Akame ga Kill and the Third Moon Saga

One of the greatest announcements to descend in the anime and manga world thus far this year, as far as I’m concerned, is that the Akame ga Kill manga will be getting an anime.

I had the chance to see a few chapters of the manga a while ago and really like it. I’ve been reading up on it via the wikia dedicated to the series. It is an emotional series. Death flags are flown like balloons in a parade, and chapters 90-degree cliff drops. And when a character goes, it's not clean and neat. 

I’ve discussed previously how for 95% of all series in any medium or genre it is fairly predictable how the story will go because the main characters don’t die, or stay dead long. 99% of the time you will never see multiple primary characters killed off. I can tell you right now that like Game of Thrones, you’re better off not getting attached to any characters, because they don’t last long.

The story itself isn’t mind-blowingly new or different, aside from the execution. It is bloody and gory. While it has many moments of levity, it is first and foremost, by far, a story about fighting and killing. It takes place in a world where a corrupt empire tries to extend its reach into neighboring lands. The aristocracy and elites delight in various perversions and criminal acts while the government turns a blind eye. Meanwhile the people suffer in silence and poverty under the iron-fisted regime.

While Akame is the titular character, and the instigator of the story, she is not really the prime focus, as they spend a lot more time on the male lead, Tatsumi, and his interaction with her and the protags., Night Raid, against the agents of the empire. Their main enemy is Esdese, the strongest fighter in the empire and an ardent Darwinian – it’s survival of the fittest/strongest. She ends up falling in love with Tatsumi, although she doesn’t know he’s part of Night Raid.

The story tries to take a somewhat neutral stance in regards to its characters in that the enemies (Esdese and the Jaegers) while presented as sadists and monstrously cruel, they are given their own justifications that strike a little closer to reeling you into sympathy for them than most.

At any rate, I really like the story, and look forward to seeing it animated. When I first heard that an anime called Kill la Kill was being made, I initially made the error of thinking they meant this, though I figured out that day that they were different. I liked it enough that I had already grafted portions of it into one of my stories.

About two years ago now I guess, I began what is now the Third Moon Saga. Its story at the moment takes place over four periods, each named according to terms referring to the moon. The first period is simply called Moon. The second is New Moon. The third is Last Moon. The final one is Full Moon.

Moon starts with a young man named Alexander starting high school after moving back to his hometown, though he hardly remembers the town. His first night he stumbles onto a number of ghouls, creatures that, along with all monsters, should have been rendered extinct more than two and a half centuries ago. In fleeing he stumbles into an abandoned house and falls through the rotted floor into the basement where he is attacked by a vampire. He is forced from thereon to remain beside that vampire, as she must drink his blood regularly. If she does not, he will suffer withdrawal symptoms so severe that within days he will die. Alex must deal with this reality, while also learning the secrets kept by the organization known as the Agency. Ostensibly the vampire’s personality and mannerisms are based on Inori from Guilty Crown, and much of Inori and her background are based on Inori and Mana, as well as the broad outlines of the story from Guilty Crown.

New Moon takes place a few years later after Moon. This one plays on the expansion of the universe late in Moon, still following Alex and Inori. Alex, having finished high school and college, now works for the Agency, which has since become public and revealed the truth of the continued existence of monsters. Furthermore they reveal those who they identify as Espers, those who aren’t monsters but wield powers that normal humans don’t have. In general this story merges Zettai Karen Children with a few elements from Horizon on the Middle of Nowhere as it relates to the second season’s story of the two Marys.

This is also where I bring in the story from Akame ga Kill, setting it up as an alternate world. I retain almost all of the story from Akame ga Kill, tweaking the parts about the Danger Beasts a bit to create a scenario that allows the two worlds to cross over. Specifically I use the bit from Akame ga Kill where the scientist is experimenting with Danger Beasts and creates the more powerful/intelligent breed, at one point using some means to teleporting Esdese and Tatsumi to an island. I establish that as a function of transportation between that world and “this” world. By the end of New Moon you learn that Esdese and Alex are related, and how this all came to illicit Inori’s involvement.

Last Moon takes place only a few months to a couple years after the end of New Moon. There has been an apocalypse that has wiped out most life on the planet – human, animal, and monster alike. As the survivors try to regain a modicum of normalcy and survive in this nigh ruined world, a few places begin to sprout up as would-be havens. They are cities which were once left bare due to the apocalypse known as the Red Death. They have been given new names alongside being taken over by new masters. One such city, the most prominent of them all, is Crystal Point, said to be home of the one who caused the apocalypse. Esdese is one of the rulers of the new cities, though not of Crystal Point, and seemingly does so as a part of a broader empire (a queen to an empress, as it were). Last Moon is all about discovering what and who caused the apocalypse, why, and what will happen to the world.

Finally, Full Moon takes place about a decade and a half later. A young man named Alex has just begun attending a new high school. He lives alone with his sister, Charlotte, nicknamed Rise. His sister rarely attends school due to what is said to be medical reasons. However, she has a secret that they both must keep, though he has his own secret that he too must hide from the public. The world has recovered, structurally, since the apocalypse, though there is great fear and apprehension in many places regarding monsters and the whereabouts of the one who caused the apocalypse. As someone who can revive after any fatal injury, Alex isn’t exactly a normal human. And as his sister shows her love for her brother by treating him like the main course at dinner, she is about as far from normal as you might imagine.

As you can probably see there has been a lot of planning that has gone into this story already. I haven’t even covered a quarter of all the details I’ve fleshed out for this story. I have begun writing and have chapter one completed, but I don’t really know when I’ll have time to do a lot of writing for what I’ve framed as a rather large story. It is my second attempt at a dark story, so it is punctuated with a lot of moments of difficulty and emotional roller coaster rides for the characters, thus it will be a bit more complex in terms of writing. Hopefully I can share some of the completed work in the not too distant future.