Manga Review: Shonen Jump Weekly 2022

Manga Review: Shonen Jump Weekly 2022

Can you believe I’ve been doing Shounen Jump Weekly reviews for ten years now? So much has changed during that timeframe, Famous longrunners have ended, new favorites have come and gone, instead of a simulated magazine the website is more like a box of manga you can dip into and skip the series you’re not interested in… And the official site now has a lot of series that don’t appear in the printed version of Shounen Jump at all!

One of the saddest moments of 2022 was the brief life of “RuriDragon”, a laid-back urban fantasy about a teenage girl who discovers she’s half-dragon. Six very well received chapters, and then the creator’s health went down the tubes, so we may never get more.

“Ayakashi Triangle”, the naughty series about a ninja trapped in a cursed body, proved too spicy for even the print version of the magazine, and now appears on a completely different website. Fortunately, “One Piece” continues to be a juggernaut, and other long runners like My Hero Academia and Black Clover keep some continuity in the flow. And hey, “Hunter X Hunter” is back for a few weeks! Enjoy it while you can! “Chainsaw Man” has a Part Two where we mostly follow a new character, but don’t worry, Denji is definitely there.

Let’s look at some of the new stuff since last year’s review.

“Show-ha Shoten!” by Akinari Asakura and Takeshi Obata (you may remember him from Death Note) is about two young men who decide to go into stand-up comedy as a team, like Abbott and Costello. It depends heavily on the tradition and nuances of manzai comedy, so a lot of their routine falls flat, but the showbiz struggles part is interesting.

“Tokyo Demon Bride Story” by Tadaichi Nakama has a young man with blood that attracts supernatural beings discover that he proposed marriage to a demoness when he was a child, and now she wants to fulfill that promise. It doesn’t help that other attractive monster girls also want his blood, or to fight the bride for their own reasons. It’s kind of turning into a harem series, but is low on the gratuitous fanservice.

“Ginka & Glüna” by Shinpei Watanabe has an orphan girl learn magic from an animated snowman. He wasn’t always just a snowman, so they are on a journey to find the other pieces of his original body. I like the artstyle and the character designs, but the magic system is a bit ill-defined.

“Akane-Banashi!” by Yuki Suenaga and Takamasa Moue is the tale of a girl whose father was a trainee rakugoka (traditional storyteller of a specialized kind) until a cruel master banished him from the field. Akane is determined to become a master of rakugo herself to achieve what her father could not. We follow her training and learn what it takes to succeed in this specialized field of entertainment. This series has both good art and writing, and feels more “natural” than Show-ha Shoten. It helps that the traditional tales within the story are also fascinating.

“Cipher Academy” story by Nidioisin and art by Yuji Iwasaki, is the tale of Iroha, the only boy in his class at a formerly all-girl codebreaking school. He becomes involved with a gadgeteer who is on the outs with the school’s top student, and becomes a target. The gadgeteer gives him special clue glasses, but even with these, can he solve the puzzles he needs to survive? Unfortunately, all the puzzles so far require a working knowledge of Japanese language, geography and history, so most American readers will feel left out.

“Ichigoki’s Under Control!!” by Seiji Hayashi is a silly story of Kai Ichigoki, a teenage boy who’s been turned into a cyborg. His mad science-loving childhood friend Misao managed to shrink herself to mouse size. When he tried to assist her in gathering ingredients for an antidote, Ichigoki suffered near-fatal injuries. To save his life, Misao replaced much of his body with cybernetics, and can pilot him like she’s in a giant mecha. Sadly, mad science doesn’t necessarily translate into piloting skills. This one’s on its second chapter as I write this, so who knows how it will do?

“The Ichinose Family’s Deadly Sins” by Taizan5 is an ontological mystery. A family of six, grandparents, parents and brother and sister (or are they?), are involved in a vehicle crash. All of them have developed amnesia (or have they?) about their previous lives and each other. Each of them has a separate locked room in their large apartment which reveals, at least to son Tsubasa, that he’s not quite the person he thought he was. So far we’ve been following him and discovering that he’s been horrifically bullied at school. (I’m guessing that Grandpa is a war criminal, but it’s early yet.) This is one of those series that could be genuinely suspenseful, or completely derail. We shall see.

“Fabricant 100” by Daisuke Enoshima is kind of a Frankenstein’s monster riff. One hundred artificial humans were created by a mad scientist. Then his life ended. Most of the Fabricants are “imperfect” and seek body parts to replace those that are imperfect, stealing them from humans with “superior” biology. Ashibi Yao, a fourteen-year-old who will stop aging at age 18, watched his entire family be murdered for their parts. To ensure that no others would suffer as he did, he’s made a bargain with #100, the stongest known Fabricant, to turn over his body to her in four years in exchange for eliminating all the other Fabricants. This series looks like it will have plenty of gory action scenes.

The Shonen Jump website allows the most recent chapters to be read free, and the monthly fee for full access remains quite reasonable. This is good value for money.

Let’s see which series make it to next year!