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, Robbie checks in with “The Ichinose Family’s Deadly Sins.” If you have thoughts on this or any other current Shonen Jump titles, please let us know in the comments!
The Ichinose Family’s Deadly Sins, Chapter 43: Sota’s Plea
Written and illustrated by Taizans
Translated by Christine Dashiell
Lettered by Brendon Hull
Reviewed by Robbie Pleasant
When “The Ichinose Family’s Deadly Sins” began in Shonen Jump, the concept was intriguing. A family where everyone has amnesia sounded far-fetched, yes, but the idea that each of them had a dark past that would come back to haunt them and make itself known over time was engaging enough.
In the 43 chapters since then, the manga has continued to throw so many different supposed twists and reveals at us that I no longer know what’s real, nor do I care.
The latest turn of events (if it can be called that) took the characters back to their amnesiac state, except Tsubasa and Sota both know they’re in a dream, and apparently their dad is behind it… somehow. It’s unclear if the rest of the family is the same and just playing along with having amnesia so they can start over and be less awful to each other, or if they really have forgotten everything.
This chapter focuses on Sota and his mother, particularly in regard to the part she played in his trauma. Yes, we do get a bit more of a look at Sota’s character, and how he was the one who listened to everyone in the family while nobody listened to him, but boy is that point hammered in over and over again.
This all just begs the question: what’s the message “The Ichinose Family’s Deadly Sins” is trying to convey? It’s certainly trying to say something about family, given how the past chapters with Tsubasa and Sota have shown what happens when a family (found or by blood) tries to ignore all their problems, but now seemingly everyone is trying to hide from their past. And it’s done a fine job of letting us know how much most of the characters are awful in one way or another, but does very little to make us actually like any of them (and even when they do, there’s a 50-50 chance they’re just coma dream versions of those characters anyways).
Of course, this is also after looping back to the amnesia plot, after Tsubasa presumably woke up (in spite of remembering things that he only dreamed in his coma, so the manga is still a little weird on that subject), so it all feels like a step back.
What even is this story?
Meanwhile, the artwork is… rough. The character designs are flat and messy, consisting mostly of eyes and mouths with messy hair and inconsistent features. Everything feels uneven and rough, which worked well enough when the characters were also trying to come to terms with their new situation, but now is just not visually appealing.
In Taizans’ defense, there are still some strong points, like the use of shading to add details and the overall expressiveness of the characters (the massive eyes do lend themselves to that). The opening panel is impressively detailed as well, bending the images on the page to add length to the overburdened table and make the image all the more dreamlike. But overall, it’s not enough to make the artwork particularly appealing.
“The Ichinose Family’s Deadly Sins” is a manga that would have worked much better as a series with a limited run, as the concept doesn’t lend itself well to the ever-ongoing narratives that Jump manga are known for. Instead of being a narrative that properly builds to an end, it feels like a meandering loop that never really gets its message through.
Final Verdict: 4.0 – A story that doesn’t know how to progress or what kind of message it’s trying to tell, wrapped up in some of the weaker artwork in Shonen Jump. But it could have been so much better.
