Gachiakuta is an award winning manga which recently had an anime adaptation by Studio Bones in 2025. The manga author, Kei Urana, regularly used social media to interact with fans of her work and feels more or less like an influencer than a mangaka online. After a slew of criticism and harassment, Urana deactivated their account on May 24th, 2026 but has subsequently revived and locked their Twitter account as of May 26th.
The event that set off the chain of events started with Urana reposting a dance video on her Instagram. The Instagram reel is of a Japanese man cosplaying as the Gachiakuta Character, Jabber Wonger, but wearing a headband with leaks as a stand-in for the character’s locs. Fans took to social media to criticize Urana for reposting the video, some accusing her of racism as the man was imitating Jabber’s hairstyle. Before her X (formerly known as Twitter) account was deactivated, she was for a time blocking users who were sending hateful comments to her on the platform.
Urana issued an apology on Instagram via a story post stating:
“This is a quote from a dance video that recreates the scene by using hair to resemble a leek. I apologize if it caused offense. I will remove the quote. I shared the dance because I found it entertaining, and I had no intention of making fun of the culture.”
She would also address criticism of her character’s skin color as in the manga there are times where Jabber’s skin isn’t colored in with screentones. She would have this to say:
“I’m so happy to see so many people recreating Jabbar’s ‘dance’ and Zanka’s ‘falling down’ in such a fun and cool way, so I often give them a ‘like’ ♡ However, taking advantage of this, someone said, ‘See! I thought Urana was a racist because she didn’t use screen tones on Jabbar’s skin in the manga!’ I came across that opinion, but Jabbar’s skin isn’t dark to begin with, so it’s completely off the mark. This is something anyone who has read the original manga or watched the anime would know.”
A few days later on the 24th of May, the Gachiakuta graffiti designer, Hideyoshi Andou, would also go on to deactivate his X/Twitter account. He would have this to say as the reasoning for his deactivation:
“Guess I’ll delete it too, huh. It’s not even fun anymore. No matter how much I share all sorts of stuff here, if there’s no one to appreciate it, there’s no need to report it either.”
The deactivation of Urana’s X/Twitter account also comes only hours after the Gachiakuta Manga has won three awards including the 50th Kodansha Manga Award in the Shonen category. With the reactivation of their account, it’s unclear if Urana will unlock their account and make it public again.
Thankfully, Kei Urana is still active on social media through her Instagram. There, she posts art, progress on her manga, as well as reposts and stories through Instagram’s story feature.
