Gokurakugai (written in Japanese as "極楽街", roughly translated as "Paradise District") is a 2022 action manga with story and art by Yuuto Sano. The manga started off as a one shot, The Gokuraku District's Third Avenue Incident, published in 2020.
In Gokuraku, a red-lights district in a world where magical and supernatural creatures live among humans in a modern city; Tao, a cold-hearted and serious woman, and Alma, her upbeat and jovial assistant, are a pair of troubleshooters who offer their services to solve any problem the people of this setting might have. In truth, they work for a secret group called "Snake Pit", which combats the threat of demonic creatures named Calamities/Magas.
Tropes
- Adaptation Dye-Job: In the original one shot, Tao had red hair and Alma had blue hair. In the proper serialization, Tao has platinum hair and Alma has red hair. That being said, it's implied in both cases that Tao's hair is dyed from black, Alma's hair, however, seems to really have changed colors between the two versions.
- Adaptational Nice Guy: Both the manga and the one shot open with Alma and Tao getting payment from a client for whom they retrieved images of him cheating on his wife with a beastwoman. They're much ruder about it on the one shot though, and their anger at him is much more justified as in the manga, he tried to scam them out of money he was supposed to pay, while in the first one he tried to negotiate it, even if in both cases he was telling lies.
- Asshole Victim: It's implied that the men that Kanata has killed all tried to harm or assault her in some way.
- Big Friendly Dog: Yoki is the largest member of the Snake Pit, a dog beastman, who is big, friendly, and prone to hugging his underlings.
- Gender-Blender Name: Downplayed, due to the mixed setting, but Alma is a boy who has a typically female name.
- Guys Smash, Girls Shoot: Alma is a close range combatant who can summon a sword from his chest, where as Tao stays long range, firing off bullets made from Alma's blood.
- Hidden Heart of Gold: Tao is indicated to be a much nicer person than her money obsessed, Ice Queen persona shows. In the one-shot, she takes on the case of a young girl who has no means to pay her as she reminds her of her own abusive past, and in the proper serialization, she doesn't charge people when she acts on doing the right thing, or accepts a very small payment only; in chapter 2, for example, she takes cigarettes as payment for listening to the troubles of a grieving young man, saying that the troubleshooters are also open to listening.
- Horror Hunger: Kanata is indicated in chapter 7 to be a cannibal being with the need to feed on humans, something she doesn't want to do, but that she breaks down after a period and after being attacked by humans.
- Living Lie Detector: Alma can literally sniff out lies people are telling.
- Knowledge Broker: Tatsuomi, a womanizing ally of the Snake Pit that sells information to Tao and Karma.
- Magical Realism: Mixed with Urban Fantasy. The story is set on a modern city that seems to take inspiration from both China and Japan. The setting is a world where a lot of otherwise magical creatures live alongside humans, like the beastmen Yoki and Yuki, as well as mermaids in the one shot, in a very matter of fact way. However, the existence of demons called Magas is hidden from the general public and dealt with by the Snake Pit.
- Names to Run Away from Really Fast: The two boys introduced at the end of Volume 1 and that are behind a series of killings are called Yomu and Yoru, whose names mean "Underworld" and "Night".
