Manga Review: Shonen Jump Weekly 2024 by various creators
It’s the twelfth anniversary of my blog, so time once again to look at Japan’s best-selling manga magazine, or at least the online version of it. 2024 has been another turbulent year for Jump, with both My Hero Academia and Jujutsu Kaisen ending. (I did a retrospective on the former.) But One Piece is still chugging along, now in the land of the giants and possibly in its last decade. Blue Box and Undead Unluck got anime. And Hunter X Hunter came back for several chapters!
Let’s take a look at some of the new series since last year!
“Syd Craft: Love Is a Mystery” is the very latest series, only four chapters in at this writing. Syd is a “Great Detective” who runs into baffling cases wherever he goes and no matter what he’s trying to do at the time. And he does have keen deductive skills. But what Syd really wants to do is experience romance, like in his favorite novels about true love. Too bad every woman he’s attracted to turns out to be a criminal!
This gives him a huge blind spot when it comes to women who are actually interested in him romantically. Like police inspector Souffle Flamberry, who he made a childhood promise with, so she can’t reveal her true feelings until she’s as good a police detective as Syd is a private detective. And his plucky assistant Elio Evelyn, who is actually a girl in disguise so that she can help him without distracting him away from his cases.
There’s more of a focus on the comedy than the romance or mystery aspects; I’m hoping for some thornier cases that will allow the characters to show off their detective work.
“Ichi the Witch” story by Osamu Nishi, art by Shiro Usazaki, takes place in a world where only women can use magic…up to now. Egotistical witch Descarras runs into a Majik monster that can only be defeated by removing its heart, but it’s made its heart untouchable by women. (Descarras is pretty sure this is cheating.) As it happens, Ichi, an orphan boy who’s lived in the wilderness all his life and become an excellent hunter, happens along and takes the creature’s heart, gaining the magical power the Majik bestows.
Thus Ichi becomes the first male witch ever (barring surprise revelations) and Descarras finds herself and underconfident support witch Kumugi assigned with Ichi to hunt the most dangerous Majiks. This one has fun characters, interesting monsters and some worldbuilding potential–it’s my favorite of the new series.
“Hima-Ten!” by Genki Ono is a more conventional romance. Ienori is a impoverished boy who does cleaning gigs for pocket money. His latest client is Yoshino, a girl from his class who is a fashion model and runs her own company…but is hopeless at housework. He agrees to keep her secret, and they slowly become closer, but Yoshino isn’t the only girl who might be interested in Ienori. Not my speed, but I’ve heard romance fans like it.
“Shinobi Undercover” story by Ippon Takegushi, art by Santa Mitarashi, is about a young ninja who is assigned to be the classmate and secret bodyguard of a girl who’s being targeted by criminals. Nozuki is really good at ninja stuff but hopeless at social interaction due to his crippling insecurity. Aoi is a klutz but tired of being wrapped in cushioning and wants to have a “normal” school life. Nozuki was supposed to be in the background while more sociable shinobi became Aoi’s besties, but he stumbles into being the one she’s closest to. Nice action scenes combined with sweet high school slice of life.
“Ultimate Exorcist Kiyoshi” by Shoichi Usui is about an extremely powerful exorcist, just like the title says. But he’s also scared stiff of demons. So he must learn to face his fears and grow as a person. It’s okay.
‘Astro Royale” by Ken Wakui (Tokyo Revengers) starts with adopted brothers Hibaru and Terasu Yotsurugi attending their father’s funeral. Which is a more tense situation than normal, as their family is a Yazuka gang, the most powerful one in the area. The gang politics is thrown into chaos when a meteor hits the city, destroying much of the infrastructure, and imbuing some of the citizens with strange token-based powers called Astro. I bowed out of this one early, but apparently it got better as it went along.
“Hakutaku” by Kouki Ishikawa is about two boys who team up to make amateur video games. The big problem here is that it doesn’t really want to get into the nitty-gritty of game creation, so we have to take the story’s word for it that their products are nifty.
“Super Psychic Policeman Chojo” by Shun Numa is a cop comedy. Nao Ippongi is a rookie police officer who’s very good at judo. She’s been assigned to the dinky police box in West Chinjuku (like Shinjuku but less prosperous) to work with Meguru Chojo, the black sheep of the force. He’s got awesome psychic powers, but a terrible personality as he’d rather laze around and enjoy his hobbies. Ippongi tries to keep him focused, but she has her own quirks, and as more zany cast members arrive, the station becomes more lively, if not any more devoted to fighting crime.
This is a fun parody comic, with gags hitting fairly often.
Plus, of course, the North American website has a bunch of monthly series like Spy X Family and back volumes to read.
The magazine may have changed a lot since my first review, but it’s still got a lot of interesting material to check out!
As I mentioned above, this is the twelfth anniversary of the blog. I had some medical issues this year that made money tighter, and I’m not sure how long I’ll be able to keep this site free of outside advertisements. If you’d like to help out by sending supplies and goodies, please consider getting something off my Amazon wishlist!
I would also like it if folks can share my blog around to keep up the traffic so I know that it’s being read and enjoyed! (This is way less expensive.)
