Manga Review: Shounen Jump Weekly 2025 by various creators.
I haven’t been reading Shounen Jump as much this year, busy with other things, but it is the thirteenth anniversary of my blog, so let’s take a look at what I’ve been covering the longest. One Piece is still running, though this looks to be maybe the penultimate arc, as our pirates deal with the island of giants, which is Viking/Norse mythology-inspired. Sakamoto Days recently had its fifth anniversary, and the retired hitman is still going strong. And there’s a few other series doing just fine.
Now let’s look at some of the newer series!
“Jujutsu Kaisen Modulo” by Gege Akutami and Yuji Iwasaki is a sequel to the popular Jujutsu Kaisen series and as such has some spoilers about how that story ended. Time has passed, and it’s now the 2090s. Two of the jujutsu sorcerers are brother and sister, Tsurugi and Yuka. They don’t always agree, but they have a strong bond. But their own family drama takes a bit of a back seat when the aliens arrive.
The Simurians claim to be refugees from their home planet and want to settle down on Earth. But they possess strange powers that are like but not quite the same as jujutsu sorcery and cursed spirits. One of their number, Maru, is assigned to work with the Earth kids to find out if it’s possible to coexist. This is made more difficult by Maru’s strained relationship with his own brother, Cross, and cultural clashes between alien and human. And are the Simurians telling the truth about why they had to go into space?
There’s mention of a couple of people from the first series still being around, but they’re mostly offstage at this point.
“Harukaze Mound” story by Togo Goto, art by Kento Matsuura, is a baseball series about twin brothers who want to become pitchers together. But first they must learn to stand apart.
“Gonron Egg” by Shuhei Tanazaki is set in a world where humanity has been invaded and mostly conquered by monstrous beings known as Drakarch. Most of the Drakarch are fond of enslaving, torturing and eating their human subjects. But one Drakarch, Ohma, the son of their former ruler, wants to restore peace between humans and Drakarch. Too bad he’s still in egg form! So he must ally himself with rebellious teenager Gonron to fight the more evil Drakarch, and they’re currently looking for Gonron’s missing sister Iris.
Some nifty character designs here, though Ohma looks awfully familiar.
“Hero Girl and Demon Lord Call It Quits” by Matsuri Hatsubina is set in roughly modern Tokyo. The current Demon Lord and Hero decide that fighting each other is pointless, especially since the Hero would rather be attending high school and making friends. So they call a truce and move in together. It’s kind of cute, and the Demon Lord is basically a cool uncle to the Hero at this point, but I’m not sure it can keep up interest with this very laid back vibe.
“Otr of the Flame” by Yuki Kawaguchi is set in a Viking-esque civilization fantasy world where humans are being driven into extinction by ice demons. Our young hero Otr bonds with a flame spirit, which makes him possibly the Chosen One who will defeat the endless winter.
“Someone Hertz” by Ei Yamano is about two high school students, Mimei Fukunori and Kurage Mizuo, who bond over trying to get their jokes read on a late night radio show. This one is tough. I like the kids and their blooming relationship, but 95% of the jokes rely on Japanese wordplay and references that simply do not work in English. So the comedy part of this romantic comedy is just not happening for me, even if the romance is nice.
“The Mage Next Door” by Hideaki Nabe has a laid-back mage named Osoegawa sent to modern Japan to capture bad mages that have been going to the human world to use their spells for crime and mischief. Unlike most mages who specialize in one sort of spell and usually a powerful one, Osoegawa knows a lot of little spells that are mostly meant to make life convenient, but have combat or other utility as well. He’s opened up a problem-solving agency in a small city to help get information on problem mages.
The humor in this one works decently, as does Osoegawa’s gift for getting creative with his less powerful but varied spells.
Plus there’s all sorts of other backlog manga to read on the site!
This is, despite a price hike, still one of the best bargains for reading manga in English on the internet.
I am getting closer to retirement age, and I don’t know how long I’ll be able to afford this blog without resorting to advertisements. In the meantime, if you’d like to give me more material to review or bless me with small luxuries, here’s my Amazon wishlist! Amazon.com
Here’s to another year of fun stuff!
