Shonen Jump 040223 Columns 

This Week in Shonen Jump: Week of 4/2/23

By | April 5th, 2023
Posted in Columns | % Comments

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 “Gokurakugai” If you have thoughts on this or any other current Shonen Jump titles, please let us know in the comments!

Gokurakugai Chapter 7
Written and Illustrated by Yuto Sano
Reviewed by Rowan Grover

“Gokurakugai” quickly established itself as the not-quite-demon slaying manga on the block, depicting some slacker hunters who go after supernatural forces with surprisingly deep backstories. This week’s chapter is the first attempt the manga has had at a multi-chapter story. It also breaks away from the monster-of-the-week framework it was using to build its world and characters, and I appreciate that we move away from that formula before it becomes stale. Here, we spend much more time on Alma’s reaction to developing a new friend in Kanata. The chapter kicks off with a setup that feels sitcom-esque, with Alma bursting through the door of his and Tao’s apartment announcing he’s made a new friend, much to the latter’s disinterest. It’s a great way to provide quick levity and strengthen the weird bond between these two before Tao quickly dashes that hope by showing Alma’s next Maga assignment: his new friend, Kanata herself. The tone shift is so sudden and brutal and completely recolors the way the following scene is perceived.

The scene in question is an innocuous family dinner between a whole bunch of the humanoid Maga we’ve seen in a few chapters leading up to this. Having these familiar faces that we’ve seen in quite desolate and gothic citations prior gives this scene a much more macabre tone, although structurally it’s quite similar to the opening in how it feels like a bickering family on a sitcom. I love that Sano spends a six-panel page of headshots of each family member giving us an instant rundown of what they’re all about, only relying on how they interact with each other. It’s masterful storytelling, especially with the panel of Yomi reacting with an “EEK….” to the rest of the family’s disquieting discussion.

The shots when we get onto the streets to see what Kanata is up to are some of the most visually interesting of the chapter. This begins right from the sharp tonal change in the initial scene, where the very next page features Kanata wandering through sidestreets whilst thought-balloons saying “KILL” repeat ad nauseam throughout the panels. Sano varies their sizes and positions them in a way that they always seem to be boxing Kanata into a corner, adding to the oppressive tone that the contents of each bubble give even more. Sano’s rendering of Kanata is also taught like a wire, with her facial expressions moving from intense sadness to paralyzing shock when her thought process is interrupted by a stranger, with her massive eyes bathed in shadow absorbing you into the frame.

Later on, as Alma roams the streets trying to find her, we get a few more clever art techniques. The panel structure of the first page of this scene starts off with a bird’s eye horizontal panel of Alma stomping down a sideway, almost with video game precision. It gives a sense of momentum and motion that carries through the page. The succeeding page uses this momentum to carry and float us through repeated panels of Kanata attempting to use a pay phone, to which her repeated failure adds a significant amount of tension. It’s slick visual storytelling, all capped off by a tension-release final page with two panels of Alma confronting a sobbing Kanata, to which we’re left questioning how the other will react for the next issue. The calmness of the moment is nice, but it does weirdly dissipate a lot of the carefully stacked tension made from mere moments ago.

Final Score: 8.8 – The first longer arc of “Gokurakugai” connects a lot of dots for readers whilst also providing some well-contrasted tender and shocking moments. Great storytelling overall!


//TAGS | This Week in Shonen Jump

Rowan Grover

Rowan is from Sydney, Australia! Rowan writes about comics and reads the heck out of them, too. Talk to them on Twitter at @rowan_grover. You might just spur an insightful rant on what they're currently reading, but most likely, you'll just be interrupting a heated and intimate eating session.

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