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I think that Kagurabachi’s popularity was just a perfect storm of events. Bear with me for a moment.

Jump is going through another transition period. My Hero Academia and Black Clover are in their final arcs, and Jujutsu Kaisen is getting close to its end too. Those are some of the most popular titles in Jump because of how action-packed and mainstream they are, and people are naturally going to be looking for more. Sakamoto Days has a fight every chapter, sure, but since then we’ve gotten more series which focus on Jump’s love of drama (Blue Box, Ichinose Family) or esoteric subjects (Cipher Academy, Akane-banashi).

Kagurabachi, on the other hand, is simple. Almost DECEPTIVELY simple. Guy has magic sword, guy sees his dad die, guy wants revenge. It’s a basic plot with basic art and the most basic cliches out there, that anyone can pick up and understand almost immediately. And the action is clean - Hokazono-sensei may be a newcomer, but he definitely knows how to draw a fight scene. And as someone who thought Black Clover was a Fairy Tail ripoff when it first started, a basic series can easily catch on.

I’ll admit, part of it is also a meme, sort of like how Morbius was. Someone might’ve ironically said that Kagurabachi is the savior of Jump, and it was an in-joke that snowballed into a cultural phenomenon. But honestly, so far Kagurabachi stands well on its own, even without the artificial hype. In other words, I’m totally ready to get my Kaguras Bachi’d.

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