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, Zach and Vince check in with “One Piece” and “One Punch Man.” If you have any thoughts on these titles, or “Dr. Stone,” “We Never Learn,” “The Promised Neverland,” “Black Clover,” “Food Wars,” “Yu-Gi-Oh Arc V,” “Shokugeki No Sanji,” or “My Hero Academia,” let us know in the comments!
One Piece – Chapter 912: Amigasa Village
Written and Illustrated by Eiichiro Oda
Review by Vince J Ostrowski
To say “One Piece” has a lot of characters to juggle is an understatement. And so it seems to regularly employ a tactic of splitting characters up whenever they start a new adventure. If you follow the fandom of any long-running series, you’ll probably find that readers find the manufactured splitting up of characters to be an annoying trope. But with something as massive and long-running as “One Piece” it seems utterly necessary to do this often, and thankfully Oda usually utilizes the technique to great effect. This time the heroes are split up in Wano, a country ruled by a titan with an iron fist who has let the world outside his stronghold turn into a wasteland while he and his henchmen live like kings. We spend the majority of the issue with Luffy alone with the members of a nearby village who are suffering in squalor. Ever the helpful optimist, Luffy agrees to take the members of the village under his rubbery wing and help them out, and it isn’t long before the band starts getting back together to do so. Oda has way of making the reuniting of characters a joyous occasion, which is demonstrated in this issue when Luffy finally crosses paths again with a certain fan favorite swordsman.
But Oda’s even more uncanny ability to craft a minor character and give it heart in incredibly short order is also on display here. It’s incredibly difficult to find a new way to make a longtime reader care about a new character in a book that has been running for almost a thousand chapters and has nearly that many characters in it, but Oda does it almost every time. About a month ago, the one criticism I could find for “Dr. Stone” was that the characters apart from the trio of mains weren’t as well-defined or colorful as I would like them to be. “Chapter 912” is a template for how to give depth to minor characters in less than the length of a full page. Here, one of the children in the village (Otama) had a past friendship with Ace (Luffy’s adopted brother) who had come across their village in the past. In one short flashback, Oda conveys the humor and warmth of Ace’s character and the profound effect that his kindness had on the village, most of all Otama. For the rest of the chapter, Otama is steadfast in her belief that Ace will return someday, even as Luffy tells her that it’s not possible. “One Piece” is all heart.
The chapter is also typically nice to look at, if you aren’t put off by the admittedly unconventional style. The fact that it doesn’t look like any other manga is personally what astonishes me about “One Piece” to begin with. In even its most mundane moments (something that can’t be said about this chapter), “One Piece” is kind of uncanny to look at. It’s trippy, goofy, grinning madness at all times. After 900 chapters, I’m trying to find new things to say about it, and I’m finding myself appreciating the details in the art a lot more as we go along. For instance, when Luffy discovers that Wano has essentially be turned into a wasteland, the barren 1/2 page spread nicely mirrors an earlier page from the chapter that showed the village of Amigasa being ransacked. Oda’s work here is detailed and tragic, especially when weighed against the fact that the chief villain, Kaido, is living very well at their expense. I don’t how Oda keeps doing it, but 912 chapters in, “One Piece’s” art is as layered and engaging as ever.
Continued belowFinal Verdict: 9.5 – One of Shonen manga’s all-time finest entries keeps its big heart beating as strong as ever, even after all this time
One-Punch Man Chapter #84
Written by ONE
Illustrated by Yusuke Murata
Reviewed by Zach Wilkerson
It’s impossible to predict where the latest chapter of “One-Punch Man” will take this charmingly serious lampoon of the super hero genre. Recent chapters have featured a 100-plus page brawl with a giant centipede, resolved by a multipage splash rendering of a “serious punch,” only to be followed by secret world order meetings and Power Ranger stand-ins. The diversity of cast, tone, and setting is always on display, and rarely at the cost of story. This trend continues in the latest chapter, which features a hard cut to the hero hunter Garo, fresh off his recent defeat at the hands of Genos and Bang.
In a story about goofy but overpowered super heroes, the villainous Garo has managed to become one of the breakout stars of the series. With recent chapters managing to cast his villainy in a weirdly altruistic light, one could argue Garo has even moved into anti-hero territory. These developments, coupled with his remaining humanity, make him a fantastic character to contrast against the absolute darkness of the Monster Association.
Remember those Power Ranger/Pacific Rim guys, introduced with much fanfare at the end of the previous chapter? Well, things aren’t going so well for them. As Garo stumbles upon the inner sanctum of the Monster Association, their story picks up in media res, following an apparently botched op. ONE and Murata introduce three new demon level monsters, Machine God G5, King the Ripper and Insect God, each a testament to Murata’s fantastic character design. These new villains seem to be set up as foils against Garo as he is given a fantastic offer; prove his status as a monster by delivering the head of one hero.
The series has previous toyed with notions of Garo’s morality and code of honor. This new task seems to be sending Garo towards a definitive breakpoint. Will he succumb to the will of the Monster Association or turn against them? The likelihood that he would ever turn to the side of the heroes seems slim, but Garo’s fierce independence immediately puts him at odds with the monsters, something ONE plays up to great effect. For Garo, cut from the same cloth as the likes of Vegeta and Piccolo, a future redemption doesn’t seem outside the realm of possibility.
It’s common for a shonen manga to eschew its main protagonist for several chapters at a time and this is especially true of “One-Punch Man.” The deftness with which the team moves arc to arc, shifting focus between characters, highlights both the strength of characterization and world-building of the series thus far. There’s no telling how long the spotlight will shine on Garo, but it’s sure to be an enjoyable showing.
Final Verdict: 8.3 – This chapter marks a solid start for a much appreciated Garo-centric arc.
