The Spring 2023 Manga Guide

The Yakuza's Bias

What's It About? 

Ken Kanashiro is one of the top lieutenants in the feared yakuza outfit the Washio Clan. He lives his life by the code of the Japanese underworld, where nothing is more important than loyalty, and ties between soldiers and their aniki are sacred bonds. Ken's never had time for hobbies... until the boss's only daughter Megumi drags him to a K-pop concert, and he sees the glittering, charismatic Jun for the first time. Smitten like a new recruit on his first job, Ken plunges into fandom with the solemnity and passion only a true man who walks the way of the yakuza could muster.

The Yakuza's Bias has story and art by Teki Yatsuda, with English translation by Max Greenway, and lettering by Nicole Roderick. Kodansha Comics will release the first volume physically on May 16.

Is It Worth Reading?

Christopher Farris

Rating:

For being a presence so feared they can supposedly shut down the prospects of saucy UmaMusume fanart, the Yakuza sure don't seem troubled as the subjects of broad parody. The Way of the Househusband previously made a memetic name for itself, and now we have Teki Yatsuda's The Yakuza's Bias, which imagines these members of Japan's murderous underworld navigating the equally cutthroat arena of K-pop stardom. It's a premise predicated on a single joke, but from the opening page where you see a grizzled, scarred gangster brandishing a fan with "Be My Aniki" scrawled on it, you realize there might be something here.

The opening establishment of the main made man Ken as he gets dragged into idol hell is funny. But anyone familiar with this concept knows the real test is seeing if the series has long-term legs for its premise. Thankfully, while still spun around that singular setup, The Yakuza's Bias soon proves that Yatsuda realizes the full breadth of material available from this idea. It's not just "Ken does a stereotypical idol-stanning activity while looking like a hard-boiled yakuza". It instead depicts interaction with idol fandom in ways that uniquely intersect with the mob lifestyle. So we get stuff like Ken barely avoiding a turf war because his rival is so thrown off by the banner he's sporting, or chatting up a hostess at a club regarding the power of K-pop. Ken takes a knife for one of his mob buddies and survives thanks to a stack of CDs he bought to win a handshake ticket. It's the sort of series that feels like it's trying to go places with its conceptual characters in these situations while, importantly, also being very funny about it.

It all comes off as very knowing, experience-based humor, as one gets the impression that Yatsuda themselves are well-versed in the ins and outs of idol-stanning culture. This is the key to making scenes like a Yakuza-grade conflict carried out via Twitter beef that ring true to the goofy, fannish styles undercutting everything. And that itself is enhanced by the translation on this one has a clear handle on presenting things in the kind of modern zoomer stan lingo that sells this central joke. This familiarity does lead to an odd reverence for the K-pop idols themselves amongst all this broad parody, though I think it's just goofy enough to jibe with the overall idea. They also get a lot of mileage out of the artistic divide in depicting hard-boiled crime dudes versus realistically rendered K-pop pretty boys. It's funny in a way that stays fresh and inventive through this first volume, which is exactly what a series like this needs. We stan.

Rebecca Silverman

Rating:

The list of manga about yakuza doing non-yakuza things is ever-expanding: you've got yakuza househusbands, yakuza who run cat cafés, yakuza babysitters...and now, with The Yakuza's Bias, yakuza superfans of Korean boy bands. Ken, the star of the show (although he'd doubtless argue that Jun, his bias, is the true star), is a tough-talking, hard-boiled gangster, second in command of the Washio family, perfectly content to do his regular tough-guy things. However, one fateful day, the young lady of the house introduces him to her favorite K-pop boy band, and nothing would ever be the same.

All things considered, it's a pretty funny setup. Ken is just like any other fanboy in the sheer amount of passion he has for his chosen fandom, but his mindset is all yakuza, so his first thought is to do things like cut off a finger as part of a merch trade or ask Jun to be his "aniki," a term that has additional meaning in organized crime settings. Hands down, my favorite gag is the self-insert fanfiction he writes about Jun, which puts the two of them in a traditional yakuza hierarchical relationship. It's funny to think about (and to read the snippets we get in the book), but it also communicates just how deeply invested Ken is in this pop star. While his obsession is largely played for laughs, there's something kind of nice about seeing him find so much happiness in something he never even considered before.

But at its heart, this is a gag manga, and humor always takes pride in place. Like many in its genre, most of the jokes center on how weird it is that a professional criminal obsesses over a boy band singer like a teenage girl. When a rival gangster from another family gets sucked into the fandom whirl, the two men go to concerts together, much to the bafflement of other fans and the amusement of the band themselves. As "Yaccuzi" on the in-world version of Twitter, Ken even amasses a following, and inadvertent IRL meetups follow. The concert scenes and the fan meetings provide some of the funniest examples of the disconnect between Ken's image and his fandom; the sight of tough old guys covered in scars sitting with bright young fangirls is something else.

The Yakuza's Bias does have only one joke. At this point, it's making the most of it, but I could see this becoming tedious if the series runs for too long. However, for now, it provides a lot of silly fun, and if you've ever been a fan of anything and didn't care who knew it, I'd recommend picking it up.

Jean-Karlo Lemus

Rating:

Laughing about yakuza in silly situations probably isn't the smartest thing to do, all things considered (after all, I have a very squishy, punchable face). But can you blame a guy? It's so funny when yakuza do uncharacteristic things like race slot cars or become stay-at-home husbands. So too it is with The Yakuza's Bias, where hardcore made-man Ken becomes an absolute stan for Jun, a Korean boy-band rapper. Be it getting merch through illicit memes, arguing about who's Best Boy with the boss's wife, or getting insanely popular with his fanfic, Ken drags his fellow subordinates through the world of idol fandom by hook or crook. The pinnacle is when we get to see Jun's reaction to such a classical tough guy being one of his groupies—this manga knows what it's doing.

It's just gag after gag with this series, and between the sharp translation or the incongruousness of people seeing a scary-faced man going to tears over a Korean pretty-boy, this series got more than a few chuckles out of me. The energy is high, and really, we all know the sting of fandom culture. I imagine this one will hit more if you're actually someone's stan, but for now, this series gets a strong recommendation from me.