it's really hopeless... - Japanese Delinquents: The manga focuses on the activities of many of them, and their rivalries with the delinquents of other schools. Protagonist Chagecha aims to be the top delinquent in Japan and builds a crew of the most worthy students to be part of his gang.
- Homeless Hero: The main protagonist lives in a vending machine. No, really. His rent is 850,000 Yen.
- Shōnen: It's a gag manga centered around a group of Hot-Blooded, violent, borderline-sociopathic schoolboys, and also ran in Shonen Jump, the biggest distributor of shonen in Japan. It was unceremoniously cancelled after 8 issues.
- Shout-Out: At one point, Chagecha sees Doraemon in a hallucination. He then punches it and it disappears into thin air.
- Sucky School: Most schools in the town have little to no teachers, which allows the delinquents to roam, steal, vandalize and harass others as they please.
- Toilet Humor: At one point, Chagecha is seen roasting a giant piece of poop on a stick over a cinderblock "grill". The poop is so big it takes up most of the page and everyone is horrified at it. He later crushes a man to death using it.
- World of Technicolor Hair: Characters have blue, green, purple and silver hair, with nobody considering it unusual. Then again, in Real Life it is a custom for Japanese Delinquents to dye their hair funky colors, as schools in Japan have rules against it due to their social values of conformity.