Manga / Gangsta.

Handymen, at your service.

Gangsta. (often stylized GANGSTA.) is a Seinen action manga written and drawn by Kohske, which began serialization in Monthly Comic @BUNCH in 2011 and is still ongoing. It's set in what appears to be a Mediterranean country and follows the exploits of two Neighbourhood-Friendly Gangsters, Nicolas and Worick. You see, Nicolas and Worick are "Benriya," ("Handyman") bodyguards-for-hire. They take jobs from gangs to prostitutes to cops and everyone in-between. While on a job, they cross paths with Alex, a former prostitute and hire her as their secretary.

A character page is still in the works. Additions are welcomed.

An anime adaptation by Manglobe, its last series before shutting down due to financial issues, began airing in July as part of the Summer 2015 season. Funimation releases subbed episodes for members to stream.

The series has a spin-off mini-series focusing on Marco Adriano's past called GANGSTA:CURSED.: EP_Marco Adriano.

Not to be confused with Gangsta Rap, Gangsta Style, Neighborhood-Friendly Gangsters or Damn, It Feels Good to Be a Gangster!, though that pops up quite a lot. Also, despite the name, conventional Gangbangers are a no-show in Gangsta.

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Gangsta. includes examples of:

• Abusive Parents:
  • Worick's father put a lit cigarette out in Worick's eye. It's implied that Nicolas killed him for it.
  • Nicolas' dad doesn't think of him as human, and treats him like he's eventual garbage to throw away. In fact, Nicolas' father had him just so he wouldn't have to pay for a Twilight mercenary. He killed Nicolas' mother after she gave birth to him and then decided to raise Nicolas as his personal weapon.
• Absurdly Sharp Blade:
  • Nic's katana is apparently so sharp that it can cut through stone walls, as well as Doug's kukris.
  • Speaking of Doug, he wields some sharp blades of his own. His kukris are apparently sharp enough to slice through guns.
• Adults Are Useless: Or big fat speciests to Nicolas during his childhood. Or just out and out villains.

• All of the Other Reindeer: Most people do not like the Twilight species. Not helped by the fact that most of the Twilight we've seen have been violent, if not just jerks.

• Bad Boss: A B-level Twilight smashes one of his underlings into a wall when he tells him some bad news. And then that Twilight is killed by his boss.

• Berserk Button: Badmouthing Nicolas is one way to make Worick consider attacking an unarmed woman.
• Beware of the Nice Ones: Right as Alex is about to turn an alley during her search for one of Worick's clients' missing cat, she hears the threats and beatings of a bunch of men to a homeless, half-starved-looking Twilight girl, and just as they begin talking about doing worse to her, Alex suddenly leaps out to smash the man saying so in the face with a steel pipe. Definitely awesome.
• Bizarre Baby Boom: The Twilights are the children of those who used Célèbre, a drug that enhanced strength, speed and agility and was used during wartime. Twilights inherit these traits but are most often affected by genetic, mental and physical deficiencies and are not particularly long-lived (hence the name).
• Broken Bird: Alex, being a former prostitute.Though considering her daydream nightmare about Barry, there's more to it than that.
• A Child Shall Lead Them: The Cristiano family is led by Loretta Cristiano Amodio, who is 14 years old.

• Chivalrous Pervert: Worick. It's one of the reasons he convinced Nicolas to spare Alex.
• Comedic Sociopathy: Dr. Theo trying to stab Nicolas with a poisoned syringe for letting his hospital get damaged by the black Twilight man.

• Cool Old Lady: Big Mama Georgiana, the head of the Corsica brothel. She's even nice to Nic.
• Creepy Child: Mikhail, who began the most recent Twilight Hunt that has led to the escalating violence and massacres against Twilights, has no sense of the height of what he's done besides "wanting [their] dog tag", and seems to have enjoyed slaughtering those he had already done so, possibly due to being raised and twisted into thinking that way, considering his young age.

• Deadly Doctor: Dr. Theo may be missing a few fingers but he is not to be messed with. And stay away from Nina.
• Defrosting Ice King: It's been a while since Nic has been around a woman for long stretches of time and it shows.
• Deliberately Cute Child: Doug, a Twilight wielding kukris, who isn't actually a child.
• Differently Powered Individual: The Twilight, a "race" of people who are technically human but are for the most part considered monsters due to their Super-Strength, Super-Speed, etc. The genesis of the Twilight comes from the Psycho Serum Célèbre, a highly addictive drug created a century ago for use in wartime — but when it was found that Twilights had both drastically decreased lifespans compared to normal humans and that the child of any Twilight would almost certainly be born Twilight themselves the minority group was quickly shafted into becoming a Slave Race for the majority.

• Dreadlock Warrior: Galahad of the Cristianos, one of Loretta's enforcers.

• Early-Bird Cameo: Gina and Ginger make a very brief cameo in the first episode of the anime, seen only in shadow.

• Eye Scream: We're treated a brief flashback of how Worick lost one of his eyes via one of his Abusive Parents.

• Fantastic Racism:
  • It's solidly established that Twilights are second class citizens at best, and considered vermin to be exterminated at worst. Systematic oppression is everywhere: they're marked from birth with tags, legal slavery only recently ended, Ergastulum was established as a Twilight ghetto, only one clinic in the entire city helps Twilight orphans, and they're erased from city records immediately after death (not to mention that they don't even have single graves with headstones).
  • It's stated the government itself is backing the extermination going on now with the Destroyers.
• Feel No Pain: Nicolas sometimes takes an overdose of his Twilight meds to give himself an edge over his opponents. This is also a sign of imminent death among Twilights.

• Fingore:
  • Happened to Dr. Theo at some point, as he's missing his pinky and ring finger on one of his hands.
  • When Connie's left arm is discovered, her ring finger is missing.
• Foreshadowing: In chapter 12, Worick can be seen reading Hamlet.

• Gender-Blender Name: Paulklee, the head of the city's Twilight guild, is a woman. Though as it turns out, "Paulklee" is her surname. Her first name is "Gina."
• Get A Hold Of Yourself Man: Worick has to headbutt Alex to keep her from going into hysterics as a result of her Psycho Serum.

• Harmful to Minors:
  • Alex is annoyed that Nina knows exactly what Worick's day job is. He's been doing it since he was thirteen years old. Not to mention he's an orphan whose family died horribly.
  • Nicolas is a former child soldier.

• Hand Signals: Nicolas communicates almost entirely in sign language. Alex and Nina are currently learning it.

• Heterosexual Life-Partners: Nicolas and Worick have been together for about 20 years. Not even the most traumatic of events can separate them.
• Hooker with a Heart of Gold: Alex used to be this. Gender-inverted in Worick; he's a Gigolo with a Heart of Gold. He's quite popular too.
• Hollywood Silencer: In the second episode of the anime, Worick shoots a couple of criminals with a silenced pistol, needless to say, it plays this trope straight.

• Katanas Are Just Better: Nicolas wields one that is apparently capable of breaking both of Doug's kukris.

• Lamarck Was Right:
  • Twilights are most often the children and descendants of Célèbre users. Célèbre was a body modification drug created during wartimes to enhance strength, speed and agility, all of which it did, at the cost of being mostly toxic in large or repeated dosages. Besides gaining physical strength similar to their parents, Twilights are most often affected by genetic, mental and physical deficiencies and are not particularly long-lived (hence the name "Twilight"). Because a Twilight must take Célèbre to control their withdrawal symptoms, it's assumed that if a Twilight has children, they will also be Twilights.
  • It's revealed that half-Twilights live longer than full-blooded Twilights, and that half-Twilights with Twilight mothers and normal fathers are less healthy than Twilights with reverse parents.
  • Often invoked. See Rape as Drama.

• Lyrical Dissonance: In print form, anyway. Provided by a beatdown of Anti-Twilight attackers to "Stand By Me".
• Made a Slave: Back when Nicolas was a child, people took to finding young, stray Twilight children and making them into Tyke Bombs. Apparently, it was legal until the three principles were established.

• Meaningful Name: Many, but the name of the city the Benriya lives in stands out — Ergastulum, derived from a term for the dark confines whereupon Roman slaves were chained up and/or punished by way of back-breaking work.
• The Medic: Dr. Theo and Nina.
• The Mole: Ivan Glaziev for the Corsica Family. Subverted when we find out that his boss is also in on the Twilight extermination plan.

• Naïve Newcomer: Alex, due to her being unaware of the Twilights and a lot of the aspects of the city, which revolve heavily around said Twilights.

• The Napoleon:
  • While not a midget, Nicolas is shorter than most of the other men in the manga. Mentioning it doesn't send him into a violent rage but it does annoy him. He certainly doesn't like women taller than he is.
  • Doug, the kukri-wielding Twilight, turns out to be an adult with a body that hasn't aged properly since he was 12, although his larynx seems to have developed. Either way, he's a total badass.

• No Ending: The anime ends on a very abrupt note with virtually nothing resolved. And due to Manglobe going bankrupt, a second season is most likely never happening. So those who wants to know what happens next will have no choice but to pick up the manga.
• Older Than They Look:
  • Nicolas points out that he hasn't changed much physically since he was 17.
  • Surprise, that kukri-wielding Twilight is an adult!
• Omake: So far, about the cast taking care of a baby sparrow.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Did Nicolas just speak? Has Worick stopped acting like a Handsome Lech? SHIT JUST GOT REAL.
• Photographic Memory: Worick. After flipping through a book of crime scene notes, he proceeds to rattle off various details about the people in them shown dismembered. He doesn't even need 5 minutes to go through the information outlining the purge of Ergastulum.
• Pintsized Powerhouse: Nicolas is the most powerful member of the main cast. He is also one of the shortest men in it.
• Police Are Useless: The police in Ergastulum are highly corrupt and powerless to act against the major crime families that run the city. Not to mention the police are all normal people, meaning they'd stand no chance against high powered Twilights, anyways.

• Psycho Serum:
  • What goes into making a Twilight it seems, making them more or less super-powered ill girls and boys.
  • Barry used this to control his prostitutes, notably Alex.
• Rape as Drama:
  • It was common back in the day to rape female Twilights in order to obtain more Twilights.
  • Alex dreams a memory in which she's raped by a Twilight, and it's pretty clear Barry sexually abused her as well.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: So far... Chad the police officer, Daniel of the Monroe family, Big Mama Georgiana the madame, and Loretta of the Cristianos.

• Red Shirt Army:
  • Generally all of the normal mooks when they face off against Twilights.
  • Later, the Twilight mercenaries from the Paulkee Guild, including Doug, are slaughtered by just two Hunters.
• Religious and Mythological Theme Naming: The Twilights of the Paulklee Guild include Galahad, Gawain, Bors, Tristan, Lancelot, and Arthur.

• She Is Not My Girlfriend: Inverted. When Alex goes out on a errand with Nic, an old lady asks why she (a former hooker) is still hanging around with Benriya. Nic says because "She's my woman." He's lying for the sake of simplicity though.
• Shoot the Shaggy Dog: In chapter 20, a Twilight is forced to attack the heroes to save his family. He ultimately fails and dies in his mission but as it turns out, his family was killed before he even made it to his destination.
• Shown Their Work: Nicolas' voice actor in both Japanese and English emulates the slightly slurred speech of real-life deaf people fairly well in both languages. This is because due to a lack of hearing, deaf individuals have a tough time gauging things like their volume or speech patterns. A demonstration of this in the English dub can be seen here.

• The Silent Bob: Nicolas, who usually communicates using sign language and hand gestures. He can talk but being deaf, he'd rather not.

• Slasher Smile: Mikhail's is especially frightening because he is a 10 year old child.

• STD Immunity: Both Alex and Worick are prostitute and gigolo respectively, but they're shown to be quite healthy and in peak condition. No sign of AIDS, syphilis or anything nasty, common in the work.
• Super-Speed: All Twilights to some degree, along with Super-Strength. Ginger seems to be known for her speed.
• Superhuman Trafficking: The Twilights, all of whom have Super-Strength, Super-Speed, etc., constantly face Fantastic Racism and were legal to enslave until just a few years before the main story starts. The only reason normals got away with this sort of treatment is because Twilights are a very small minority of the population and all of them are hopelessly addicted to the pricey drug Célèbre, which many slave masters used to control them. For example, one of the main reasons Nicolas never ran away from his highly abusive owners as a child was because they provided him with just enough Célèbre to keep him barely lucid.
• Tattooed Crook: Worick and Nicolas have tribal tattoos across their upper back.
• Team Dad: Chad. We even see him patching Nicolas up in a flashback, just like you'd expect a father to.

• Thou Shalt Not Kill Muggles: The cornerstone of the "Three Principles" that all Twilights in the city live with.
• Three Laws-Compliant: Non-robotic version, the "Three Principles" for Twilights that Danny Monroe set up.
  1. Twilights must not intentionally kill humans.
  2. Twilights must obey an order given to them by a human, so long as it doesn't conflict with Article 1.
  3. A Twilight has the right to defend its own existence, so long as it doesn't conflict with Articles 1 and 2.
• Together in Death: Marco and his love die next to one another.

• Underestimating Badassery:
  • When the B-level Twilight threatens Nicolas. Nicolas is, for the record, an A-level Twilight. Guess what happens.
  • Doug underestimates Delico, who is a D-level Twilight because Doug himself is an A-level. This is played with because while Doug is mostly right, Delico manages to disrupt Doug's attempts on Monroe's life long enough for Nicolas to show up.
• Where the Hell Is Springfield?:
  • In the beginning it seems as though all the action is happening in a Mediterranean country, with Italian (especially) and Greek naming conventions prominent; however, there are odd names out, such as Cody, and in chapter 8 a man is seen passing what look like American hundred dollar bills, with the vague profile of Ben Franklin on them. Then it's finally revealed that Ergastulum is its own city-state on/by an unnamed continent, with its own history. Not long after that, it's heavily implied to be either part of an alternate history or possibly even part of a completely different world from Earth (this is not entirely clear from the get-go, considering the otherwise realistic backdrop).
  • It seems likely to be an alternate history (or perhaps future?), since there's mention of Alex possibly being part Chinese as well as black, which would be an acknowledgement of China existing in the world.
  • In episodes three and four of the anime, Italy is mentioned in newspaper articles, reinforcing the alternate history theory.

• Would Hit a Girl: Nic suggested killing Alex in the first chapter. Worick talks him out of it. Implied to be what happened to the Twilight girl Veronica.
• Would Hurt a Child: A rather disturbing amount of people in the manga show a willingness to hurt children, innocent or otherwise. Often for no reason at all other than the child in question being a Twilight usually.
• You Have Failed Me: The B-level Twilight is killed by his boss for failing to kidnap Dr. Theo.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: All of the Twilights as well as the Destroyers barring Erika since they've managed to find a means of mass producing similar hunters as disposable units near instantly. That means they have no need for either Twilights or Ergastulum, and have put together an extermination unit to purge them as a show of force.

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