I had two weeks off, and Weekly Shonen Jump had one week off (and they'll have next week off too!) so this week is numbered as a double-issue, but it's a normal length one. Soma finally got to show off his dish in the three-way finals match happening in Food Wars.  Though the other two dishes were similar and both awesome, Soma's was obviously not on the same level.  We did finally get a wonderfully Shonen cliffhanger and, no doubt (some doubt), we'll see Soma come out on top next week.  Though I have really been enjoying this arc and have learned a ton about picking out and preparing pike (which is weird but cool), this manga is solid and I'm looking forward to the arc to come.

I have not read all of One Piece, so by any comparison I am a lightweight, but, objectively speaking, there is a lot of One Piece in my brain.  Something I have been noticing lately is that some pages of the manga are really written for the anime.  The entire Dressrosa arc has been fantastic and beautifully rendered in the anime as always.  But there are so many fights happening between so many folks with so many outrageous powers in so many different places that I'm actually finding some aspects of the manga hard to follow.  Manga is traditionally a little less fleshed-out in this respect than a lot of western comics, especially shonen manga, and especially the fight scenes.  It's still a pleasure to look at, and Oda is still talented enough to bookend each fight in such a way that you can follow the action.  But I'm hoping that he takes his time just a little bit more with some of the big fights coming up.  On a separate note, I thought I would get tired of the Lao G gag at some point, but it's still pretty damn funny.

This issue was particularly exciting because I finally got to read Assassination Classroom.  It's been serialized in Jump over in Japan for two years, and has sold a ton of volumes.  Last month, it finally got its first English-language volume published, and starting on January 9th, its anime begins in Japan and will be viewable elsewhere through Funimation.

Assassination Classroom, as simply as it can be explained, is about a super-powerful, dumb-looking octopus-like creature who teaches a class and who is, upon their graduation, going to destroy the planet: unless the students can assassinate him first.  No, I'm not joking.  It's absolutely ridiculous, but the art and page layouts are top-notch, and if you like weird stuff, I think it's worth checking out.  It's a good mix of humor and tension, and super-powerful beings alone are worth a decent amount of amusement.

Next week, as I mentioned, WSJ is taking a week off, but they'll be putting out some new chapters of stuff, so I'll cover them anyway!

Score: 4/5

Writers: Various Artists: Various Publisher: Viz Media Release Date: 1/5/15 Format: Digital Anthology