Welcome to This Week in Shonen Jump, in which a rotating duo of Multiversity staffers take a look at two stories contained in each installment of Viz Media’s Weekly Shonen Jump. For the uninitiated, Weekly Shonen Jump is an anthology that delivers more than 200 pages of manga of all varieties. We hope that you’ll join us in exploring the world of Weekly Shonen Jump each week. If you are unfamiliar, you can read sample chapters and subscribe at Viz.com.
This week, Rowan and Matt review “One Punch Man” and “Robot X Laserbeam.” If you have any thoughts on these titles, or “Food Wars,” “We Never Learn,” “Black Clover,” “The Promised Neverland,” “My Hero Academia,” “Dr. Stone,” “One Piece,” or “Hunter X Hunter,” let us know in the comments!
Also, in case you missed it, last week Darcy sat down with English Weekly Shonen Jump Editor in Chief Andy Nakatani about the magazine – check it out!
One Punch Man Chapter 80
Written by ONE
Illustrated by Yusuke Murata
Reviewed by Rowan Grover
As much fun as following the antics of the great Saitama is, “One Punch Man” also excels when it delves into the minds and psyche of its supporting cast. This chapter primarily focuses on the Hero Hunter Garo, who is using a child hostage to fight the heroes pursing him. And what a monster of a chapter this is! Clocking in at just under sixty pages, ONE gets a chance to fully display Garo’s sheer power against unfair odds. What makes this even more enjoyable is that this guy is the villain. It might seem obvious, but it’s so much fun knowing that you’re rooting for the guy who’s despised by the general public for despicable acts. It makes it even more satisfying knowing that he’s also trying to protect his unseen hostage from the fray of the heroes’ attacks, that although he started the fight for selfish reasons, in the end it wasn’t above him to protect an innocent. ONE combines these into one complex character type, and even gives us a small amount of backstory showing Garo’s sympathy for other villains, and pushing him even further forwards in the audience’s eyes.
What I find so unique about this sequence, however, is that this isn’t an invincible, overpowered single fighter. ONE has Garo keep up the tough veneer on the surface, but just look more carefully into his battle strategies. Even as Death Gattling states himself towards the end of the chapter, Garo was putting himself into situations that gave him a clear advantage – e.g. using one of the heroes as a human shield against an oncoming rain of arrows. It’s super fun to watch him wipe out the heroes with seemingly little effort, but every wound that he gets does slow him down. Gattling notes again (so helpful!) that the arrow wound he received to the leg slows his escape from the heroes considerably. Typically, in a lot of classical SJ manga, there is a showcase of nigh-invulnerable power for action’s sake, and we get that here in spades. It simply adds another level, however, when we see that the hero/villain we’re rooting for is still, underneath it all, human.
As you might be able to gauge from the page count, Yusuke Murata has a hell of a time executing Garo’s huge and satisfying hero fight. Make no mistake, Murata is great in quieter situations too, and has some of the best subtle facial work I’ve seen in manga. But what we get here matches and excels the highly kintetic and sequential styles of some of the greats working in the western superhero game. I love how seamlessly Murata blends each character’s signature move in with the rest of the action. Instead of the action and pacing halting right up until the apex moment, each super move – including Chain Toad’s ‘EARTH ROTATION OF DOOM’ – feels more like an accented exclamation during an already smooth fight sequence. What’s more, there’s on average about 3-5 panels per page, yet Murata is still able to retain fluidity without dissecting each character’s movement, due to how much momentum he gives the pacing. When Garo uses Wildhorn’s armour to protect himself, he moves from picking up Wildhorn, to blocking the arrow barrage, to grabbing a separate barrage of projectiles from the front with a spare hand, all in the space of about 4 panels. The sequence, as quick as it seems with me describing it to you, never feels jarring and continues this smooth momentum the rest of the chapter.
Continued belowMurata also seems to handle this chapter like a well-scripted action movie. There are parts where Murata chooses to slow the pacing right down, to get a slow-motion view of the action. These enable us to see those aforementioned subtleties in facial expressions mid-action. One of the best uses of this is early on, when Wildhorn breaks through an oncoming ball-and-chain only to find Garo propelling through it. We get a time-frozen moment where we see every aspect of Garo. Murata doesn’t depict his face of typical grinning villainy – rather, we get a spread of determination and fierceness, yet Murata has his eyes wide open as if he’s still hyper aware of his own vulnerability, with his blood and wounds still streaking his body. It’s a great freeze frame moment, and paris really well with the glimpse of back story that ONE gave us earlier in the chapter, serving to give us a look right into the soul of the beaten anti-hero that we’re rooting for.
It’s hard to fault “One Punch Man” when it delivers superbly emotional and action-packed chapters like this. ONE goes out of his way to show you that outside of being one of the funniest mangas around, this is also one of high stakes and heartbreaks. Coupled with Murata on art who rampages through the issue with fluid moment-to-moment action makes this one of the best single chapters in the series without the titular character even appearing. The hype is still real, guys.
Final Verdict: 9.6 – “One Punch Man” continues to show it’s worth the wait with an emotional, gut-pounding chapter that focuses on one of its best supporting characters.
Robot x Laserbeam Chapter 45
Written and Illustrated by Tadatoshi Fujimaki
Reviewed by Matt Lune
After the spectacular and over-the-top (in the best way) end to Robo Hatohara’s first pro tournament, these last few chapters have been the downtime the series needs before moving onto the next big golf match. This is an important chapter for sure, as it dedicates a lot of time to establishing who Robo’s latest challenger will be, but after the thrills of the last few weeks the comedown, however inevitable, is never going to match up.
Robo’s unbelievable – and extremely implausible – birdie that won him the tournament two chapters ago cemented his reputation as one of Japan’s best up-and-coming players, but it’s in this chapter we finally get to properly meet Ginro Kuze, the mysterious guy watching Robo’s game from the treetops, and for the first time we’re introduced to a character that’s not impressed by Robo’s skills.
Ginro is a strange character. He’s clearly being set up as the next great challenger for our protagonist, but unlike Dorian – who had a grace and humility about him, despite his powerful drives – Ginro is a cocky, arrogant guy whose personality is all over the place. It’s hard to get a grasp on whether he’s to be taken seriously or if he’s the comic relief: in the first half of the chapter he keeps berating himself for being so nice to Robo (with hilarious overreactions) but by the end of the chapter he’s making a near impossible golf shot that takes out a peeping tom, making him a formidable opponent.
Fujimaki’s artwork, similarly, makes it hard to place just how much of a threat Ginro should be. With exaggerated body language and facial expressions, he’s a classic comic relief character. The way that he gets frustrated by how he’s constantly being nice to Robo makes for plenty of comedic moments, and the way he appears – picking his nose at the table, looking bored and sneering at his peers, all go towards making him seem to be less than he actually is. Which is, no doubt, the point. He’s also a bit of a sleaze, perving on the girls at the spa and generally going out of his way to show us that he’s pretty unpleasant.
All of this is to say that we, much like the other characters, are taken completely by surprised when he proves his skills by using a broom to pitch a golf ball at the head of a peeping tom that was spying on the ladies changing room. The accuracy of his shot – that actually hits a suit of armor, knocking it straight onto the peeping tom – stuns the onlookers, and implies that he is extremely formidable if he’s able to make that shot.
Continued belowGinro is a completely different challenger to Robo, and one that we’ve not seen in the series so far. Robo’s “rivals” so far – Dorian in the last competition and overall Yozan Miura – have a deep respect for Robo and the game, making them as likeable (if not more likeable, thanks to his awkward social skills) as Robo himself. Here though, Ginro is setting himself up to be a character that the audience would absolutely like to see get beaten in a future match.
“Robot x Laserbeam” is a fantastic sports manga that is over-the-top in the best possible ways, with just the right amount of drama mixed in with grounded humor. It feels like this chapter doesn’t quite get that balance right, or maybe something is lost in the translation, but either way its dedication to revealing Ginro’s character makes it important to the immediate future of the series.
Final Verdict: 7.0 – A silly chapter between golf matches, but one that sets up an important character moving forward.
