Shonen Jump 080121 Columns 

This Week in Shonen Jump: Week of 8/1/21

By | August 4th, 2021
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, Elias checks in with “DC3.” If you have thoughts on this or any other current Shonen Jump titles, please let us know in the comments!

DC3
Written by Kaiu Shirai
Illustrated by Posuka Demizu
Translated by Stephen Paul
Lettered by Mark McMurray

Posuka Demizu & Kaiu Shirai are back with a new one-shot about fame, the social internet, and robots wrapped in a classic Shonen package, emphasis on the “classic Shonen.” There are a few twists thrown into the mix but if you’ve read any semi-comedic Shonen Jump series, you’ve probably read something similar to this one. The protagonist, a bit of a flighty goofball with a special power, is paired up with a serious partner who is given some story reason to pal around with the protag, they don’t get along, hijinx ensure before things get “serious” and the chapter ends with the protag learning to appreciate something about the other person. Set things in the not-so-distant future and give us a female protagonist and you’ve got yourself “DC3.”

I single out the protagonist as being female for one reason: despite being shown to be highly capable at the start, she is reduced to an object to be protected during the entire last third of the one-shot. It’s a big knock against one-shot because, despite my gripes above in addition to a fairly trite twist that you can see coming a million miles away with regards to the titular DC3, I was actually really enjoying reading this. Strip away the trappings of the genre and “DC3” becomes a fascinating exploration of how people create icons out of others and act based on their image of them rather than the reality, often to detrimental effect. It is taking a toxic aspect of the social internet and recontextualizing it into a hyper-real version of a possible future.

There’s plenty of room to grow thematically as well, should this be an idea they want to pursue further. Issues of labor vs management thanks to the existence of robots, militarization of all technologies, Saho’s potential complicity in whatever system is arriving and the aforementioned everyone attacking Saho simply because she accidentally helped make the code for those AI as a toddler are all in play. There are strong ideas here but are unable to shine through because there’s only so much you can tackle in your first 50 pages.

It’s also quite funny. Like I said, the characters are all hyper-real versions of themselves, thus allowing them to seem far sillier than more grounded versions, and this permeates all aspects of the work. When we’re first introduced to the types of people hunting Saho, there’s a row of four panels, each with the same layout and design depicting the four groups yelling their demands, from “Ransom money” for the kidnappers to “Scoops” for the paparazzi. There’s plenty of variety between the designs for Demizu to properly sell the uniqueness of each group while also keeping the rhythm of the joke. Props also to Stephen Paul for those translation choices and to Demizu for all the little details in the panels like the cultist having a seal on his forehead that reads “Saho 4 life.”

Demizu also does a great job in the action scenes, though it can get a little cluttered with smoke and flying debris. That’s a minor quibble though because Demizu’s facial expressions and body movements are properly dynamic when they need to be and more restrained during the serious moments. It helps sell the gravity of the scenes, even when the ideas behind the scenes themselves don’t fully land because of how standard they are. Honestly, I wish the one-shot leaned harder into the humor and satire aspects rather than trying to add a standard core. It excels when being tongue and cheek and silly, like when Saho, after everything wraps up says in a narrative caption “As for my life after that…” before the next panel has her saying aloud while pointing at a crowd of ridiculous looking people “Nothing’s changed.” Gold. I just wish it all was like that.

Final Verdict: 6.8 – If you missed the “Promised Neverland” team, give it a read. It’s a fine one-shot but nothing especially special. Great jokes throughout though.


//TAGS | This Week in Shonen Jump

Elias Rosner

Elias is a lover of stories who, when he isn't writing reviews for Mulitversity, is hiding in the stacks of his library. Co-host of Make Mine Multiversity, a Marvel podcast, after winning the no-prize from the former hosts, co-editor of The Webcomics Weekly, and writer of the Worthy column, he can be found on Twitter (for mostly comics stuff) here and has finally updated his profile photo again.

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