Shonen Jump 040322 Columns 

This Week in Shonen Jump: Week of 4/3/22

By | April 6th, 2022
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, Brian checks in with “Sho-Ha Shoten!.” If you have thoughts on this or any other current Shonen Jump titles, please let us know in the comments!

Sho-Ha Shoten! Chapter 7
Written by Akinari Asakura
Illustrated by Takeshi Obata
Lettered by James Gaubatz
Translated by Stephen Paul
Reviewed by Brian Salvatore

On one hand, it is nice to have an installment of “Sho-Ha Shoten!” that isn’t directly related to a bit is a relief, as the comedy doesn’t always translate. Blame that on the cultural differences, the language barrier, or the difficulty in writing good comedy about comedy, but those bits often come off as anything but uproariously funny.

With that said, however, the last thing this story needed is another full chapter set up for a competition that we don’t see. While we get a look at the other acts in the competition, there is only really one part of this story that seems like a relevant bit of new information. That piece, about Taiyo’s former partner, is very strange, and puts the story in a very different tonal place for a few pages. Takeshi Obata’s artwork gets much darker and brooding for those pages, as is appropriate for the tone, but it feels like another manga took over for a few pages, and then disappears just as quickly.

This chapter is supposed to position One Way Ticket to the Top as the underdogs, which it does, but it also sets up various escape hatches for if the team doesn’t succeed. It’s not bad storytelling, it’s simply not as good as it could be. I know that mangas tend to run for dozens, if not hundreds, of chapters, but the monthly release schedule makes me think that this won’t be quite as voluminous, and so it seems like the pace should be a little swifter than it is. The story has conflict, it has compelling characters, and it has a fun hook, but the pattern of decompression is a little concerning.

I do like how Akinari Asakura is slowly building out Taiyo’s character over time, and giving the reader a greater sense of who he is, especially as so much of the early story was about Azemichi and his family. That stuff has been nicely doled out over time, and allowed Taiyo to become not just a foil to Azemichi, but also a mysterious presence. I would much rather Asakura focus on that, rather than this dragged out tournament structure.

Of course, there’s a caveat there: if the tournament can be presented in more interesting/varied ways, it could be a fun and interesting way to tell the story. But with the long (for a manga) gap between chapters, it can be hard to feel any sense of momentum within that structure. All of the pieces are here, and the story has legitimately lovely parts. Hopefully, future chapters can cut out some of the fluff and produce something either a little more streamlined, or something that could embrace the more overstuffed structure in a way that didn’t feel decompressed, but instead feels bursting at the scenes.

Final Verdict: 5.8 – Let’s just get the show on the road, folks.


//TAGS | This Week in Shonen Jump

Brian Salvatore

Brian Salvatore is an editor, podcaster, reviewer, writer at large, and general task master at Multiversity. When not writing, he can be found playing music, hanging out with his kids, or playing music with his kids. He also has a dog named Lola, a rowboat, and once met Jimmy Carter. Feel free to email him about good beer, the New York Mets, or the best way to make Chicken Parmagiana (add a thin slice of prosciutto under the cheese).

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