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, Walter checks in with “i tell c.” If you have thoughts on this or any other current Shonen Jump titles, please let us know in the comments!
i tell c Chapter 11
Written and Illustrated by Kazusa Inaoka
Reviewed by Walt Richardson
Narratively, “i tell c” has been a bit of a mess. In the span of eleven chapters there have been so many starts, stops, and twists that it’s been hard to get a good feel for where the series is going. With the conclusion of this chapter we are literally assured by one of the characters that we’ve reached the end of the prologue, and that the true “first chapter” begins now. But there’s a major problem with this assertion: it feels like we already had a prologue. About two-thirds of the way through chapter 9 we were given a “Case File #1” heading and a slight time jump, giving the impression that, a-ha!, all that stuff beforehand wasn’t the real story, just a prelude. Now we’re getting the same deal, this time with a longer timeskip, and a new promise that the story is starting for real for real this time. It’s an exhausting way to start a series, and, more cynically, when I read “let the first chapter commence” in the eleventh chapter, I can’t help but feel this “first chapter” might end up being the last.
It’s a shame, because I think there’s potential here. After the initial, more surface-level introduction to Risa in the first couple of chapters, the next part of the “prologue” had some fairly interesting characterization with her and how she interacted with the hotel owner’s son. There’s some fertile ground you can dig into with the angle of the “detective who falls in love with the murderers she’s trying to catch,” and for a few chapters it seemed like Kazusa Inaoka was interested in doing just that. But for these past couple of chapters we’ve essentially reverted back to the “wow, isn’t she quirky!” characterization of the first couple of chapters, and with the five-year timeskip I’m sure we’ll be getting more of the same to establish where things stand in the current time, before moving on to the meat of the story. Looking at the unofficial rankings of the series via the placement in the table of contents, though, I don’t think Inaoka has the time to be wasting on more of the same.
One unqualified positive, though, is the art. While not extremely unique in terms of stylization, Inaoka’s art is very refined and expressive, and the series’ layouts are almost always interesting in ways that aren’t necessarily flashy. Reading each chapter has been easy on the eyes, a pleasant experience from front to back, and this chapter is no different in that regard. A major part of this is Inaoka’s use of tone, in the artistic sense. Each page has been drafted with a keen eye to achieving a balance of light and dark, giving every page a very “full” feeling to it without making it busy either. Inaoka (and/or Inoaka’s assistant) is particularly adept with using screentone, making interesting lighting effects such as on the full-page where Risa is addressing the latest crook that are otherwise rare to see in black and white comics. Perhaps the narrative is a bit sloppy, but the art on the page is far from it.
Also I had nowhere else to put this, but the visual gag of the guy whose mohawk always goes out of frame is very good. Kudos for that, Inaoka.
Overall I wish “i tell c” was better than it was. Inaoka’s art may be pleasant to look at, but the series needs more focus if Inaoka wants to get to some of the more meatier ideas the series has been hinting at. Unfortunately I think the series may be running out of time to do this — despite the assurances that we’re only just in the first chapter.
Final Verdict: 5.5 – A good looking retread, but a retread nonetheless.
