Gachiakuta is about Grief, Therapy, Grooming; And the healing journey one takes.
Small edit- seeing a lot of people not understanding what grooming is, and how grooming works in the Gachia fandom, so before anything happens, please do not in any circumstances bring up my post for your drama, as the topic of tamsy/grooming is coming up a lot right now, and I don’t want to be involved in drama, as a grooming victim this is all my opinion backed up by other grooming victims, if you disagree discuss it here on this post, not vaguing it, or spreading it to hate on the take. There are different types of grooming, different definitions of grooming, different ways of grooming, please research them before commenting on it.
Before the discussion piece:
Through reading and watching Gachiakuta it is my time to return to Analysis, this is not a space to critic the characters or writing but to discuss them, their meanings, their reasons. I always enjoy stories that have deeper meanings, that follow deep paths and do it carefully, to have a well written story and to have it portray such meaning is so important
Make sure to support the creator of the Manga, using only (they/them) on this post referring to them if you must.
Trigger warnings: Grooming mentions, sexual assault mentions, rape mentions, mentions of death, mentions of impacts of grief, abuse mentions
Content warning: spoilers for the manga. First part if anime only OKAY
On the surface when people reccomend you to read the story, one of the most common explanations is it’s a story about not giving up, grief, and recycling, find ways to reuse old misshaped and broken materials, to make them into something beautiful, even if it’s their last act, allowing their last act to me meaningful.
Of course explained more simply. They will also if knowing how to safely reccomend things, warn you of the topics of SA, abuse, and such, to allow for you to chose if you are ready to experience such a watch or read.
A basic summary: the grief of a child who is not taught therapy
Rudo is our main character of the series, he is around the age of 15, spending his time going through different processes of life. The main process is learning from grief, the main theme of Rudos characters. It is not what I would describe moving on from grief, one does not move on from grief, they learn from it and change their perspective, it will change the way you are and creates a butterfly affect of all your actions moving forward even if the path diverges. Rudo has all his actions good and bad come from his processing of grief, and his learning from grief.
He is a boy who has an unknown mother, and a criminal father, neither present in his life at any stage we see, instead he has his father that he would consider his real father despite being not biological related Regto. Regto raises rudo from seemingly a young age, teaching him about the world, teaching him coping mechanisms, and how to live. Regto is responsible for his love for many things, when Regto is killed in front of him, he loses his only family, and his only therapist. When he seeks help from friends and crushes they abandon him, believing lies spread over the truth. Leaving him to have no one in his circle. It creates a violent child, one angry at the world, seeking to show the world revenge, in the form of becoming his father. Because if he is labelled as such, he shall become such.
Soon after Enjin appears to help save him, bringing him to the cleaners, Rudo is put off from the help, treating them as all a means to get his way, to create violence, the only issue becoming that Cleaners are not fighters, even if they were fighters their jobs aren’t to fight, it’s to clean, keep people safe, and avoid people getting in harms way.
Rudo is thrown into a group of people who will listen to him, tell him what isn’t and is okay again, and they as a group have become a more stable therapy for rudo. A community saved a child, something often not reflected in the real world. Rudo due to his status above was casted aside the way many real children are. Only getting lucky by the fate of fiction to find good people again.
But these real people don’t know his drama, or him. Except for one (manga section) they see a broken child they are mostly suspicious of due to him surviving from his fall, and from him being from such a different community, despite that these people have been taught respect, trust, and learning. Giving rudo a chance to become part of them even if he at the time refuses to be fully a part of it.
Rudo never experiences a real therapist, he is a child whos therapist is his family. Although at times a toxic situation, it is something that helps him become family with his peers, a therapist is family, and a family is a therapist. When they show him a chance of helping him, he gains two communities he lost in one shot.
Rudo and making broken items useful:
Rudo learns he can make any item into his Jinki, (special instrument) through experimenting he can do it once through a mega one, or 3 times through 3 small Jinkis, leading to a situation of extra grief. When his brother like figure nearly died and Rudo assumes he will die, his grief overtakes him, making him wonky, but also showing how grief can be good.
Through his grief he uses an item important to his brother figure, to allow his brother to get a big moment around one of his big cares, while making sure it doesn’t go to waste, making it into something beautiful, and when it’s time is up for being useful, it leaves.
It teaches rudo to stay holding on to his love of his friends and family, that his ability to love is strong and important, while his need for things to be good, can in fact me good, and that it’s good to hold onto some important things but also let go of other things. Some things need to go, and it’s fine for it to go, if you have good use for the thing, and help it impact things well, it wouldn’t have been for nothing.
Rudo’s first response to grief is shock then anger, he is unable to rest and handle his unset over his father dying in front of him, he is punished, kidnapped, nearly trafficked, thrown into a new place with new people, new cultures and new traditions he doesn’t understand, with new living requirements. It’s an unwelcoming environment for processing grief, leaving him unable to treat it normally. Leading to Amo
Amo’s play in Rudos angry Grief:
Amo is experiencing her own grief and her own toxic ways of dealing with it, she is around Rudos age and experiencing a similar issue to him, her caretaker died, while it wasn’t by Rudos hands for him, it was for her. She is experiences the trauma of having to start to process being sold to a violent sex trafficker so disgusting even other traffickers do not like him. How she has been raped by him and convinced for most her pre teen to teen life that it was okay. All after accidentally killing him due to her own manic anger.
Through this experience she tries to hide away from reality, believing lying on the truth is better than real life, she believes everyone should get to experience this distance. Causing her to harm and on part of her fault try to almost kill many of Rudos friends and Rudo. Having been part of the reasom for their death if it was not for the temporary Tattoo casts.
She had a violent life, and in return was violent, leading to more violence, when you see that situation it is not something that can be handled with more violence. It is something that needs to be handled carefully. All the cleaners through experience know this fact, except for rudo. They all want to approach her more calmly, knowing how violence will do more harm to an already damaged child.
Rudo is completely unaware of this fact. He is angry himself, he sees her being violent and believes violence will get it out, punish her, and reward him, except it doesn’t happen. His first punch is seen as slightly justified after she used mocking words even after nearly killing him, then the punches after are violent. Too violent. Rudo is forced to stop and take a breathe, forced to deal with what he has done and why it isn’t fine. Enjin becomes his father in this moment, helping him in ways that get him to understand how his processing of grief and angry is unhealthy. So he makes an apology, learns her story, and tries to start a non violent root from this.
The grief of anger but learning:
Rudo leaves well with Amo, and then finds out she’s been kidnapped, falsely assuming it was the Raiders, in his anger he becomes more violent, but learns to harvest it into something better, when losing hope he is shown his friends and family are there to stay, and that having a community with real support is better than building a false community built on building delusions and lies.
It shows his learning state of realising what is and isn’t okay, realising he’s allowed to form deep connections with people again, and learn to become something better with it, he’s still angry, but he’s accepting he can be angry, but he needs to change his anger into something else, something meaningful. An important part of grief.
Zanka has a different form of grief, he is a child to a family that hates his guts, hates his ideas, and hates his loves, he grew up needing to be the best, becoming the best, becoming too comfortable and then falling into severe grief when he was no longer perfect.
He is in a metaphorical and literal deep hole. He can’t see what makes him great, he can’t see that despite not being the best, he is still amazing, he has the grief he will never be perfect and therefore never enough. In the cleaners he still struggles, still even in the Manga, he keeps getting put against people he can’t beat, over and over again, proving his point again and again.
Yet in that grief he has a family helping him, a found family. His process is slow, after seemingly a while he is still griefing what he could have been, and could have done, it’s a story of grief taking time to overcome, and not just being violent, sometimes “cocky” and “too much” or “sad”.
Rudo wants to comfort Remlin, due to remlin feeling extremely upset over being in trouble, he has worries and a grievance on not being the right person, and although Zanka struggles to follow his own advice, he gives advice to rudo to just do it, that he could be the right or wrong person but he won’t know it until it happens, and no matter what if he doesn’t try he won’t be anything.
Rudo tries, and in the process helps Remlin through a small grievance. While using it to cope with his own grief, trying to draw his own father Regto, despite his skills not being the best. Processing grief through a real form of therapy. Art therapy. It’s a form of therapy that helps regulate emotions, and get them out, something he does through his own actions of wanting to draw it. Although Zanka told him to help Remlin, no one told him to draw his father, he started to take the steps on his own to heal. An important step.
You cannot heal unless you want to heal yourself.
The story of grief present in the anime:
The overall theme of the anime gets portrayed through these many states, it shows the states of grief, how different people process grief, and the right ways to go through grief, the topic of grief and its ways are broad, shown to be big and different for different people, showing different ways it affects people. It’s a story that heavily shows all sides of grief, the good, the bad, the beautiful, the ugly. It tells a story of how to help yourself and how to get help from others, while showing it can be a quick or slow process.
This is only a short section as it will be covered more in the manga spoiler section. Amo is a victim of grooming, her groomer is a sexual predator adult male she kills, yet she is meant to parallel Rudo. Rudo and her struggle with grief, and anger similar to each other though in very different ways. That’s where people believe the parallel ends. It does not.
Tamsy as a character is a main antagonist but not in a normal way, he has not been seen in the manga for 9 months as of writing this, he is a character who is a antagonist on the side, he starts the story off, and he stays in the story but he is on the side. Like many people are. And this is when the issue of a big warning comes into play.
I love tamsy’s character, I love the way he is written, the way in Japanese he switched pronouns, has a female based Jinki, and is hinted to be absolutely crazy and hiding things even to this day from the audience. All while having downright deadly gear to change the path of stories. A gaslighting tool that isn’t just himself but an item he carries.
Tamsy kills Rudos father figure, having seemed to stalk rudo for a long enough time to know it would shatter him. He proceeds to kidnap Amo, knowing the affect it will cause rudo. He then proceeds to help Amo, and help rudo, and be a helping hand.
And this is where the warning comes, this next part is about my belief Tamsy has grooming behaviour, as far to say is a groomer, it is not in so much a sexual sense, there is different forms of grooming, but tamsy as a character gaslights, manipulates and is treated as a great person all while purposely changing parts of children’s lives, to force the children to go down certain paths. He is therefore. A groomer.
I love his character and everything about him. But this is a topic to be discussed, many have slightly discussed it, but I have not seen people brave enough to discuss it. Due to the nuance it takes.
In the best way to describe this. Tamsy knew that Amo was a sex trafficking rape victim. He is the one that gave her, her boots, knowing she was in trouble. He did not give her real help, get her out of the situation or any of that. But he knowing this information before anyone else. When getting her in his Jinki position her in an extremely upsetting way, many get uncomfortable with her positioning, especially due to her clothes.
It’s the best way to describe the way he does the positioning is intentional. And also a violent mockery of her suffering. Something he continues to do by trying to convince people she’s delusional/crazy and did not see anyone fly like an angel past the barrier, despite being the one to do that.
His positioning of her body, is that or a violent one, not one he would find sexual pleasure from, but still sadistic pleasure. He is aware of her situation, and treats it almost like a joke, and a dollhouse situation he can play with, made worse when he despite kidnapping her is the one to give her, her shoes
This is also made worse when he kidnaps her, he taunts her with food, driving her mad, all while forcing her into a gaslighted state of not knowing it was him, despite her seeing his face, hearing his voice, and experiencing the trauma due to his actions. Her positioning in this although that of a common prisoner, is that of one becoming worse when refusing to help her dress properly, leaving her in a mostly undressed, sexualised outfit, that her groomer and rapist had for her. Especially when she is processing being raped and groomed by someone she thought loved her properly,
Tamsy doesn’t just observe from a distance, he helps the children he harms, causing a form of love bombing to happen. He makes them feel safe and secure, he gives Amos her boots back, he becomes someone that is a “good guy to trust”, he gaslights the children he is harming into believe there is less harm with him, becoming a safe figure when knowing he is very much in it to harm them.
Tamsy has been stalking rudo since rudo was a young child, have enough knowledge that killing Regto could cause him to snap over the edge, tamsy due to a twisted idea of love, wants rudo to snap. He treats it as love. As him loving rudo in some way. This is never confirmed to be family/friend/romantic like, at the most no matter how it is meant to be by rudo, is a love that results in him gaslighting/killing/love bombing/and causing general harm for Rudo.
Tamsy changes parts of Rudos life to harm rudo, for “love”, he kills Rudos father Regto, in the name of “love” he kidnaps Amo to push rudo, he then helps Amo and Rudo to gain their trust, and to harm rudo in the future. He becomes familiar and close with certain Cleaners as a way to find out how to harm rudo. He is annoyed when Rudos family, and therefore his therapy helps him through something he considers of sorts a bullshit version of MLP “friendship is magic”. At times he slips but barely enough for it to be noticeable enough. He is what groomers are and does what groomers do, and shows how they get away with it but in a magical sense.
He is directly doing things to rudo for “love”, and to cause rudo a “loving” form of harm. Wanting rudo to snap and become something bigger. Something if going with the god imagery/wording/and ideas of the story including with even Tamsys last name (Caine), he wants rudo to almost become god like, that is the current take by the fandom.
He stabbed “Abel” (Regto) in order for “love” to happen, in a form of utterly ruining Rudo mentally enough to change. Not stopping until it will change, willing to take a long route of “letting” rudo get friends and family. Just so he can harm them to tear rudo down. He believes he has a control over rudo, that lets him in a sense “own” rudo. Becoming a dangerous predator. And an amazing antagonist.
The process itself is still being shown in the manga like many other things, it’s an important part from the start, Rudo is learning to heal properly and how that is done, it is my belief that the progress of healing will lead to Tamsy failing to reach his goal. His goal itself is to rip rudo from healing, so when he becomes unsuccessful and Rudo meets that journey it will destroy one of the main hidden antagonists of the story, especially due to tamsy seeming to want to make rudo become a god, while they are currently fighting someone trying to become a god! I believe it shows him becoming less and less willing to be an angry griefing child, and maturing…even if he has to become a furry for that (joking)
There are many other things in the manga that go over grief and such! But I have written for so long and need to really eat something. I do believe that my belief is just my own and some of my friends, but due to a passion in certain fields I feel I have at least some understanding to know what I’m talking about.
If you love tamsy it’s fine xoxo, I love his character himself and believe he’s extremely well written, and if you hate tamsy, don’t attack tamsy fans xoxo
May post about the god things on another date, or go more in-depth for the manga grief/grooming/therapy/etc but for now I won’t.
pixelskylines
gummygunk
jacobvanloon
kianamaiart
kaledo-art
snowghoul
