Weekly Shonen Jump October 1, 2018 Featured Columns 

This Week in Shonen Jump: October 1, 2018

By and | October 3rd, 2018
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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, Brandon and Greg check in with “Black Clover” and “Teenage Reistance! David.” If you have any thoughts on these titles, or “My Hero Academia” “I’m From Japan,” “One Piece,” “Dr. Stone,” “Hunter x Hunter,” “The Promised Neverland,” “We Never Learn,” or “Food Wars,” let us know in the comments!

Black Clover Chapter 175
Written & Illustrated by Yuki Tabata
Reviewed by Greg Lincoln

The several moments of levity and slapstick comedy that follow the reunion of Finral, Yami, and Jack with Zora and the Royals of Houses Vermillion and Silva was a necessary break from all the murder, mayhem, and magical combat over the last several weeks. Clover Castle may be littered with bodies of the sick and dying, but Yuki Tabata backs off the action throttle for a page or two so the reader (and his characters) can catch their breath. The reunion includes a scathing bit of dialogue from Noelle that literally bowls Finral over, followed by her admission she was worried about “the wimp.” Tabata shows a nice juxtaposition in her conflicting expressions in that panel. Zora, who’s presence on the page commands your attention, doesn’t waste his few moments as he gets in some good snarky moments. It was a solid introduction to hook us before they split the party and take the fight to the elves.

Tabata does a great job of re-establishing the tension as Zora, Noelle, and Nozel race into House Silva. The floors, shown littered with the slain, renew the tension and threat they face as they try to save whoever they can. He gives Zora one amazing close up panel to shine before he dramatically departs the group. This further splitting of the party came lightning fast, even for shonen manga, but Tabata is likely setting up a moment for him to be the hero later. The casual level of power Nozel commands as he dispatches one opponent right away reminds us how capable he actually is. He and Noelle appear in time to save one of their relatives before they get drug into an extended fight with the elf possessed Golden Dawn member facing them. The magical combat between Nozel and Noelle Silva and the elf facing them shows manga’s range when it comes to magic. Like many Japanese cartoonists, Tabata’s imagination is wide open to experimentation. Mangaka take an idea and run with it far past the point that their American counterparts often do and his twists on the magical combat are very entertaining conceptually and visually. The interchange of powerful, dramatic spells is a visual treat particularly the deflection of the “Sea Dragons Roar” by the elf’s “Willful Compass.”

During the battle Yuki, Tabata shows the real strength of his art. Though the magic is fun to look at, he draws us more to the expression on the faces of the Silvas. Both of them emote clearly through the work of his pen nibs and brushes. Those last panels of the fight, as the tide turns briefly against them, shows their faces hooking us to return next week. This week, in addition to the marvelous Black Clover cover spot, we got a lovely out of context color illustration of Noelle and Mimosa in modern clothes. The full page color shot is warm, pretty and unexpected treat.

Final Verdict: 7.8 – Zora, Nozel, and Noelle make a splash as they return to the story this week and become the focus for the chapter.

Teenage Renaissance! David Chapter 3
Written and Illustrated by Yushin Kuroki
Reviewed by Brandon Arnold

This week marks the third and final installment for the jumpstart series “Teenage Renaissance! David,” and it has left me in a fog of absurdity that’s both hilarious and kind of humbling. Let me explain. “Teenage Renaissance! David” follows Michelangelo’s Statue of David as he grapples with the pitfalls of being a first-year student in high school. Most of these pitfalls revolve around Venus, David’s crush, and his various interactions with her as he tries to impress her instead of just acknowledging that he is the picture perfect representation of artistic form and human anatomy as well as being arguably the most famous sculpture in all of art history- which is pretty impressive if you ask me. I said this it left me feeling humbled, but really I meant it left me feeling jealous Jealous that I hadn’t thought of it first.

Continued below

David is a bumbling fool that consistently fails to impress anyone around him and embarrasses himself on a regular basis. In this week’s installment, he overhears Venus talking to a friend about getting into “etching,” meaning the engraving technique used to draw on a metal surface. David, however, misheard Venus and thought she said “ecchi,” a Japanese slang word referring to hentai or something being perverted. When Venus turns to David and asks if he’d like to try “etching” with her, David’s nose effectively explodes with blood from excitement. Of course, when David bursts into the classroom where Venus and her friend are practicing “etching” and finds them drawing beautiful landscapes and architecture, he is overcome with embarrassment and collapses into Venus’ lap. This takes us to the punch line of every installment (so far) of the series. When David falls onto Venus, the “camera” pulls back and shows them imitating Michelangelo’s famous sculpture, Pieta.

In the author comments of Sep. 17th’s edition of “Shonen Jump,” Yushin Koroki said that this series’ hidden theme was “artistically crude,” but I’m not sure if that gives him or his series enough credit. Yes, it’s funny to see such a historically significant piece of art with anime reactions or lounging around in gym shorts, but it’s the premise of building an entire chapter around recreating one specific piece of art and having it feel genuine and surprising that is the real triumph of this series. David and Venus haven’t had much in the way of character development, but that doesn’t really matter- as long as I get to see David playing soccer and unintentionally recreating The Last Judgement like in last week’s chapter. Koroki’s decision to include Manneken Pis, a bronze Belgian sculpture of a little boy urinating into a fountain, as a side character who “helps” David by peeing on him is seemingly an indication that Koroki has a passion and knowledge of classical art, and I think that’s refreshing.

By the way, Koroki’s own art is fantastic. David’s heavy shading and detail juxtaposed against a more traditional manga styling for the rest of the characters creates a fever-dream sensation that adds to the absurdity that this book already has in abundance. His sequencing is often very exaggerated and kinetic. This allows a book that, ultimately, is just about some awkward kid in high school feel very exciting and energetic. I feel more mentally stimulated reading this week’s chapter than I do reading most of my weekly superhero books. This week’s chapter had one panel that was just a Rubin vase with some dialogue, which felt very hilariously reminiscent of The Electric Company to me. There’s basically no background in the majority of his panels, instead, Koroki usually either leaves them blank or saturates them with atmospheric shading or action lines that lets the reader feel how emotionally invested David feels about the possibility of participating in “ecchi” with Venus. And that “ecchi”/”etching” wordplay is just classic.

The argument could be made that “Teenage Renaissance! David” is high concept art- maybe even more so that it realizes. The idea of using universally revered, historically significant works of art to make jokes about teenage sex and getting urinated on is both offensive and genius. It plays on and subverts tropes often found in manga, not with subtlety, but with gratuity. Why are these pieces of art so untouchable? What makes them so grand and other art-forms so trivial? These are the questions that I found myself thinking about as I was reading it- even if Yushin Koroki didn’t mean for me think about that.

Final Verdict: 8.5- A little bit perverted and a lot-a-bit gratuitous, but it left me grinning the whole time.


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Greg Lincoln

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Brandon Arnold

Co-Creator of "4 Panel Madness" @Vague_Hearts on Instagram. Bass player and vocalist of A Bad Night for a Hero. New to the game... more coffee please.

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