Welcome to the latest installment of SJ Weekly Roundup, a weekly post where I discuss Shonen Jump Magazine's latest and greatest chapters of manga! We have a couple curveballs this week with two one-shots joining the usual mix of weekly chapters: a special one-shot chapter of the beloved science-centric manga masterpiece Dr. Stone, and Just Listen to the Song, a brief little 20 page story by the brilliant Tatsuki Fujimoto, this time paired with art by To Strip the Flesh creator Oto Toda. With 3 unique one-shots hitting Jump’s pages this past year as well as part 2 of Chainsaw Man being right around the corner, Fujimoto fans have been eating good! It’s certainly an exciting time to be a Shonen Jump reader, and the ripple effect the magazine is having on the overall comics industry is just getting more and more immense as time marches forward.
My goal with these posts is to cover as many currently running series as possible. However, please understand that I do not possess superhuman manga-reading abilities, and I am not caught up on every series in Jump. Check out the list below to see my current progress with series I am reading, which will be added to the roundup upon completion.
CURRENTLY READING:
Witch Watch (Ch. 5/68)
Blue Box (Ch. 29/59)
Me & Roboco (Ch. 8/95)
PPPPPP (Ch. 8/39)
Sakamoto Days (Ch. 11/77)
Undead Unluck (Ch. 10/117)
One Piece (Ch. 24/1053)
As always, Shonen Jump offers the oldest and newest 3 chapters of each series on their website completely free of charge, If you would like to read along with me. Without further ado, let's get in to this week's chapters!
Just Listen to the Song
Story by Tatsuki Fujimoto
Art by Oto Toda
One-Shot
Synopsis: A boy confesses to the girl he’s liked since middle school in a unique way: through a note with a YouTube link attached. This is a love confession song he wrote for her and posted onto to the internet for the world to see. The girl promptly shares the video around, causing it to spread throughout the school, making the boy the butt of the joke amongst his classmates. After a disastrous day, the boy almost deletes the confession video… until he notices the huge explosion of views it got suddenly! Viewers are coming up with theories about the contents of the video, and with 400 million views and climbing, these interpretations are getting increasingly bizarre!
The audience is now brimming with expectations, chomping at the bit for the boy to upload another song. He uploads a new track called “Just Listen to the Song” and it is globally panned, not meeting the outlandish expectations people had built up from the first song. He takes down the videos and tries to move on from the whole thing, but as we know, nothing can truly be deleted from the internet. The girl sits next to him on the train and pops a headphone in his ear. His song is playing. She realized both songs are about when he sketched her in middle school art class, and the last words of the manga are her basically saying “bro, you posted cringe” as the poor guy hides his face in his book-bag.
My Thoughts: Wow, Oto Toda has replicated Fujimoto’s art style damn near perfectly! I’m really impressed at how well he captured the mood of the characters here. I’m definitely gonna look into more of his solo work after reading this. As for the story, what I took away from it is that a person’s work can be interpreted in many different ways, oftentimes in ways that weren’t intended. When a piece of art is released into the world, it no longer belongs to you alone but to everyone who observes it, and the way it is interpreted will be influenced by the masses.
These interpretations become far more varied and prominent when spread through the internet, where they tend to swell far beyond the original scope of the work, creating untenable expectations for future projects and setting the stage for widespread disappointment. You can almost hear Fujimoto asking readers to temper their expectations, set aside their theories and go into the upcoming part 2 of Chainsaw Man with an open mind. Let’s simply kick back and listen to the words Fujimoto wrote, celebrating the bright, burning spirit of creation that resides within.
RuriDragon
Story & Art by Masaoki Shindo
Chapter 4
Synopsis: After a week away from school, Ruri has fallen behind on her schoolwork. Yuka is already swamped with work of her own, but she suggests reaching out to Kashiro, a sunny ball of energy with two brightly dyed, colorful pigtails who sits right across from her. Ruri doesn’t get along well with high energy types, so Yuka gives her last week’s notes out of sympathy. The notes aren’t helping at all and Ruri feels completely lost. Kashiro notices her grumbling at her desk and offers to tutor her, but Ruri shyly turns down the offer and tries to do it on her own. Watching Ruri basically melt into a puddle at her desk, Kashiro teasingly insists that it’s okay for Ruri to take help from her.
She scoots her desk over and guides her through the notes, getting Ruri all caught up. Ruri has warmed up to Kashiro a bit, admittedly judging her by first impressions and avoiding her. Getting to know her reveals that Kashiro is actually a really kindhearted person who is eager to make that weird social wall fall away that people have towards strangers. She would rather be friendly than have enemies, and she wants to gently encourage Ruri to peek over that wall a bit. She invites Ruri to go to Starbucks after school with a few of the girls in class, and despite being intimidated by the thought, she builds up the courage to go and ends up having a great time.
My Thoughts: This series is so cute I could die! The nervousness about going to Starbucks is painfully relatable. Hell, this roundup is being written in a Starbucks and I’m still getting used to the anxiety it brings. It’s difficult to fully articulate, but something about this manga totally sets it apart from other series set in a school. I think what’s grabbed me the most is the extremely tender and personable dialogue that is so full of charm. These lively characters bring such an uplifting aura to what would otherwise be a pretty rote setting.
I also noticed that Kashiro has a little hairpin that looks extremely dragon-like. Maybe Kashiro knows more about dragons than she is letting on, which would explain her tenderness towards Ruri. I’m so glad this series has been sticking to its guns with the slice-of-life elements, as these chapters have been a beacon of chillness and comfort that I think the magazine needs more of, personally.
Aliens Area
Story & Art by Fusai Naba
Chapter 5
Synopsis: Team 7 has found a childlike alien while searching a warehouse for alien life, and while it seems harmless, it is having trouble communicating with them. Sharaku gives it a quarter-sized vocal translator, but the group is swiftly interrupted by Nyame, an octopus-like alien who reveals that he is the bodyguard of the child, a princess named Paiun. The duo have fled from their home planet but are surely being searched for, likely by the galaxy’s most skilled assassin: Ninotachi! Team 7 decide to protect the princess, and are almost immediately ambushed by a figure with a sword that Sharaku has noticed!
The sword-wielder Ninotachi is incredibly agile, keeping up with Sharaku’s antigravity and nearly chopping him in two! He is impressed that Sharaku was able to dodge the attack, as only one in 100 can supposedly pull that off. With the click of a button on his wrist, Ninotachi activates and ability of his own: an energy shield! This ability has a striking resemblance to the equipment Team 7 uses… Sharaku reveals that there’s more to teach about how their equipment works, and that Tatsumi should watch and learn!
My Thoughts: This chapter is what I’ve been waiting for! The story has been set on a greater trajectory now, with the protection of Princess Paiun being the new prime directive for Team 7. We also met Ninotachi in this chapter, who has shown us that other aliens exist out there with equal (and possibly greater) abilities than Team 7, and that being a member of the force won’t be a walk in the park. This is our first time seeing an alien with a weapon, and from what I’ve gathered, Foreign Affairs 5’s equipment is based on advanced alien technologies. Ninotachi possesses what I can only describe as a lightsaber that can appear and disappear at will, accompanied by an energy shield he uses when need be.
Y’all know me. I love that little gremlin princess! Sign me up for the Paiun Protection Squad! She’s clearly a very important, seemingly high-value target and I wonder if Ninotachi is the only one who is after her. Ninotachi has such a distinct character design! Needless to say, the action panels he was in were outstanding and so energetic. We’ve finally encountered a foe that is giving Sharaku a challenge, and I get the feeling Sharaku has something up his sleeve that he hasn’t shown yet! Overall, another great chapter and my personal favorite so far. I could feel the inspiration from sci-fi media of years past, but this hasn’t held back the story from coming into its own. I hope it only continues to set itself apart in the coming weeks and months.
If any of the series mentioned in this post caught your interest, Shonen Jump offers the first and last 3 chapters of each series on their website, completely free of charge.
Stay tuned here at the Jo's Tomorrow blog for future manga roundups and all things Shonen Jump; Happy Reading!
