My Hero Academia followed up on what basically felt like its first act climax with some cooldown in this volume, focusing on lots of nitty-gritty tactical fights and introducing a whole country’s worth of new heroes in training. It’s a good time, you can check out my further thoughts through the link below, etc etc.
Togashi, what the hell are you doing.
I had assumed, upon reading and critiquing Hunter x Hunter’s thirty-fourth volume, that I’d essentially covered the gist of Togashi’s schtique – his tendency towards creating impossibly convoluted tactical setups, and his skill for resolving them as a series of dramatically coherent action beats. The fight between Chrollo and Hisoka was essentially that instinct in isolation, split between half a volume of expository notes on Chrollo’s powers and half a volume of evaluation time “I hope you got all that” payoff. Surely the complexity would let up just a tad for the next volume?
It’s the end of an era in My Hero Academia. This volume was easily one of Academia’s best yet, and All Might’s climactic battle gave me tons to sink into in both a craft and thematic sense. The themey-wemey stuff took precedence this time, though – All Might’s fight essentially condensed Academia’s views on the conscience of society as a whole into one furious bout, and the volume’s second half then returned us to the engaging parent/child focus of the sports festival. Ridiculously compelling stuff all around, and I had an excellent time writing about it.
You can check out my full review over at ANN.
One Piece’s sixteenth volume opens with the team in crisis. Having sailed to the island of the former Drum Kingdom in search of a doctor, they discovered the only doctor here lived on top of a towering mountain. Strapping the sickly Nami to his back, Luffy set off with Sanji at his side, fighting through snow drifts and giant killer rabbits on the way to the summit. But then, before they could arrive, their movements prompted a mighty avalanche. And so we find our heroes sprinting back down the mountain, time ticking down with the storm at their backs.
My Monster Secret leaned heavily on its most minor side characters this volume, with altogether disappointing results. This manga definitely can succeed as a full-on farce, but when it’s not relying on the emotional appeal of its characters, the jokes really need to show up… and this volume’s collection of mediocre sight gags and too-long gimmicks just didn’t cut it. Ah well.
You can check out my full review over at ANN.
Hunter x Hunter’s thirty-third volume was entirely dedicated to establishing the base conflict of the Dark Continent arc. Even with a full volume worth of board-adjusting and exposition, those chapters still felt like they were bursting at the seams with pure information. The king’s declaration, and his alliance with Beyond. The Hunter Association’s reaction to that announcement, and their conscription of Kurapika and other potential allies. The background interference of Ging and Paristan, and the concerns of the larger scientific community. The introduction of the king’s succession war, and Kurapika’s subsequent enrollment in the youngest prince’s service. All of that served as meaty but ultimately passive setup, setting the stage for volume thirty-four to come barreling out the gate with the true start of the arc.
Today I reviewed Genshiken Second Season’s latest volume, which was… acceptable? I no longer expect genius from what I once considered my favorite manga series, but this volume definitely had some of the awkwardly true-to-life conflicts and conversations that once made this series so great. Flashes of greatness are okay by me!
You can check out my full review over at ANN.
My Monster Secret maintained its usual shenanigans this volume, keeping to a comfy stasis as these romcoms always tend to. It’s just fun spending time with this cast though, so I didn’t really mind – and it actually does seem like the characters are moving somewhat closer to romance, even if it’s at a predictably glacial pace. But hey, stories like this are about the journey, and the journey here is populated by charming characters and lots of silly faces. That’s not so bad.
You can check out my full review over at ANN.
Genshiken Second Season has been off the rails for a while now, and this volume doesn’t really do much to fix that. The good news is, having read the volume that follows this one, there’s at least some solid character writing coming down the pipe. But this volume… Madarame’s harem ran out of gas volumes ago, and this one really doesn’t add anything fresh to the situation. It’s a little saddening to see what Genshiken has become.
You can check out my full review over at ANN.
After two volumes that layered exploitation sleaze and shock-horror twists over meditations on gender identity and the commodification of women in society, Yuureitou’s third volume opens with a conflict that seems embrace its most schlocky tendencies. Continuing last volume’s cliffhanger ending with a chapter called “The Value of Life,” volume three sees Yuureitou’s protagonists rushing around in search of a person to harvest for their body parts, all to appease the desires a mad scientist in an iron mask known only as Doctor Tesla. With a deadly virus running through their veins, Tetsuo, Amano, and their officer friend must race against time to find a suitable sacrifice.