Currently Running Manga Discussion

[LumRanmaYasha]

KODANSHA HAS LISCENSED PRINCESS JELLYFISH AND ARE GOING TO RELEASE IT IN 2-in-1 EDITIONS STARTING THIS FEBRUARY!! YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!   

[LumRanmaYasha]

Hmm, Kurumada is making a semi-autobiographical manga. I like these kinds of manga, and Kurumada's got to have had an interesting life, so I'm looking forward to reading it. Hopefully it gets translated summarily.

[LumRanmaYasha]

Hmm, both Kenjirou Hata and Atsushi Ohkubo are making new manga. I've liked what I read of Hayate the Combat Butler and thought Soul Eater was a decent battle shonen overall, so I'm interested in checking out both of their new works. I'm also interested in the new swimming manga being added to Jump next week, Best Blue, since the editors seem pretty excited for it, which is a good sign.

[LumRanmaYasha]

After a month's absence, my Weekly Shonen Jump review series After the Jump is back, and just in time to cover the final chapter of the Naruto mini-series, as well as the first chapter of the Dragon Ball Jump Back!

[Spark Of Spirit]

Were those "Bail-Out" deaths in the World Trigger caption or real ones? Because, yikes.

I'm curious what you mean in your Naruto column. Isn't the whole purpose of the manga that despite Naruto having a horrible upbringing he still managed to be a good guy and not let it drag him down, but motivate him to become a better person? I never got the impression that Kishimoto put across the whole "Born bad; always bad" thing when even Sasuke went out of his way to make stupid choices when he was raised better than that (and knew he was doing wrong) and characters like Rock Lee and Shikamaru worked their way up the ranks.

[gunswordfist]

Spark's a Naruto apologist?

[LumRanmaYasha]

Were those "Bail-Out" deaths in the World Trigger caption or real ones? Because, yikes.

Those were bail-out deaths. 

I'm curious what you mean in your Naruto column. Isn't the whole purpose of the manga that despite Naruto having a horrible upbringing he still managed to be a good guy and not let it drag him down, but motivate him to become a better person? I never got the impression that Kishimoto put across the whole "Born bad; always bad" thing when even Sasuke went out of his way to make stupid choices when he was raised better than that (and knew he was doing wrong) and characters like Rock Lee and Shikamaru worked their way up the ranks.

My point was more about how the mini-series seemed to focus on how the way parents interacted with and raised their kids affected their behavior and relationship with them, and unhealthy or inattentive parenting can have negative repercussions on children's self-esteem and moral values, and create a disillusioned image of parents and warped view of adults in a child's mind, as shown in how Boruto, Sarada, Cho Cho, and the Shin clones all demonstrated some sort of discontent and disappointment with their parents in some fashion, and how their actions and beliefs reflected the manner in which they were raised and the insecurities and prejudices they've developed as a result. It's not the idea that someone is "born bad; hence always bad," but that children's personalities are heavily influenced by their parental authority figures/role models. In the original series, we saw this in how Naruto took after Iruka and Jiraya as role models, while Sasuke looked up to Itachi, Rock Lee looked up to Might Guy, Shikamaru to Asuma, etc. Remember that part of the reason why Naruto grew to be a good, well-adjusted guy is that he had a positive role model in Iruka to look out and set an example for him, whereas Gaara's role model, his uncle, betrayed and traumatized him as a child which caused him to be distrustful of people, emotionally distant, and mentally unstable. I felt that this mini-series was more specifically about this theme and managed to show a interesting range of positive and negative experiences, which was made more amusing to think about when considering how Naruto, Sasuke, & Sakura have matured as adults and how their different personalities and priorities led to different styles and efficacy in their parenting.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Ah, gotcha. Shame Kishimoto couldn't be that good for the entirety of the series.

[LumRanmaYasha]

Here are the rankings for the July 13th issue of Weekly Shonen Jump:

Best Blue (Cover, Lead CP, New Series, 54 p.)
1- My Hero Academia
2- One Piece
Food Wars: Shokugeki no Soma (Center Color)
3- Assassination Classroom
4- Black Clover
Straighten Up! Welcome to Shika High's Competitive Dance Club (Center Color)
5- Hinomaru Sumo
6- Gintama
7- Haikyu!!
8- Devily Man (First ranking)
9- The Mishaps of Kusuo Saiki
10- Toriko
11- Kagamigami
Sekai no kuro Sawa (One-Shot)
The Story of Isobe Isobee (Center Color)
12- Kochikame
13- Bleach
14- Lady Justice

[Spark Of Spirit]

Glad that Kagamigami is doing a little better.

[LumRanmaYasha]

Viz is releasing Gakkyu Hotei in print.



Wow! I didn't think they'd do this considering it's lack of popularity in Japan, but I'm glad there was enough demand from U.S. readers to get it in print over here after all! I, for one, will be glad to own this woefully underrated series in print! Man, with this and the upcoming releases of Franken Fran and Princess Jellyfish all slated to debut in the February of next year, among all the series I currently buy and plan to, I might have to invest in more shelves...again! 

[LumRanmaYasha]

Another week, another Shonen Jump issue review! In this week's issue, Free! the manga makes it's debut, Fujitora tells Akainu to fuck off, and Ida tries to clean up a bad Stain. All this and more, After the Jump!

[Spark Of Spirit]

Kill 'Em Dead is an awesome chapter title. I haven't started reading it yet, but the more I hear about MHA the more it looks like I should start.

[Foggle]

I love reading what you write about Bleach.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Great write-ups as usual.

On the subject of Dragon Ball, the super nerd in me feels like bringing up two points from your article:

One is in reference to the comment that DB's sexual humor never got as dirty as this or that upcoming Master Roshi scene ever again. While I don't necessarily disagree with that, there are two scenes that are arguably on the same or at least a similar level of raunchiness. One of those scenes is from a filler episode where Goku drops down his pants and reveals his bare genitalia to an unsuspecting villain (Toonami had to censor it by drawing a pair of boxer shorts on Goku for that scene). The other is from the manga where Krillin lifts up Bulma's shirt in front of Master Roshi in the Fortuneteller Baba arc (and yes, it's uncensored, at least in the original Japanese print).

The other thing I wanted to point out is that the age that Goku reveals in this chapter is later ret-conned by Toriyama during the Budokai Tenkaiichi, which is explained by having Goku reveal that he didn't know how to count back when he first told Bulma about his age.

And that concludes my meaningless Dragon Ball trivia for the day.