As I write my third review of a cancelled Jump manga, I wonder if there’s any point in re-writing Jump’s harsh cancellation protocols for the fourth time in my reviews.
It’s a theme that comes up often because I end up reading a lot of cancelled manga, and I enjoy reviewing them, sometimes more than I enjoy reading them. Because, even though I genuinely feel sad for the mangaka themselves, rarely do cancelations affect me.
The one that affected me the most was probably Hungry Joker, by Yuuki Tabata, mangaka that some of you may know of, all the way back in 2012, when I wasn’t that familiar with Jump’s system.
And for 8 years I was angry that Hungry Joker had been cancelled, but no more. I finally found something else… being angry that Agravity Boys got cancelled.

Agravity Boys started in the second week of December of 2019, and lasted all the way back till today (4th of January 2021, if you’re reading this in the future. If you are, was 2021 better? I hope it was…)
More than a full year in Jump, reaching a round 50 chapters is not a bad run at all for an axed manga. Most of them last between 15 and 30 chapters. But to say that it lasted that long because the company kept giving it opportunities and it failed would be wrong. Agravity Boys lasted this long because Jump lost a lot of mainstay titles throughout last year. If we’re counting, and I am, they lost 7 established manga in 2020, that’s fucking insane. So rookies had it easier this year, and that reflects in runs like Agravity Boys and Moriking, that lasted longer than they would in any other year.
The reason Agravity Boys got axed was a lack of growth within the magazine, and I put a lot of that blame on Jump itself, as it never showed any interest to promote this manga in any way, shape or form. A lot of times it felt like Agravity Boys didn’t even exist. Being absent of volume publicity and relegated to the back of the magazine with only two color pages throughout it’s 50 chapter run.
The fans that it gained on it’s first couple of chapters are probably the same fans that it had on it’s last. If you don’t talk about it, it’s normal that people don’t find out about it.

But if you clicked on this review for the… review and to know what Agravity Boys is, I’m sorry about the tangent.
Agravity Boys is the story about four male teen (or… boy) astronauts that are sent to the planet of Alpha Jumbro, to study it and know if it’s viable to live, but very early in their trip Earth is sucked by a black hole and everyone they love dies. It’s up to them to survive in this brand new world as the last four humans alive.
Yup, as you thought, it is a pretty funny gag manga. No, for real, it’s a gag manga.
The story doesn’t really revolve around them struggling to survive or deal with existential crisis by virtue of being alone, and more so in four best friends hanging around in a new place. The main plot isn’t too relevant, and the manga never pretends to care too much about it. Agravity Boys is more the “Me & The Boys'' or the “Boys Locker Room” memes in manga form. This is shown from chapter one where they meet the Higher Being, that gives them a device that can turn one of them into a girl. And the rest of the chapter is them arguing about which of them should turn into a girl. Chris looks like one already, but what if the chest size is relative to the penis size? Maybe Baba should do it.
From there on out the story is very episodic in nature with our characters finding themselves in stupid situations as they meet more characters and the universe of AB expands. From finding a toilet to take a dumb, to venture into galactic streaming, to play a game of Bass ball (don’t confuse that with Baseball, completely different stuff), to make a fan Q&A to thank for the color page, each chapter strays further from the starting plot, and I would say that’s a negative if I thought that was the strong point of Agravity Boys, but it’s not, at all. Rather, you should read Agravity Boys because of it’s great comedy and fun characters. The episodic nature and the occasional extremely bonkers one-offs are the charm of this series.
That and, of course, the characters.
The cast of Agravity Boys grows throughout the series, with a couple of other recurring characters, but it starts with only the four titular Agravity Boys, and it’s clear that this story is about them, so if this manga is going to focus on the interactions between them first and foremost it’s very important that they are good characters.
And they are.

Chris Erwitt is our american hero, and he is mostly the joke of the first couple of chapters as he looks very much like a beautiful girl. And while that joke reappears pretty often, as every character, male and female, is fooled by Chris' charming looks, he also serves as the straight man of the group. Seen more often than not questioning everything that is happening, he is the audience expected reaction to whatever the others are doing.
Gerald Zeman is the German genius among genius, using all his genius almost exclusively to preverted and stupid theories. He’s probably the most crazy character in this crazy manga, and easily my favourite smart man character in any manga, back off Light!
Babazulagi Kiplagat is the giant south african, who comes off as the calm and collected big guy, but is actually probably the most perverted kid of the group. Bad Boy Baba is also the person in the series with the biggest dick energy.
And finally, Saga Tachikaze, the Japanese character, is clearly created to be the main character, the glue of the team. While not as crazy as Baba and Gerald, Saga nonetheless goes with their antics pretty easily.

More than the characters individually, Nakamura brings a genuine sense of comradery between the four. With the way they talk, interact, and support each other, there was never once any doubt in me that these guys were best friends for a long time and deeply cared for each other.
They reminded me a lot of me and my friends throughout the years, the stupid converstations and situations we found ourselves in, even the straight man failing to keep control of the chaos.
That’s this manga in a nutshell, friends being friends, and that results in an incredibly enjoyable manga. That’s why the plot doesn’t matter much. This manga’s most important thing is that feeling of friends hanging out.

While I don’t think every chapter of this manga is a 10/10, it honestly is so weird and out there at times that some people may not find it funny (I personally didn’t enjoy much the brocoli chapter for example), I want to give a special shout out to its final arc. In retrospective, the arc was probably a “Fuck you, I’ll do what I want” from an author with nothing to lose. It was not the first time I felt Agravity Boys was trolling with the editors and naysayers. Agravity Boys teased some changes of style throughout the series, a chapter in specific teased a turn to a more serious, plot-focused storyline, just for the rug to be removed from under our shoes at the last moment revealing that Nakamura-sensei was going to remain true to it’s comedy roots, and if that lead to its cancelation so be it! It works because this is a very tongue in cheek and self-aware manga with it’s fair share of 4th wall breaking. But in the last arc, with nothing to lose, we just enter the realm of insanity, with the Penis World Arc. Yes, Penis World Arc. I won’t reveal anything more than that, because everything in the last three chapters is just pure gold and reason enough to read the manga. It never resolves the plot, by the way, in case you’re wondering, but it’s honestly one of the coolest send-offs to a canceled manga I’ve seen.

If I’m allowed to talk briefly about something else before we wrap this up, I just want to say that, even though you probably won’t realize it at first, Agravity Boys contains better art than it has any right to have. I don’t think the manga itself is the best to show the full capabilities of Nakamura, but it’s in the super detailed faces that you can see his talent shine through the cracks. Can’t wait to see what he works on next, hopefully something that’ll show his full range.

And well, so why? Right? Why did it get cancelled? That’s the question. I answered it in a “factual” way already, lack of fanbase growth, and I personally think the lack of publicity was the main block it had to face, but if we look at the contents, well, gag manga was rarely the most successful in the magazine, but it can thrive. I think Agravity Boys however, had the problem of facing a lot of other gag manga. More importantly, to me Magu-Chan, who’s wholesome comedy somehow is even better than Agravity Boys, and Me & Roboco, which even if I don’t think it’s overall better, it certainly excels at it’s 4th wall breaking jokes. Meanwhile, Agravity Boys does them both, it’s good at both, but better at neither. It still has its own charm to it and I think it pulls off the absurd humor better than Moriking, but that one isn’t surviving much longer either, so it might be an irrelevant comparison.

All in all, I spent the entirety of Agravity Boys run recommending it to people, it was a ray of light in my 2020, something that made me smile and reminded me of my times with friends in a time where I couldn’t hang with them. It was what I needed last year, and I’m happy it lasted for it’s entire duration. Being a fan of the series was hard at times, because it was clear that it could be cancelled at any time, and when it was, while sad, I can’t say I was surprised.
But now that is an axed manga, would I still recommend checking it out? Yes, absolutely! Being mostly an episodic manga, the ending doesn’t feel necessarily rushed, and in actuality is the best part of the entire thing. And with 7 volumes worth of content, there’s definitely enough to enjoy as is.

To quote a great man:
“Read Agravity Boys.” - Master Crash, like 300 times in 2020