Disclaimer- Read Act-Age on Viz’s website here: https://www.viz.com/shonenjump/act-age-chapter-1/chapter/6600?action=read

For my international friends try MangaPlus by Shueisha: https://mangaplus.shueisha.co.jp/titles/100036

Check out the Shonen Ronin YouTube Channel for a video version of this soon: https://youtu.be/J4vsM8S2ffU

“Let teachers and philosophers brood over questions of reality and illusion. I know this: if life is illusion, then I am no less an illusion, and being thus, the illusion is real to me. I live, I burn with life, I love, I slay, and am content.”-Conan the Barbarian

Let us ditch the metaphysics & actually apply dialectics to these situations, shall we? I have little patience and am bored easily so I’ll be blunt and quick: you cannot recognize a great anime in one episode, a great manga in one chapter, nor a terrible one at that. Why? There is no good or bad art. Things can only be better or worse than what you’ve seen before. A distinction without a difference perhaps? But then why do we perceive children’s standards as being so much lower than our own generally speaking? How did there come to be a distinction between high and low art? Simple, only the rich got to experience “high” art regularly, and a child has less to judge a story with.

Greatness lies where men believe it resides. It’s a trick of the light, and very tricky lights can create some very special effects. People who can cause these effects, who can channel or control the masses perception are called “Experts”.

Experts are simply people who have seen so many ordinary things that the extraordinary stands out. Why do I bring all this up? Well, I would consider myself to be an expert on shounen. I like ordinary shounen as a baseline, it doesn’t need to be special to get my attention. So I feel I’m uniquely qualified to say this: Act-Age is something special. Every big shounen Manga, Game, or Anime has its own unique special something that puts it over the top. Many series encapsulate this essence in a thesis statement as it were- a narration on the nature of an occupation for which the shounen aesthetic will be an expressed part. Given that Act-Age has one of the more impressive of these, there’s no better place for me to start examining its greatness. So, without further ado,

ACTION!

Those People Are Called…

The first chapter of Act-Age perfectly captures the role of director, audience, and fans in an actor’s career. That doesn’t sound like much until you consider actors are this series version of Hunters, Heroes, or Death Reapers. If a shounen series fails to establish the most important aspects of its worlds occupation you end up with series like fairy tail which completely contradict the aesthetic it is ribbing. But how does one know if a series is effective in establishing the rules of the trade and thus providing a path for its themes and plot to flourish? One of the most important things an author must consider in these opening narration is if the audience expectations of the occupation are a help to the series or if they’ll have to be reframed. Ninja’s are almost universally considered cool so there’s little need for doubling down that point in Naruto, instead, it focuses on the more unique aspects of these specific in-universe ninjas. In contrast, Act-Age has a completely different but equally interesting methodology, it uses the tools of the occupation it’s covering to reframe your expectations.

Whether you’re interested in the premise, skeptical, or indifferent, with the very first line the manga gets you in its pace- “until the director calls “cut!” The reason directors use cut or whatever the word is in Japanese (might be the same idk) is it disturbs your current mood of thinking. If you ever had a cut you can relate it to shape pain, and even if you don’t if you’ve cut something you know an object is severed. The physicality of the word is like an attack without being threatening necessarily. You become disconnected from your past self before you started the chapter and now you’re ready to be psychologically anchored to the first piece of information the manga gives you. So long as the next line is great, you have yourself the perfect intro, and I think given the fact that I’m writing this you can assume that it was.

“Just for that short span of time…we live the lives of others.” This is a great line for multiple reasons. Firstly, it plays up the ideal of actors that we have in our heads as people who really get to LIVE fantastical lives. My hats off to the translators because had the line been translated to something duller that seeming means the same thing such as “step into others’ shoes” or “play the roles of others” the line would have not have been as effective in this regard. Secondly, it establishes what I imagine will be a big theme going forward- the preciousness of time. Already in our own lives, a good number of people have plenty of things they may want to experience but may not have the time to experience them all. For an actor, this type of anxiety is likely exacerbated ten-fold.

So what we have here is stakes and a sense of adventure, characteristics of any great shounen manga. And as the cherry on top, we also have the acknowledgment of acting as a “bizarre form of pleasure” which will become extremely relevant later. If actors are this story’s ninjas or hunters then, of course, we must remember that those characters are still considered wild and crazy to an extent in their worlds. Act-Age carries with it a meta understanding that for actors in our world the situation is much the same. The act of borrowing familiar tropes and modifying them to become something incredibly familiar, yet fresh and exciting is what it means to have a good introduction as a Jump manga, and we’re only just getting past the first page.

Enter Main Character

The first thing you establish about your main character is the most important. For Deku from My Hero Academia the first page he’s introduced in establishes that he is brave, morally upright, and not the strongest. The story then gets to focus on something that will make you very happy now that you’re attracted to this upright kid- it’ll give him the strength to stand up for those ideals without hurting himself. Contrast this with some series, and I’m sure you can of a few, that merely establish that the Main Character is an idiot you should not take seriously. Even if the story is explicitly about the character’s transformation from that to a serious badass neither fans nor the author can complain if it doesn’t sell well, because then the only reason people who care about the characters more than anything else in a story (which is not a small number of people) have to continue is if they like watching idiots and/or growth. The point of this comparison isn’t to say that an introductory or main character needs positive traits to draw readers in, however. Depending on the audience and purpose of the story plot and themes can be more important than following innately likable or relatable characters.

A character like Kei Yogani is an acquired taste. Some like me will like her immediately, others will find her difficult to care about due to how seemingly strange she is. What can be said for certain, however, is that she’s both extremely interesting and the perfect character for this story and its themes.

The first thing established about Yonagi is that acting IS her life. The extent of what that means and its implications for the story are subtle and so that I may cover it all I’m gonna have to talk about the shonen aesthetic and Buddhism.

A quick refresher: the shounen aesthetic can be described as what makes shounen “shounen” outside of its demographics. The 4 core aspects are the tendency & predisposition towards optimism, passing of the torch, teaching empathy, and the belief in increasing power. Now some occupations are inherently more shounen than others. This is not to say that a person is limited in just how shounen they can be, just that certain paths in life lend themselves more to the aesthetic than others, as the ideals of the occupation are more in line with shounen’s core principles. In the past actors were looked down on as little more than prostitutes. They certainly wouldn’t even have a chance to make the millions they could now. But realistically their job is still just as precarious and looked down on, it’s just in the age of mass-everything they can make up for it if they become one of the elites who make their way to the top. This is all to say that with the invention of recording devices and vast audiences acting has evolved to become a very shounen occupation You need optimism, gratitude to past actors and the people who got you there despite the odds, you literally NEED to teach and invoke empathy in the audience, and you come to understand the nature of power politics as well as your newfound ability to empower millions.

Given Yonagi’s extreme dedication to acting, one can also consider her an extremely shounen protagonist in the same vein as a Naruto or Luffy, in her own unique way. In fact, the only thing that makes her question her dream is her promise to take care of her family, which is also in line with the aesthetic. And speaking of her extreme dedication to acting, her method acting antics & how she’s referred to as “a genuine article” is very reminiscent of the Buddhist Aesthetic of art creation as well. Roger J. Davies in the book “Japanese Culture- The Religious and Philosophical Foundations” notes this about the Buddhist Doctrine: ” As a religious belief system, it discourages both philosophical theorizing and metaphysical speculation: truth lies beyond rational analysis and can be understood only by someone who has walked on the path and reported what he has seen (i.e., a Buddha).”

As a result, the general Buddhist tradition of artistic creation can be said to be a focus on emptying out unnecessary thoughts that come from an outside culture or otherwise over-complicate the process and instead the emphasis is placed on expressing what comes to you right away in the present moment without hesitation. The first piece of information we get from an actual character in the series is their mocking of the fakeness of some actors in front of him. He calls them robot-like, merely acting out what they think is expected of them. This is immediately contrasted with Yonagi who truly invokes sadness through her method acting. While method acting isn’t explicitly Buddhist in origin it nonetheless reflects the same mindset of truth only being understood by those who have walked the path and only being expressible by those who report what they have seen.

I think most can relate to seeing sadness in media and thinking at some point “yeah this is really artificial”, especially if you’ve ever been really sad in recent memory. Depending on your emotional intelligence you can kind of see it in others even if they try to hide it from you. The way Act-Age taps into that sentiment with not just tips for how actors get picked but also showing what someone who’s genuinely sad most likely would look like was a masterstroke and only possible because it has the perfect main character for its story in Yonagi Kei. It’s good enough that we have a caring loveable & funny female MC in a Jump manga, which historically has been rare though that has been changing with newer Jump titles like The Promised Neverland, but we also get additional greatness to admire in a main character who through her abnormally calls into question the un-shounen robot nature of the rest of society.

Rules of the Trade (Shounen Jump Rules!)

Speaking of robots, let’s talk about rules! In his seminal work “Shounen Jump Rules” Digibro explains that you can expect any good shounen jump manga to be filled with lots of weird strange rules which define the story. Each arc, and typically the story as a whole, will have an authority figure detailing at length the rules of the scenario to the characters and/or the audience. Whether it is a narrator or in-universe character shounen manga is often defined by these rules. As they’re explained and enacted dramatic stakes are created and we the audience can get further invested in the plot and character plights. As long as the rules are understood even children can grasp the winners and losers, and why they won or lost- which is perfect for exploring themes.

This is why the best of the best, the true masterpieces, not only explore the rules as far as possible but explain them to the audience in a way that’s natural and seamless with the plot. Such is the case with the inner thoughts of the director in Act-Age. Of course, he’d be thinking about what disqualifies an actor when he’s part of the people in charge of auditions, and through him, we understand the basics of what an actor SHOULD do, even if we’ve never looked into it before. Things like Having your face match your body or not covering your face unnecessarily may seem obvious once you have them explained to you but don’t actually come naturally.

It’s established in the first chapter that an actor being caused unhappiness in life due to acting will be considered a failed state in this series. Knowing this provides us the perfect format for examining reasons why an actor chooses their path. Whether it thrills some can only find in that world, remembering themselves and finding their focus, the connection between director vision and the actor as a vessel, or just appeasing fans and family, there are many ways people achieve happiness through acting. All these things are demonstrated via Yonagi’s audition, yet she is still rejected. However, the director- – decides to work with her to prove the validity of their mindset to the world. Watching these 2 new partners in crime take on the establishment of the acting world is a rebellion rife with the potential to demonstrate some game-breaking rule-bending, the type of stuff Shounen Jump was made for.

Why You Should Read It

Act-Age sprouts a very similar message to my favorite video game of all time, Persona 5: If you want to change the world all you have to do is look it differently. Where Persona 5 applies this societally this first chapter of Act-Age goes personal and says “Reality (our perception of it) isn’t fixed, isn’t that strangely awesome?!” It’s a message I can get behind because I agree- Life is Epic. The treachery of images is also an opportunity. One need only reset their emotions and remember things again.

I think what draws me to the series most is its pure-heartedness, even if you can’t relate to the financial struggles of the MC, even if the art style isn’t your thing, even if the idea of following a manga about acting doesn’t appeal to you at all most of us can relate to ideas of the best ways to express ourselves or struggling to choose between responsibility and our hearts desire, and many are blessed with people they want to protect in their own way. Acting today has changed a lot from how it was in the past, but it’s also in a sense more of the same. We still have scandals, tragedies, and outrage, now at a wider scale. But we also live in an age where acting means you can bring smiles to sick children more than ever before, run charities more than ever before, and inspire more than ever before. Today it is technically possible for anyone to pick up a camera and become a star, but even more apparent to me is the interconnectedness of us all that’s apparent. No man is an island and art is fundamentally a team effort. Helping people see the Truth and find liberation for themselves, that’s what it means to live in this Act-Age.