Welcome to Manga Casa, your home for deep dives into legendary manga. Today, we’re kicking off a very special series on what I believe is one of the greatest stories about music and life ever told: BECK: Mongolian Chop Squad.
This story is personal for me. I first discovered it almost twenty years ago, back when I was a kid playing guitar in a garage band with big dreams. BECK felt like it was our story. Now, we’re going to experience the entire journey from the very beginning.
The best way to enjoy this recap is by watching the video. Check out Part One right here, and then scroll down for a more detailed breakdown!
The best way to enjoy this recap is by watching the video. Check out Part One right here, and then scroll down for a more detailed breakdown!
A Life Stuck in Neutral
Our story begins with our hero, Yukio “Koyuki” Tanaka, and he is painfully, universally relatable. At fourteen years old, his life is a boring, gray haze of monotonous school days. He feels completely invisible, stuck in neutral while the world spins around him. As we see him zoning out in class, it’s a feeling many of us remember well—that period in your youth when you’re waiting for your real life to finally begin.
His days are so unremarkable that the most exciting event is his pervy friend trying to snap secret photos of their childhood friend, the now-unattainably popular Izumi Ishiguro, at the local swimming pool.
One Good Deed, Punished
Walking home through a rough neighborhood, Koyuki’s monotonous day takes a dark turn. He stumbles upon two scammers trying to bully an old woman into buying a fake watch. After they viciously insult her, something in Koyuki snaps. He mutters a quiet “Screw you!” under his breath.
Of course, they hear him.
In a moment that proves the old saying “no good deed goes unpunished,” the thugs grab Koyuki and give him a beating for playing the hero. Bruised and humiliated, he’s left on a park bench, reinforcing his belief that it’s better to stay in “safe mode” and never get involved.
The Strangest Dog in the World
Just as he’s resolved to a life of quiet inaction, he sees another injustice: a group of young kids are throwing rocks at a bizarre-looking dog. The animal looks like a patchwork creation, stitched together from different breeds, a canine Frankenstein’s monster.
Despite his fear, his fresh bruises, and his new resolution to stay out of trouble, Koyuki can’t just sit there and watch. He stands up, tells the kids to stop, and for a reason he doesn’t even understand, yells out the only English word he knows: “<BECK!>”
Just as the kids scatter, the dog’s owner appears. It’s a tall, intimidating guy with long hair and sunglasses, looking every bit the part of another thug. Koyuki freezes, sure that his terrible day is about to get a whole lot worse.
Creator’s Notes: The Two Sparks
This first part of the chapter perfectly captures the crushing boredom of teenage life and the desperate yearning for something to happen. Koyuki’s life is a pile of dry tinder, waiting for a spark. And in this first part, he gets two of them.
The first spark is his own courage—the impulsive decision to stand up for others, even when it costs him. The second, more important spark is the appearance of Ryusuke and his dog, Beck. It’s the moment the outside world, in all its strange, cool, and dangerous glory, crashes into Koyuki’s mundane life. It’s that classic feeling of meeting someone who seems to live by a different set of rules, a person who opens the door to a world you never knew existed.
What happens next? Does Koyuki get another beating, or is this the fateful encounter that changes his life forever?
The best way to find out is by watching the full video recap embedded above! I poured a lot of my own nostalgia into it, and I hope you enjoy it.
Make sure you’re subscribed to the Manga Casa YouTube channel so you don’t miss Part Two!
Leave a comment below and let me know your first impressions of Koyuki and the weirdest dog in manga, Beck!