Welcome to This Week in Shonen Jump, our weekly check in on Viz’s various Shonen Jump series. Viz has recently changed their release format, but our format will mostly remain the same. We will still review the newest chapters of one title a week, now with even more options at our disposal. The big change for our readers is that, even without a Shonen Jump subscription, you can read these most recent chapters for free at Viz.com or using their app.
This week, Brian checks in with “Super Psychic Policeman Chojo.” If you have thoughts on this or any other current Shonen Jump titles, please let us know in the comments!
Super Psychic Policeman Chojo #1 – The Psychic Senior Police Officer
Written and illustrated by Shun Numa
Translated by Dan Luffey
Lettered by Phil Christie
Reviewed by Brian Salvatore
One of the nice things about “Super Psychic Policeman Chojo” is that, from the start, it plays with the expectations of this type of manga. The artwork and the script, both by Shun Numa, dabble in cliché before realigning into a story that isn’t exactly groundbreaking, but doesn’t languish in expected territory, either. Officer Ippongi is drawn as a doe-eyed young girl who is a doting daughter and granddaughter, but also is a Judo champion. Chojo is a loner who plays by his own rules, but also is wracked with guilt and self-doubt. Taken together, the two officers make a classic odd couple pairing, but without some of the implied baggage of the first few pages.
Chojo is almost instantly told not to use his powers to be a pervert and, if you’ve read enough Shonen manga, you know that was at least an option for this story. But Numa steers clear of that topic, and gives Chojo different character ‘flaws’ which allow him to not be so disgusting, but still annoying. Ippongi is annoying in different ways, presenting herself as the perfect child and perfect police officer. The chemistry between the two characters feels manufactured but, again, somewhat sidesteps the expected relationship to give something a little more nuanced.
This may sound like damning with feint praise, but the story legitimately offered some interesting turns because of the way Numa put it together. Numa’s art also had some surprising elements. There is a very simple, cartoony style to much of the work, with Ben Day dots and lots of starred and motion lined backgrounds giving this a classic, kid-friendly manga look. However, every few pages, Numa will do some hyper-detailed work that brings the reality of the situations into stark view, whether thats’a a photorealistic crane being lifted over the heads of the Yakuza or the chief’s furrowed brow and sweat-dripping face.
Taken together, all of this amounts to a story that manages to make you care about its characters without making it too terribly cloying, though there are some moments that come off as less sweet and more over the top. But the essence of the story keeps pushing through, which is two imperfect people paired together, attempting to do good through their own lenses, which often times put them at odds with one another. It’s a little copaganda, a little naive, but in the context of what this story could’ve been, it works.
Final Verdict: 6.3 – An unexpected, but still predictable, first chapter for a new series.
