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, Rowan checks in with “PPPPPP.” If you have thoughts on this or any other current Shonen Jump titles, please let us know in the comments!
PPPPPP Chapter 24
Written and Illustrated Mapollo 3
Reviewed by Rowan Grover
This chapter isn’t the most active of “PPPPPP”, taking place in the aftermath of Mimin’s performance. It does break down what happened and how her actions and Otogami’s actions will ripple through the music politics surrounding them. It’s Mapollo 3using mass crowd reaction to weave in a touch of worldbuilding also. Through one of the judge’s reactions, we see just how much influence Otogami has on the industry at large. Similarly, we can see Otogami’s sway on people’s emotions as they almost react to his persuasiveness like they had blacked out for a second. It adds to Otogami’s mystery and intrigue, especially as we see them contorted in the mass media later, with them claiming that Otogami is an abuser. For someone who isn’t in this issue until the latter half, they sure leave their footprint here.
Outside of this storytelling choice, there isn’t a whole lot else going on to really dig into. Mapollo shows Sonodo in the aftermath of the Otogami news as shying off and accepting his fate in the final with calm resolution. It’s not so much a character beat as much as it is just reading the scenario and feels like a missed opportunity to develop Sonoda a little more. Once we get to the Mimin and Otogami scene, it’s interesting but doesn’t work as well at making the latter feel like an intimidating force as much as the start of the chapter does. The conversation that occurs again feels more like a recount of events than anything too progressive. Otogami does get a creepy moment where they coldly react to Mimin’s abuse claim, but the art does more to sell that moment than anything else.
Speaking off, the art in this issue ranges from serviceable to surreal and vivid. Mapollo 3 does some strong expression work right from page one, with the performance judges all looking a little rusty and shocked with their actions in unique ways. The woman looks like she has just woken up to a hangover, whilst the man is heavy-headed with shame, and it works to establish that something quite wrong has occurred. Mapollo 3 does some pretty character consistent work with Sonoda too, in the small scene he gets. In accordance with Sonoda’s awkward personality, he bumbles and trips his way around the press, and it’s hard not to feel sorry for him.
The real artistic high point of this chapter, however, is the way that Mapollo 3 renders the eerily graceful Mimin interacting with the world around her. In the conversation she has with Otogami, she has a cartoonish, childlike quality, with her hair streaming around with the same quality as tears, as she cries out the situation. Her facial expression also contrasts well with Otogami, with Mimin bearing a bare-bones scribble of a sad face, with her intimidating father bearing down on the readers with a fish-eye camera angle and frighteningly detailed features. The way that Mimin walks around the world on the last set of pages, however, she has a magical, ethereal quality to her. Mapollo 3 draws her hair in a bubbling, seething tangle that drips all the way down to her ankles, whilst her face has a stark, almost trace-like quality. It’s a haunting image and it does a good job at selling how complex this character is.
Final Score: 7.0 – A relatively uneventful post-performance issue that is mostly held up by its art quality.
