By Dustin Cabeal
Welcome to my two-day late review of Weekly Shonen Jump. I am trying to get this review up and done on Monday’s when it actually releases, but so far that hasn’t happened. Well if you’re unfamiliar with how I write this review, check out previous issues or just jump in, you’ll figure it out.
Dr. Stone – Score: 4/5
I don’t know why I liked the latest Jump Start as much as I did, but I do. Maybe it was one of the character’s annoying “10,000,000,000 percent sure” catch phrase or the fact that the art is really good in both black and white and color. Whatever it is, this is a story about everyone turning to stone and then two high school boys waking up centuries later, with the goal of rebooting humanity.
The one with the crazy awesome blonde hair, whose head couldn’t possibly produce that much hair, is super smart. His best friend is the muscle and has a mind of sheer willpower apparently. The story is vague; the characters are full of catch phrases, I couldn’t stop reading it. Mostly because I couldn’t stop looking at the art. It is gorgeous. The stone people look incredible, the new shape of the planet is interesting and well-designed. I don’t know if this story has the legs to continue, but the art might keep it running, and I’m kind of okay with that.
One Piece – Score: 2/5
I read One Piece. I still fucking hate One Piece. I know, I know, that will piss a lot of people off. Here’s the thing, this story has gone on for so long and picked up so many supporting characters that now entire chapters of the story is just characters sitting around, spouting exposition and doing nothing. Everyone gets a turn to talk, and that’s the only thing this chapter accomplishes outside of telling you exactly what to expect.
And it's long. It’s so fucking long. Exposition after exposition, it just kept going. I wondered what else it could have left to say, and then a new round of “everyone say something relevant to the plot” would happen. I can’t even comment on the art because it was just talking heads. I gave it a shot folks; I won’t be back. Oh, and don’t give me that, “you have to start from the beginning” because my review history will show that, no, you don’t.
Blue Exorcist – Score: 2/5
The art is great, but stop me if you’ve heard this one, there are too many characters, and the entire chapter is just people standing around talking about stuff they’re going to do. Most of this chapter is the gang getting reading for their birthday, Christmas party. I wish I were joking, but that’s it. Sure, there’s some character moments, but none that stuck with me because so much of the story was wasted on filler bullshit. There were three pages of everyone guessing why this one character was dropping out of being an exorcist and when someone logically thinks to ask her, they say no and start guessing again. Fuck you, ask the fucking person. I’m tired of your shit guesses. The art is great, though. I hate how clean and detailed it is and how it’s wasted on this story of people standing and talking.
Hungry Marie- Score: 2/5
Okay, it’s Rama ½ with food. Yeah, the dude is in Marie’s body, and when she’s hungry, Marie is in the dude’s body. None of the jokes were funny because they’ve been used a thousand times. The art is okay, but not great. Really, there’s nothing special about this story, but it's weird genderswapness might keep it around. I hope not because the storytelling is a mess with narration all over the place. They’re still doing the “That’s right, my blank story is actually a blank story” gag. Wasn’t funny in the first chapter… still not funny.
Demon Prince Poro’s Diaries – Score: 3/5
There’s so much potential for this story that’s being squandered by doing the same tired gags. Poro goes on a date with his fiancé from the demon world. She just wants to bang him and make powerful demon babies and my god there’s so much potential for jokes there, but instead she ends up helping Poro learn about romance. Which is something completely foreign to them both. It should have been funny, but instead, it felt rushed and lacking jokes that were truly funny instead of being “situationally” funny. The art is a treat, the characters have potential, but it doesn’t seem like there’s anywhere for the story to go outside of “here’s a new human concept that Poro will interact with this week.” The problem with that is that it’s going to be the typical things like, love, dating, a bath house, vacations and all the stuff that manga and anime have been doing for decades, and that’s not particularly interesting nor is it being done particularly well.
The Promised Neverland – Score: 5/5
Damn you, Ray. Damn you and your dirty secrets! I can’t, slash, won’t talk about this chapter. It’s a huge development for the series, and I am so excited to see what happens. I don’t think this arc is quite over, but we’ll see next time. I’m curious as hell, but also secretly hoping to be disappointed by the results. The art continues to be some of the best in WSJ, and I’m happy that this series is almost always near the back, it makes it more enjoyable. Otherwise, this is the series to beat in my opinion. God, I wish I could talk about it more… so damn good.
Seraph of the End – No Score
This was another series that I tried to read rather than skip, but I barely made it past the first three pages. It's just doing its own thing, and while I kinda respect that, it’s too far along in the story for me to care or catch up. I was confused, annoyed and just wanted the extremely long chapter to be over with and done. I read what I could, skimmed the rest and decided I wasn’t missing out on anything. Much like when I tried the anime, this isn’t for me and never will be. I won’t be wasting my time on it again, but I also won’t score it since I didn’t read it all the way through like I did One Piece and Blue Exorcist. I just wish these three series had something of interest so I could get into them and try to at the very least tolerate reading them weekly/semi-weekly, but they don’t, and so I give up. I’ll stick to the new stuff I guess.
Until next week.
Weekly Shonen Jump no. 14
Viz Media