Here I am again with my weekly ritual, and yet I feel like this is almost like a reset of sorts given the shake-ups to this week's top five. For starters, while I enjoyed their chapters, series like Blue Box, Undead Unluck, and even My Hero Academia just couldn’t make into the spotlight. Each one had some strong moments, but they also primarily acted as solid setups for what should be bigger chapters next week.
The same could be said for a lot of the lower ranking series this week, as this felt like the kind of week where stories are building up to larger plot points. The only real exceptions are the series that are in the bottom five, all newer stories, but they also suffer from problems that make their narratives weaker in comparison. For example, the story in Earthchild has its pacing going through such a slower pace that it comes off as more of a crawl.
This might be good for the super baby Mamoru, but I feel like Shinkai, or even possibly his editor, are struggling with the story's direction. I know that the series has barely reached the length of a volume in terms of chapter count, but without a clear story for Reisuke and Mamoru’s father-son dynamic to develop we could be dealing with another series that could face cancellation before figuring out what story it's trying to tell.
Oddly enough I have the opposite complaints when it comes to Akane-banashi this week. I’m starting to really enjoy Akane’s journey in understanding what goes into being a good storyteller, albeit with some shonen training cliches sprinkled in. Each new chapter feels familiar in its tropes and characters, but it is maintaining a strong pacing with a likable protagonist that is slowly overtaking other stories in the magazine for me. Once we get into the rakugo performances proper, I think the duo of Suenaga and Moue will kick this series into another gear.
With all of that out of the way though, this week's top five is definitely a surprise for me, or rather with two of the series that start our list…
5. The Elusive Samurai Sneaks Its Way to the Top Five
(The Elusive Samurai Ch. 56)
We start this week off with Yusei Matsui’s historical re-imagining, finally making its way on this stage with one of its biggest developments yet. Having been dealing with an enjoyable, but ultimately unexciting trip to the capital of Kyo, The Elusive Warriors are finally presented with a massive opportunity to take down Ashikaga Takauji. The beginning of the chapter continues from the revelation of Ashikaga’s visit to the recently revealed Kusunoki Masahige’s manor, and where both sides of the team question the safety of our fleeing fetishist Tokiyuki and the chance he has to finally avenge his clan for Takauji’s betrayal.
This actually highlights one of the best aspects of Tokiyuki, that being his pragmatic sense for preserving his comrades and himself conflicting with the traditions of the time period. Even having learned under the master escapist general Masahige, the deposed young noble still has to fight to restore his honor, albeit in his own way. Even if it could compromise the mission, Tokiyuki chooses to divide the team, with the girls leading his uncle to safety and the boys given the task to assassinate the traitor.
Like I mentioned, a lot of chapters this week felt like they were mostly used as build-up for greater conflicts, but I feel that Matsui’s latest was one of the strongest. Not only is Tokiyuki’s conflicting sense of honor and safety put on display, but seeing each team member of the team present each side feels true to their personalities. Then you have the setup for each of the key players in this conflict, including both in the assasination attempt and the attempted rebellion, and you have a lot of working parts that are being presented.
Knowing the sadistic and demonic presence that Takauji has developed in his rise to power, I’m already anxious to see how he’ll respond to this attempt on his life. Not to mention the fact that our heroes are in the heart of enemy territory and having to escape while the city could end up a warzone just keeps building the kind of hype that would send Tokiyuki into a tizzy.
Some of the strongest moments in this series comes from Matsui’s ability to manage multiple battlefronts efficiently and in an exciting way. While other large scale conflicts in manga seem to lose characters in the shuffle, it's in chapters like these that help make the more realistic and grounded conflicts in The Elusive Samurai a lot of fun to read.
4. Witch Watch Fills the Spiral Shaped Hole In My Heart
(Witch Watch Ch. 55)
To say that even I was shocked with how this manga made the list is a bit of understatement, but I have to be honest with myself, and the latest installments of Witch Watch was absolutely hilarious. We find our familiar quartet seemingly locked in a death game straight out of the Saw movie franchise, complete with its own knock-off Jigsaw kidnapping Nico. After a drawn out explanation of the overly complicated game Ouroborus, we find ourselves already at the end of this life and death struggle ten pages in.
What follows is a complete breakdown of the game and a full-blown redesign session to rebuild this mess from the ground-up, as if the crew were trying to create a regular table top game. All the while our psycho killer looks on as the painstaking work he seemingly put into the game is washed away for a more streamlined, and admittedly fun sounding board game concept.
Seeing Jig-Jag slowly lose confidence and sway in how the game is designed just put a smile on my face. I personally love death games in any shape or form because of how they take simple game concepts and ramp up the stakes, but Shinohara’s deconstruction of the genre and the game made for some of the best comedy from this series in a while.
The best part of this chapter is that it highlights the best aspect of the series, that being the character’s playing off each other. While it is true that the first half the chapter is literally Jig-Jag setting up the game, the crew immediately take control and not only bounce off ideas, but also throw hilarious jabs at the kabuki-masked kidnapper. When the characters play off of each other like this, without unnecessary side stories taking focus and present a more thought out premise, it makes for some strong comedic stories that are currently lacking for me in Jump.
I will not spoil the ending here, but it not only made for a funny twist, it actually makes subsequent re-reads of the chapter even better. With the past two weeks being such strong material from Shinohara, I can only hope he keeps this output going for some more magical hijinks.
3. Mission: Yozakura Family Gives Us Even More Kyoichiro to Love
(Mission: Yozakura Family ch. 123)
I can say that we're back to the usual suspects with our top three, starting off with one of Jump’s newfound staples. We find Taiyo learning firsthand about the kind of person Kyoichiro really is outside of the Yozakura Family with his meeting with Spy Association President Kai Izumo. Through a simple visit sharing rice crackers and tea, we learn of the deep friendship that Kai and Kyoichiro have developed since their days in middle school. We learn of Kai’s tragic past, eerily similar to Taiyo’s, and how Kyoichiro saved him but the way Kai had given him his first real ally outside of his siblings.
This is actually the first real story of Kyoichiro doing anything outside of the family, and to see that he develops such a deep trust with Kai makes for some strong development for the formerly hated sis-con. Gondaira is taking some pretty significant steps to round out Kyoichiro as a character here, as he has always had this sense of mystery surrounding him. That was obviously because he is the strongest spy within the family, and arguably the world, but it also left his character feeling a little flat. Also, while I do harp on it, his obsession with Mutsumi was so bad in the beginning that I honestly couldn’t stand his character.
Somehow though, Gondaira has made him more likable with each passing chapter, and knowing that he is developing in such major ways while seemingly betraying his family makes for great dramatic tension. The best part is seeing Kyoichiro extend his hand out to Kai, with his battle scars revealed, as he welcomes his troubled friend into a world where he can finally learn to control his heightened senses.
Then we get to the core of the chapter, as Kai tells Taiyo that his blooming abilities will be the key to saving his brother-in-law. Knowing that these characters are already sharing parallels, this could be Gondaira’s way of setting up the moment fans have been waiting for. We could finally see Taiyo and Kyoichiro finally going all out against each other, and we could finally see Kyoichiro’s true feelings about Taiyo and his relationship with Mutusumi come to the forefront. With the rest of the Yozakura siblings surrounding Kyoichiro though, we might get a more immediate family fight first, and I personally can’t wait.
2. Sakamoto Days Bings some Big Action and Even Bigger Revelations
(Sakamoto Days Ch. 64)
Once again we find ourselves in the world of assassins as Sakamoto takes the silver this week. Immediately following up on last week's launch of the final JCC assassins exam, we find Shin’s team starting their clash with Sakamoto super-fan Toramaru, with some solid action coming from the ax-gun wielding schoolgirl.
It's brief, but seeing the sheer devastation she can cause as Shin and Seba barely dodge in a massive panel makes for a great starting point for the battle to come. This is even more so when Seba calls out her obsession as weird, causing Toramaru to become cold-blooded and ready for a killer clash.
The bigger fight, however, comes with Sakamoto’s red team clashing with the yellow team and the close call they have after a missile nearly blew them up. While she escapes, Akira's fear takes over her desire to protect her new friends, while Sakamoto tries to tell her things will be fine. It’s in this fight that we see Akira’s true potential, with her weakness being called out and her friends' lives at stake, as she instinctively takes out the yellow team leader in an instant and leaves him on his deathbed. Seeing this timid young girl starting to show her skills and continuing to escalate in terms of speed and precision has led to a crap ton of foreshadowing paying off here.
While I thought she might be a part of Uzuki’s group, which she still might be, we finally get our introduction to another top assassin in Sakamoto’s original class known as Akao. Knowing that she was on the same level as both Sakamoto and the equally powerful Nagumo is incredible, and knowing that her daughter Akira will likely play a greater role in the story going forward could lead to even more excellent moments.
Without looking too far ahead though, Yuto Suzuki is still delivering hit after hit with these latest chapters in Sakamoto Days. Even with the brief action presented here, we still have some incredible bits of brutality that keep the hype going. Not to mention the fact that Suzuki is developing his characters even further by tying that development with the action, it makes the whole experience of reading this spectacular series a smooth but exciting roller coaster ride. I can’t wait to see what they cook up next, especially as we learn about the third pillar of Sakamoto’s old trio.
1. Jujutsu Kaisen Continues to Surprise and Bring Insane Levels of Hype (Jujutsu Kaisen Ch. 179)
So it turns out my prediction from last week came true, as Gege Akutani’s series takes the top spot, but not in a way that I expected at all. I was ready to see this insane spectacle of domain expansion super attacks and abilities, and instead what started out as a triple threat turned into a freaking fatal four-way as the cursed cockroach Kurourushi suddenly rejoined the battle, This was what i would argue to be a technicality, as they go from player to full blown cursed spirit, but I couldn’t care less because the action was so spectacular.
Seeing the creepy combatant rush his way into the pitch black barrier that was surrounding Yuta, Uro, and Ishigori, and causing them to shatter leads to one of the coolest double page spreads I’ve seen Akutani draw. The four fighters are all sizing each other up as they descend to the ground, each one striking a different pose getting ready to finally start the contest again.
This fight keeps delivering the style points, as each fighter is still recovering from the domain expansion, with the only exception being Ishigori and his pompadour cannon. We even see Yuta and Kurourushi briefly team up against Uro, despite the fact that Yuta had seemingly destroyed the cursed spirit only a few chapters ago. It just further adds to the incredible chaos that has made this stretch of the arc some of the best of the material that’s been presented so far.
While Itadori and Megumi’s fights had their share of great action and narrative significance, I feel like Akutani just took a deep breath and looked at Yuta’s section as a way to really show his skills. This entire fight has been absolute madness from top to bottom, but it's never been hard to follow and each fighter has been able to show off their skills in major ways. Yuta has especially shined, with both his cursed energy control and his curse copying ability being paired with Rika on top of that. This series has been my dose of dopamine for the last two weeks, and I know that it will only continue to do so as the weeks go forward.
With that we wrap another late JUMP-IN. Sorry for the delay on this one, as things in my life have been absolutely crazy, but please know that I will always try to bring the best content forward. If I’m being honest, I thought about not putting out this week's edition because of how hectic my schedule has been, but I knew that I couldn’t just give up like that. This series has been majorly cathartic for me, as even when I get too busy with other work to read full volumes, I can still make time to read each new chapter because of how excited each series makes me. This weekly review post has only added to that excitement, and for those of you who have read it so far I can only thank you and hope for your continued support.
I will leave you guys with the rankings for now, but know that I will be back again next week for even more of Weekly Shonen Jump’s best and brightest!
| 6. Undead Unluck (Ch. 104) | 11 Akane-banashi (Ch. 7) |
2. Sakamoto Days (Ch. 64) | 7. Blue Box (Ch. 46) | 12. Earthchild (Ch. 6) |
3. Mission: Yozakura Family (Ch. 123) | 8. PPPPPP (Ch. 26) | 13. Doron Dororon (Ch. 16) |
4. Witch Watch (Ch. 55) | 9. My Hero Academia (Ch. 349) | 14. Protect Me, Shugomaru! (Ch. 17) |
5. The Elusive Samurai (Ch. 56) | 10. Ayashimon (Ch. 17) | Unranked: MASHLE (No Chapter) |
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