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 Walt check in with “The Promised Neverland” and “World Trigger.” If you have any thoughts on these titles, or “One Piece,” “Black Clover,” “Dr. Stone,” “Hunter x Hunter,” “The Comiq,” “Food Wars,” “The Comiq,” “My Hero Academia,” or “We Never Learn” let us know in the comments!
The Promised Neverland Chapter 109
Written by Kaiu Shirai
Illustrated by Posuka Demizu
Reviewed by Brandon Arnold
This week’s installment of “The Promised Neverland” nothing short of a tear-jerker as we witness Yugo and Lucas’s heroic sacrifice from Emma’s perspective: that of a young girl who is just doing her best to keep her family alive,
This chapter is split basically into two parts. The first begins with confirmation that the children made it out of the bunker alive. As Ray reassumes his leadership position, Emma tends to the unconscious and wounded Chris as thoughts of fear and self-doubt begin to completely take hold of her. In the midst of great battles and high-energy action sequences, it was easy to forget that these were children fighting the demons. And the other humans.
Kudos to Kaiu Shirai for taking a break from the violence and reflecting on the traumatic effects that Emma, Ray, and the others must be suffering. We see Emma curled in the fetal position asking: “Did I make the right decision?” “Was there a different option?” Until finally, she crumbles under the confessional, “I’m so scared…” Over the course of this series, we’ve seen these characters revolt against the only (and admittedly happy) life they’ve ever know, strike out into a cruel and violent world, and meet several new allies only to subsequently lose them, but at the end of it all, they’re still children. Emma is a child taking care of a younger child who’s just been shot by an adult who wanted to feed her friends to horrific monsters- and she’s terrified.
Demizu handles all of these emotions with master craftsmanship. The page before Emma’s breakdown begins is mostly devoid of dialogue and feels cold and barren. These children are alone and feeling reasonably hopeless. Tight, constrictive panels separate the characters as they try to come to grips with their new lot in life drive home this feeling of lost hope.
After Yugo visits Emma in a dream to encourage her to keep fighting and absolve her of her self-perceived guilt, the second half of the chapter shows us Yugo’s final moments. It begins with a flashback to his life before Emma, Ray, and the gang joined him at the bunker. This whole sequence mirrors the hopelessness the children with the hopelessness he felt (and subsequently lost) before he met the children. Several pages of montage style storytelling deliver a gut punch of sentimentality as we see Yugo go from the verge of suicide to avenging his family and finding a new one, only to sacrifice himself and be reunited with them on the other side.
This chapter truly feels like a conclusion to the Goldy Pond saga and the doorway to something greater for the children to face going forward. Yugo got his happy ending, so maybe Emma, Eay, and the rest of the children will get theirs too.
Final Verdict: 9.0- This was an emotional end to an emotional story that paves the way for something greater.
World Trigger Chapter 165
Written and Illustrated by Daisuke Ashihar
Reviewed by Walt Richardson
After nearly two years of hiatus, Daisuke Ashihara is back with “World Trigger.” This issue has a few pages recapping the story so far, and the previous arc can be read on Viz’s website for free, so now is as good a time as any to check out this series — for better or for worse.
Continued belowI say for better or for worse because, while I enjoy the manga, this chapter is a representative example of what I both like and don’t like about the series. “World Trigger” is very much about tactics and strategy. It’s clearly one of Ashihara’s main interests, and it wouldn’t be “World Trigger” without his delicately crafted large-scale battles. At the same time, his obsession can sometimes get in the way of the story. Even in the fights that “matter,” a lot of time is spent with people discussing or thinking about the positioning, movement, and so on. During the “rank wars” training sessions, this is compounded by various announcers narrating the fights in the manner of sports commentators. We see a bit of this in this chapter: Osamu’s team and the opponents’ team spend time before their upcoming fight talking strategy, and the announcers talk about the pros and cons of the map where the fight will take place. Ashihara keeps things from getting too bogged down by making sure each scene doesn’t last more than a few pages, with frequent cuts from one group to another. This makes sense for the opening chapter of the fight, and so it doesn’t grate as much as it can when the fights are dragging at a glacial pace.
It’s great to see Ashihara’s crisp line work back in the pages of Weekly Shonen Jump. The comic looks as great as it always has, and plays a nice counterpoint to some of the other artistic tour de forces in the magazine such as “One Punch Man” that are defined by more of a explosive character. This is mainly a chapter centered on discussions, and so we don’t get to see Ashihara’s well-crafted combat scenes in motion, but we do see instead his subtle character acting. A lot of the series that run in the pages of the magazine, being primarily aimed at a young audience, rely on delightfully absurd over-exaggeration of facial expressions (see the famous Eneru full-page spread from “One Piece”). The characters of “World Trigger” occasionally make cute faces when making side remarks — Ashihara is fond of 3-shaped lips for this — but for the most part their emoting is restrained. This isn’t a bad thing by any means, and usually it shows just how firm of a grasp Ashihara has on character acting, by being able to convey completely different emotions with a few understated lines. The risk, however, is that sometimes the characters are left with more of a blank expression than fits the enormity of the situation (see the featured image above).
Final Verdict: 7.0 – Ashihara is still very good at what he does, and now is a good time to learn whether or not what he does is your kind of thing.
