Black Channel

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"Being a YouTuber cannot be that hard, right? It's just filming videos and doing stupid stuff!"

Black Channel is.. odd, per say. it is one of the few manga that is actively influenced by online culture and trends that I am aware about, but it's existence doesn't make that concept surprising. CoroCoro is a magazine for kids who are very fond of videogames and online culture, a bit more specific than your Shonen Jump or your Afternoon. If the absurd amount of licensed series in it's serialization did not make that obvious, CoroCoro is a magazine that focuses on popular game and entertainment culture for kids, ... making sure to milk every single thing it can out of it. This might or might not include gacha games like Nikke (yes. there is a nikke gag manga serialized in a corocoro magazine) and actual games like Among Us and Poppy's Playtime, to the point where they even have a The Amazing Digital Circus manga that is absurdly behind the webseries and doesn't do anything fun with the source material other than be a readable version of it.

Black Channel's entire identity is built around online culture, to the point where I sit down and realize "does the author really spend this much time doomscrolling Twitter and NicoNicoDouga?"

It has SCPs, it has a literal arc dedicated to filming SCP-096, it has a chapter dedicated to a Poppy's Playtime playthrough that is legally distinct because of your usual international copyright laws, there's an arc that is just Spiderverse but with Blacks (it even has a T-Rex Black and a JK Tiktok White Girl Cheeto Eating Black!) and it has a arc literally dedicated to alien lizard men where the son of the big bad lizard men leader wants him to not destroy Earth so he can play videogames all day because they're fun. It is literally the definition of stupidity, something a hyperactive child would make due to being terminally online. That to me, is the charm of Black Channel. It literally is such a bombastic, over-the-top, corny, and absolutely CINEMATIC manga where everything is so absurd to the point where it loops back into being stupid.

Since I haven't addressed it yet, Black Channel is about Black, a demonic youtuber who wants to post 'devilish' entertainment online for his amusement. He comes across Satoshi, a random kid who.. well, is the random straightman kid. His purpose is very clear in the story, and there's the setup. Most chapters revolve around Black and Satoshi's shenanigans around whatever surrounds them, most of which I've explained above. They go SCP hunting, the foundation literally acknowledges Black, they do a Bachelor parody, they have Haruhi's Endless Summer arc in form of a Limbus Company reference, and again, it IS stupid. But it's so damn fun!

Now, this manga is absolutely entertaining. The artwork's great too, I love Black's design and there are a LOT of goated double spreads. Chapter 24 is a really well-looking chapter dedicated to SCP-096, and it is an absolute blast to read through. The closest thing I can compare it to, is Dandadan without any dialogue. Really good artwork mixed with cool action sequences, gets you a really cool closing chapter to the SCP saga. The manga in general has a really interesting design philosophy, though I'm not exactly cultured in CoroCoro enough to properly judge them to see if this is the general artstyle/vibe the magazine has, but they definitely are reminiscent of gag Twitter comics with a mix of absurd details when action needs it. Pretty stuff overall, nothing to judge there.

Now, I believe that to properly enjoy this manga, you have to actually be online. If all the internet subtext Black Channel has didn't make it obvious, the manga itself takes a LOT from japanese online culture. They reference a lot of japanese YouTubers, japanese gags, japanese-related fads (Poppy's Playtime somehow got really popular there), so there's a bit of extra enjoyment if you get the references to that. Even then, this is a really good manga with great artwork, and while I think the 'dark side of humanity' chapters might be the weakest point of the manga due to them being your usual Kodomo manga affairs when there's clearly more interesting concepts in the manga, Black Channel is still a really fun read overall. Not exactly a masterpiece by any means, but I binged this manga in less than two days, and it's been really hard for me to read anything lately.

Also, did you know that there's a literal channel for Black Channel you can subscribe to right now? One that has original content and has the weakest part of the manga as it's main focus? Yeah. It gives me hope that future chapters are more mystery/fight dedicated, assuming the manga doesn't end with the new few volumes.