Manga Xanadu

I wasn’t sold on Bleach when it was first announced, but fortunately, I had a subscription to Shonen Jump back in the day, and read the first few chapters, and was hooked. I really liked the characters and the world that Kubo had created for them.  I was a huge Bleach fan, buying the books as they came out, watching the anime, and even collecting the toys from Toynami, several sets of gashapon, and the trading cards. I loved the first arc in Soul Society.

Magic, Action and Demons, three things you can put into a shonen title and not go wrong. Viz had all three in spades with their two new titles out this week. I wasn’t too interested in Black Clover when it was first started in Weekly Shonen Jump. It sounds too familiar and I didn’t hear many good things at first. It’s still going, so something must have turned around. 7th Garden sounds much more my cup of tea, though I find the demons and angels angle a little played out as well. But I’m up to some good old-fashioned eye candy with hot guys.

Viz Media has started a new series as part of their Jump Start initiative. Kimetsu no Yaiba is the newest series to get the first three chapters published in both the US and Japan.

More information has come out regarding the end of Assassination Classroom. The 12th issue of Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump revealed that the series actually has 5 more chapters and will now wrap up at the end of March, coinciding with the end of the academic year in Japan. The students of Class 3E will now move on along with the rest of Japan’s graduating classes. This is a very clever ploy by Shueisha to tie the two events together, and will make the ending of Assassination Classroom a much more memorable event. The 11th issue of Weekly Shonen Jump had teased a “final mission climax” and “conclusion of the fated battle” in this issue, which had been read as a final chapter, but the surprise turned out to be much bigger. It has also been confirmed that the anime of the manga that is running right now, and simulcast by Funimation, will cover the manga’s ending as will the live action movie set to come out in Japan later this year. The movie’s ending was announced at a press conference held earlier this week, where Matsui explained that the timing of the film’s production led to the proposal that the manga and movie share…

I was never really interested in court room dramas until my daughter got me interested in Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney. Gakkyu Hotei can be best be described as a  younger reader version of Phoenix Wright, with the cases all occurring in school, and Inugami being the defense attorney who never loses. I read a few chapters in Weekly Shonen Jump and liked it so much I pre-ordered the first volume. Obata’s art and Enoki’s school appropriate cases make for an entertaining combination.

Viz’s Weekly Shonen Jump makes the news with something for US readers to read while WSJ in Japan teases fans with something they will want to read.

Viz Media makes another move to spread its manga to other platforms as Weekly Shonen Jump finally jumps from the Vizmanga app to get on comiXology and Amazon’s Kindle. The jump to just these two platforms and not Nook, Kobo, iOS, or Googleplay is probably due to Amazon’s ownership of comiXology. Hopefully Viz will be able to announce expanding to those other platforms soon as well.

It seems an edition of the US Weekly Shonen Jump magazine isn’t complete with a Yu-Gi-Oh manga being serialized in it. The first Yu-Gi-Oh manga was among the debut titles, and every new title was added to the magazine for most of their runs up to Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal, which just ended in June. So it’s time to load up the next one.

Superheroes have been all the rage lately on TV and movie screens, so it should come as no surprise that they’re popping up in manga too.  My Hero Academia has been serialized in Weekly Shonen Jump since late last year, but this simultaneous release of both the print and digital edition of the first volume finally makes the series available to non-WSJ readers.  I wasn’t wowed by the chapters that were made available in January of this year, but sales are putting me into the minority. Check it out yourself to see where you stand.

With titles leaving Weekly Shonen Jump, it’s time for a new round of Jump Start! titles to run and see if they can make the cut here and as well as in Japan. Viz is starting out with just two titles so far. Welcome to Shika High Competitive Dance Club will start on May 11, while the second series, Devily Man will start two Mondays after, May 25. These titles are being simulpubed with the Japanese Weekly Shonen Jump, so there is precious little information about them. Welcome to Shika High’s Competitive Dance Club is obviously about competitive dancing. This seems like a surprising subject to put into a shonen magazine. It seems more like a shojo title like Kodansha’s Let’s Dance a Waltz. But knowing what I do know about the serialization meetings at WSJ (thanks to Bakuman), this series must have something interesting about it to make it into the magazine. I’m curious to hear what it’s about. Devily Man has an old school/retro feel to it, based only on the glimpse of the art from Weekly Shonen Jump. Like a Toriyama and/or comedic feel to it. I can’t even begin to guess that this title is about, but the…

Viz Media’s Weekly Shonen Jump has been seeing plenty of changes, just as the Japanese magazine does with titles coming and going. Lately, Viz’s WSJ has added two new regular titles to their line-up; Black Clover and the Naruto spin-off Naruto: The Seventh Hokage and the Scarlet Spring.  Black Clover is about a boy named Astra. He and another boy named Yuna were abandoned at the same time at the same place as babies and have since become best friends both with the same goal; to become the next Wizard King. The only problem with their plan is while Yuna his highly skilled at using magic, Astra can’t. Astra isn’t discouraged, even at a coming-of-age ceremony, where Yuna receives a magic book with the legendary four leaf clover while Astra receives nothing. Sometime later, when Yuna is nearly defeated in battle, Astra’s true power is revealed as he is able to call on a book with a black five-leaved clover and wield powerful anti-magic. Astra never sees the book, but the pair head out into the world together to continue to compete for their goal. Black Clover started as a three chapter preview for Viz’s Jump Start program back in…

Back in September it was announced that Hiroshi Shiibashi’s latest original manga, Illegal Rare was ending, and the final two volumes were to be released in October and November. Shiibashi is the creator of Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan, a series about Yakuza yokai and ran for 25 volumes. Illegal Rare is another ensemble series about the supernatural. Humans and supernatural creatures live together in the same world, but these “Rares” are being hunted to extinction. To protect them, the Illegal Rare Counter-Protection Unit was formed. It is championed by Fukumen, a police officer that wears a mask. He goes to Axl, a member of the very rare and highly hunted Black Vampyr clan, to help him. In the first chapter, he rescues a mermaid, Mirror and she joins the unit as well. Illegal Rare is similar to Nura. It has a big cast, and features supernatural monsters. The monsters have branched out beyond the traditional Japanese monsters, yokai, and now include western monsters such as vampires, mermaids, and werewolves. The lead is a good-looking monster, and the main female is timid by loyal to the lead. Maybe it was too similar to Nura, and that’s why it didn’t succeed. I…