Gravitation

Story

The story surrounds an aspiring singer, Shuichi Shindou, and his band, Bad Luck (formed with his best friend Hiroshi Nakano, who is on guitar). Shuichi wants to become Japan's next big star, and follow in the footsteps of the famous idol Ryuichi Sakuma, lead singer of the now-disbanded legendary group Nittle Grasper. One evening, Shuuichi is looking over lyrics for a song he was writing when his paper is blown away by the wind and picked up by a tall, blonde stranger. The man dismisses Shuichi's hard work as garbage, which hurts Shuichi deeply. Despite his anger, he is intrigued by the stranger. This will be their first, but not last, encounter as Shuichi becomes fascinated by the stranger, who soon turns out to be the famous romance novelist, Eiri Yuki (real name: Uesugi). Both the manga and the anime follow this plot.

The manga is a quirky blend of over-the-top humor (Reiji's giant panda robot destroying parts of New York, Shuichi's explosive nosebleeds and ridiculous declarations of love, K's machine gun wake-up calls, Tohma's half-teasing come-ons, etc) and yaoi. The storyline is just serious enough to be compelling, but also contains elements of parody. The characters are often thrown into insane situations and in some scenes the art style is dramatically overdone for comedic effect, one of many of Murakami sensei's well know traits and characteristics in her manga styles.

The art style of the manga is notably different in volumes 1-5 than it is in volumes 6-12. The first half of the series has a more "old-fashioned" style that slowly changes and becomes noticeably different by volumes 6-7. The second half features cleaner lines, and more polished and stylish appearance. This also appears in the sequel, Gravitation EX, where each character's drawing style is drastically changed. For some, it's not very much except a little lolita-fication, but for others, you may have to see the name before you can recognize them. For example, Mika (Tohma's wife) was last seen in the early stages of pregnancy whereas now there is no visible evidence of such a state. There is also Shuichi's sister Maiko.

Major Characters

Shuichi Shindou: An energetic, devoted, and good-natured teen who falls in love with Eiri Yuki. He chases Eiri constantly, despite being rejected, verbally abused, and often being called a little brat. The only thing he cares about more than Eiri is his band, Bad Luck. Even after becoming Eiri's boyfriend, Shuichi still struggles to win his heart completely and find out more about his dark past. Shuichi sacrifices himself and ends up being beaten and raped by one of the members of the band A.S.K and his hired thugs in order to protect Eiri. Eiri blames himself for the assault and keeps running away from Shuichi because he fears both being hurt by him, as well as hurting him. Shuichi follows him to end, even going to New York in an attempt to bring Eiri home (in the anime). In the manga, he even has Yoshiki Kitazawa impersonate his older brother Yuki Kitazawa to help shuichi for the problems his brother has left behind which really helps Eiri get over his past love. The two finally end up together despite many interferences by Eiri's family, his arranged fiance Ayaka, and Eiri's close friend and brother-in-law, Tohma.

Eiri Yuki: A cynical romance novelist whose real name is Eiri Uesugi. He is generally blunt and rude to those around him and has a fairly negative view on people and life in general. His good looks and charm make him popular with women and his female fanbase whove given him the nickname of 'cool beauty' , but he doesn't make any emotional attachments with the women he gets involved with. He eventually agrees to a relationship with Shuichi (who refers to him as Yuki). Eiri suffers from psychological problems, mostly stemming from when he was almost brutally raped and was forced to kill to defend his life when he was a teenager. He only resists Shuichi because his past has affected him so much that he's afraid to let anyone in again. In the beginning, he's very cruel to Shuichi but eventually he gives way and little by little begins to let him in and nor dos he want to have shuichi hurt or even possibly killed since his brother in-law Tohma "discards any toy he believes is not good in anyway to Eiri". Yuki eventually admits to himself that he loves Shuichi in the manga[volume 8], but the animated series only highlights certain areas of the relationship's development. He then is very kind to Shuichi and even though he occasionally refers to him as stupid, (he typically acts like a "tough guy" in public and tries to act like he unconcerned with Shuichi) it's very apparent that the two love each other. He blames himself for Shuichi being beaten and raped by one of the band A.S.K's members and his hired thugs. Eiri also teeters from being nice to Shuichi, but whenever Tohma, his arranged fiance Ayaka, or his family get involved in the matter he treats him badly because they convince him that he will only be hurt. In the end he overcomes this and the pair find happiness in their own way.

Tohma Seguchi: The former keyboardist for the band Nittle Grasper, and now the head of NG Productions, the company that is producing Bad Luck's music. Tohma is a genius musician and a stern businessman. He is married to Eiri's older sister, Mika. Tohma cares greatly for his brother-in-law, Eiri, and feels an intense guilt for failing to protect him during his childhood. When he feels that Eiri's livelihood is threatened, he is prone to get involved.

Characters

Bad Luck

• Shuichi Shindou
• Hiroshi Nakano
• Suguru Fujisaki

Nittle Grasper

• Ryuichi Sakuma
• Tohma Seguchi
• Noriko Ukai

A.S.K

• Aizawa Taki
• Ma-kun
• Ken-kun

N-G Production Staff

• Tohma Seguchi
• Claude K Winchester "K"
• Sakano

Uesugi Family

• Eiri Yuki a.k.a Eiri Uesugi
• Mika Seguchi
• Tatsuha Uesugi

Winchester Family

• Claude K Winchester "K"
• Judy Winchester
• Michael Winchester

Kitazawa Family

• Yuki Kitazawa
• Yoshiki Kitazawa
• Riku Kitazawa

XMR Records

Reiji a.k.a Rage

Others

• Ayaka Usami
• Maiko Shindou, Shuichi's sister.
• Yuuji Nakano, Hiroshi's older brother.

Media

Print

The precursor to the Gravitation manga was a dōjinshi series titled Help!, which followed a similar story line but cast the characters in slightly different roles.

Murakami penned a thirteen volume dōjinshi series called Gravitation Remix under the group Crocodile Ave. The Remix dōjinshi are much more sexually explicit than the anime and deviate heavily from the manga storyline. Fans have requested that Tokyopop license Gravitation Remix, but Tokyopop regards the depiction of some characters to be too young, also they are concerned about themes of incest, so Tokyopop has not licensed them.^[5] They contain an element of parody. For example, one volume features a female version of a male character, Shūichi.

In addition to the Remixes, Murakami created four Megamixs dōjinshi, dubbed Mega-gra, Megamix: Panda, Megamix: Kumagorou, and Megamix: Capybara. These are extremely explicit, even compared to the remixes, and can be shocking to readers at the magnitude of explicit imagery presented. These also deviate from the storyline as the Remixes do, though Panda takes a step further to include Shota. A new Megamix is currently in the works, entitled Megamix Zebra. Not much is known about this Megamix except that it will feature the couple of Shuichi x Ryuichi x Eiri, with Shuichi as the seme.

A sequel to the original manga series has also been created, entitled Gravitation EX^[4] though many fans know it as its original name, Gravitation Genzo (so named after the online magazine it is published in). The story picks up directly after volume 12, and is known for being even more like a soap opera than the original manga. In the span of twenty chapters (as of April 2008), Shuichi and Eiri find and agree to momentarily take care of Kitazawa Yuki's son Riku, Shuichi kisses and conducts a short affair with Sakuma Ryuichi, who announces that he's always been in love with Shuichi, Eiri is in a car accident that causes him to temporarily lose his eye sight, and Reiji announces that she's making all that has happened into a movie. Shuichi believes that this movie is the reason Ryuichi "pretended" to go after him, although as of April 2008 Ryuichi's true motives - whether he is really in love with Shuichi, was making a movie, or was trying to bring Shuichi and Eiri closer in someway - are not clear. In track 71, the cave Bad Luck is filming a music video in collapses, leaving Shuichi trapped inside. In track 75 it is revealed that Shuichi is in a coma with no signs of waking up. It was also hinted that Eiri may take over as Bad Luck's vocalist. Since Shuichi has yet to awaken he is forced to do so, revealing a secret of Yuki unknown to anyone but Shuichi. Later, after the performance, Yuki goes in to Shuichi's hospital room. He questions Shuichi about what he would do if Yuki had been lying about his eyesight, upon which Shuichi awakens. It is unclear where the story will go from there, as Murakami has been on hiatus since the January 2008 issue, and it is unclear when she will go back to publishing the manga monthly again. It is also unclear when TOKYOPOP and other manga distributors will release the second volume of Gravitation EX in English. Recently after being on hiatus, Murakami released a new 30 page track of Gravitation EX.

In February 2009, Murakami released track 77 of Gravitation EX^[4] (or Gravitation Genzo^[6]). There is a new side to Sakuma, Ryuichi which deepens the mystery to his character. He seems to have two versions of himself running around, one of which is a ghost. In this track, there are several scenes of Yuki acting as a pleasant partner in a husband-wife role. The link below is a translated scan by user sailorspazz. http://community.livejournal.com/gravi_muse_meet/571813.html#cutid1