#Shinohara Kenta

[hak]

sket dance schedule calendar sticker set, ©shinohara kenta/shueisha.

[saotome-michi]

I can’t believe this video exists. It’s a discussion between not two, not three, but FOUR mangakas who’ve had works serialized in Weekly Shounen Jump, as well as in Jump SQ and Jump+; Shinohara Kenta (Sket Dance, Kanata no Astra, Witch Watch), Asou Shuuichi (Boku no Watashi no Yuusha Gaku, Saiki Kusuo no Ψ-nan), Aimoto Shou (Hokenshitsu no Shinigami, Kemono Jihen), and Ooishi Kouji (Inumarudashi, Tomatoypoo no Lycopene).

It is SO rare for something like this to be recorded on video and uploaded on Youtube. Ooishi, who seems to be the organizer, mentions in the beginning that they’re doing this without the editorial department’s permission. They don’t talk about anything scandalous (there’s even one part where they start talking about the Jump Survey results and get a bunch of interference and they joke that it’s the editors jamming their feed), but also this video is part 2/3, it’s been a year since and part 3 still hasn’t been uploaded, which makes me wonder if the editors found out and forbid him from continuing this... (though in that case, this video should’ve been deleted)

Some funny things in the video:

Asou is married to an idol. Meanwhile, Shinohara Kenta’s wife and Yabuki Kentarou’s (the mangaka of Black Cat and the artist of To Love-Ru) wife are sisters?! Making them brother-in-laws

Around 10 years ago, Ooishi, Asou, and Aimoto went to a coffee shop. Since Ooishi was the senpai of the group, he paid the bill, which somehow totaled to more than 10,000 yen (about $100) despite them only having consumed coffee. Now that both Asou and Aimoto have become successful, Asou with Saiki K. and Aimoto with Kemono Jihen, Ooishi jokes that they should pay him back. Shinohara asks how did the bill get so expensive. Aimoto replies that it really was just regular coffee, no more than 500 yen per cup ($5), but that she by herself had drank around 8000 yen ($80) worth of coffee which like... girl... 0-0 that’s around 16 cups

From 2009 - 2010, all four of them had serializations in Weekly Shounen Jump. Shinohara mentions that he doesn’t really have memories from the time he was working on Sket Dance (because he was in a “strange” frame of mind, probably meaning he was so focused on making sure Sket Dance wasn’t canceled that he blocked out everything else)

Aimoto asks if they remember the survey results. Shinohara says that he remembers the results for his own manga, but not others. Aimoto says the same. Ooishi then asks them what’s the best survey ranking they ever got. Shinohara asks if they’re allowed to reveal that, which then leads to everyone wondering if they can. Ooishi says that since they’re talking about really old results it should be fine. Aimoto starts talking about it, but then there’s so much interference you can’t tell what she’s saying, causing Ooishi to joke that the editors are jamming their feed. Everyone laughs and decides to change the subject.

Asou asks if they read comments from readers. Shinohara and Ooishi say that they do. Shinohara says that for a mystery story like Kanata no Astra, he would get nervous before reading the comments, because he was always afraid that someone would figure out the mystery and reveal it to everyone else. Asou says that for gag mangas, a lot of the comments were tsukkomi rebuttals to the jokes.

Ooishi asks about everyone’s method on choosing character names, as he feels this is something he’s bad at. Aimoto says that recently she was told, in order for her characters’ names to be easily searchable on the internet, she shouldn’t pick out names that are commonly used. Asou remarks that that’s how he chose his pen name, by finding something that wasn’t already used on the internet.

On that note, while Asou Shuuichi and Aimoto Shou are both pen names, Shinohara Kenta and Ooishi Kouji use their real names, something that they both regret now. They remark that their generation of Jump mangaka didn’t really use pen names. Shinohara says that whenever he gets a package delivered from Shueisha, he gets worried that the delivery person would find out his identity and address, so now he has a “pen name” just for package delivery. Ooishi says that he uses a different name for haircuts and food delivery, and that when the hairstylist asks about his occupation, he just says that he works at home remotely.

All four remark that signing stuff for fans is hard, because they can’t just write their names they also have to draw something, and they feel a lot of pressure to make sure that drawing is good for the fan. Shinohara comments that although the requests make him very happy, he also gets worried because he’s slow at drawing. Whenever he watches videos of Kubo-sensei drawing (Kubo as in Kubo Tite, the mangaka of Bleach), he’s in awe because he produces such wonderful drawings so quickly and without sketching a rough draft or any guidelines.

Ooishi asks them when did they decide on their autograph, recounting that Hamada Kousuke (mangaka of Hanebado!) already had his autograph ready when working as an assistant at 19 years old. Shinohara says that he only decided on his after Sket Dance got serialized. Ooishi comments that he hesitated thinking about his autograph because there was always the possibility that his manga wouldn’t succeed, which Shinohara readily agrees with, stating that with Jump, the risk of cancellation always loomed overhead.

Ooishi asks when did they decide to be a mangaka. Asou and Ooishi decided around the age of 20. (Aimoto does not state exactly when, but given that she debuted at 19, probably at least a year before then.) Shinohara is the outlier who decided at 28/9, after quitting his job at a video game company. He submitted works for the Jump 12 Outstanding Rookie Manga Award and did not win, but he was a finalist. After that he debuted in Akamaru Jump with “Red Panda Puppet Show”, which Asou says he found really entertaining. Aimoto was also writing for Akamaru at around the same time, her debut work “Hanasaka Hime”, which Shinohara says he remembers very well, because the art was so good. Ooishi says that she was probably the youngest person to have debuted, but Aimoto says that she thinks Yabuki (Black Cat and To Love-ru Mangaka) was the youngest, because he debuted at the age of 18. Shinohara laughs and remarks that he must be the oldest and Yabuki the youngest. They have a funny relationship where Yabuki is his senpai even though he’s the “younger brother” (remember, they’re brother-in-laws lol) 

Shinohara mentions that when he visits his wife’s family home for the new year, Yabuki is also there. Ooishi jokes, presenting a To Love-Ru scenario where Yabuki’s in the bath and Shinohara enters the room. Shinohara finishes the joke saying, “I slide on a bar of soap and then, ossan on ossan, we bash our crotches together.”

[oratokyosaigunda]

Weekly Shonen Jump cover 2024年10号 issue

[hatsumishinogu]

Witch Watch Vol.19

[archivitos]

ウィッチウォッチ

WITCH WATCH

Volumes 1-6 (pt. 2)

[bookworms-and-bluestockings]

We've been slowly working to revive our blog, so here's our first post in a while! Autumn book recommendations from several of our members! Enjoy!

[demifiendrsa]

Witch Watch chapter 167 color pages

[rudycomics]

Rudy Recs: Witch Watch (and its bittersweet love story)

I've written in the past before about some of the things I've been reading in shonen jump, You and I are Polar Opposites as an example, and the current generation of manga in their lineup right now has some interesting stuff going on. Somehow, Witch Watch is not one of the manga I hear other people talking about as often as the others and I think that's a real shame!

Kenta Shinohara has 2 award winning manga under his belt and even though his concepts don't have this really intense fantastical hook and his art isn't clamoring for attention in the ways things like Chainsaw Man or Dandadan do, I think Witch Watch has incredible range. It's part romance, part slapstick comedy/gag manga, and part shonen battle manga all together, bouncing back and forth between these different styles each chapter.

I always felt like it was just really solidly put together and consistently entertaining (except for when the story focuses on some side characters writing fan doujinshi which bores me to DEATH), but the thing that made me feel like I needed to write about it was the way the series handles the romance between the two main characters, Nico, the witch given a prophesized control over every type of magic, and Morihito, her childhood friend and chosen protector because he happens to be one of the last Ogres in the world.

I'm going to be talking spoilers for things that happened in recent chapters, so be warned!

I will put a warning when I get to it, but I like writing about these things because I personally think getting someone to gush about specific instances of well executed craft gets me more interested in checking out new things than anything else.

The basic setup to their romance is that Nico has a crush on Morihito (which she calls Moi and I'll use this nickname for convenience) and she begins living with him as her mother received a prophecy that some evil force will try to use Nico and her unnatural powers for evil purposes that will ultimately bring her harm in the process. Moi is chosen to be Nico's familiar to protect her from whatever this vague danger may end up being, but we see their personalities clash right away. She's very aware of him and he seems very stone-walled and closed off, despite their being some sort of connection between them from childhood.

The two get into a lot of wacky situations as Nico attends school and continuously uses her powers to try to help classmates with their personal troubles and they make some new friends along the way with their own special powers. The household of just the two of them grows into a house of 4 boys and Nico, with two other girls making frequent appearances. We learn about all these characters and their quirks and see how they are all invested in helping Nico try to form a relationship with Moi. It's not until a good handful of chapters later that we learn that in typical Nico fashion, she had somehow ended up putting a curse on Moi when they were children that locked Moi into being "best friends forever" with Nico, essentially kneecapping any romantic growth from sprouting from Moi.

It's not that important to what I wanted to talk about, but I do think this is such a fun story device because it completely fits in line with everything we've learned about Nico and what every wacky situation stems from in this series: Nico somehow uses her magic in ways that challenge the intuitive way the powers would seem to work and creating unintended effects on top of what the power is supposed to do. Nico's bond with Moi ever since they were children has also become the reason that nothing will ever happen between them.

EXCEPT... All of their new friends have sussed the situation out and form a plan to break through the curse and free Moi to accept the feelings that are actually blocked off inside his heart that they all know are there. They even have this fun visual metaphor of a heart with a valve leaking romantic feelings that gets repeated all through this arc.

They try some things to get Moi to over flow with feelings faster than the curse can repress them which is fun but ultimately fruitless, only for Moi to accidentally being able to listen in to Nico tell everyone that she loves him because of all his flaws that are center to his insecurities that make him close up. It's a beautiful moment that caps it off with using that visual metaphor again to really push emotion to the reader and I thought this was so effective!

From here on, I think what I want to talk about is spoilery enough that I should put a marker here for people that don't want to see anymore before reading:

**SPOILER WARNING!!**

The two both have feelings for each other at this point and Moi wants to confess to Nico now, but tragedy strikes as the big bad makes his move to attack Nico and friends which ends up costing Moi his life as he gets shot in the chest with a gun. Nico uses her powers to heal him at the cost of something of her own and what she ends up giving up is her time, which includes her memories, and turns back into a 5 year old.

The group find out that Nico can be restored to her natural state by collecting these magic butterflies that escaped from her body during her spell, and here is where I think this series does something that really grabbed me.

I read a LOT of manga. Like, scouring for new stuff to read every day. Comics are my primary source of entertainment and I read a LOT of romance stories. One of the things that I feel like authors have to consider when writing compelling romance is how to get readers to connect with characters enough to also want to see those characters get into a relationship. In general, I think a lot of this connection buildup happens AFTER characters get together and you have to just get accept the weak initial romantic beginning (like Galaxy Next Door for example), OR the story spends its whole lifetime creating their bonds slowly and ends right as they get together which annoys me, personally (hoping this one doesn't do that, but we will have to see).

What I think Witch Watch does here is so striking and unique; Nico and the gang put in so much effort in between their escapades to get these two characters together so that they can be happy. Right when things lock into place, it all comes to a halt and resets, but what doesn't get reset is the readers' understanding and connections to these characters. We're already invested in Nico and Moi and we get a second chance to see these characters form a loving connection in a really unique way that feels unpredictable as Nico slowly regains her age and memories back. It's got a bittersweet tone to it as Moi doesn't get to express his love in the way that he wants to, but we get to see such a complex form of love develop as he takes the role of a caretaker for little Nico. Love is more than romance or attraction and getting a chance to put that trope away for a bit to do something different is so refreshing. It really builds out something so much more complete and more befitting of a seinen maybe, rather than a shonen with fight scenes and mythical characters.

This current arc is the beginning of part 2 of Witch Watch, with the big bad leaving the group alone because Nico is useless to him as a child with no control over magic. We know this peace will come to an end when Nico is restored to her proper age, but we get to see the characters all get up to their silly antics again with child Nico in the mix now. It's a really cool shakeup that adds new life to the slapstick comedy bits that make up most of the story, putting the action in the back seat again for now. This is the most recent chapter at the time of me writing this (chapter 133), and seeing Moi's perspective as the point of view in contrast to Nico's experiences so far is really gripping to me. This final page of the chapter is what did it for me:

It hurts, but it's love. The pain is temporary, all for the goal of being together when it's all over, with a connection deeper than anything that they would have formed otherwise.

Please go give Witch Watch a read! It's really fun!!

[comradeyurika]

Wow, what an ending to this arc. I never expected a mostly episodic comedy to go this far. The two page spread of Nico offering up whatever it takes to save Morihito is such a beautiful piece, and then the despair at the end as we learn what exactly she has given up.

This is still Nemu's estimation rather than knowing the full details, but it sure seems likely. If Nico really has given up her memories of everyone in order to save Morihito that's going to be really rough, and I can imagine the coming chapters being about trying to get those memories back for her, although who knows what that process will look like.

Witch Watch has really cemented its place as one of the best manga in Jump right now, and it seems like Shinohara may even surpass himself and go beyond Sket Dance

[redsnerdden]

Witch Watch Summons A New TV Anime, Set To Premiere In April 2025

[readtilyoudie]

WITCH WATCH VOLUME 2

[hak]

sket dance schedule calendar sticker set, ©shinohara kenta/shueisha.

[saiyef]

I love how they were just having this high-octane fight only to completely stop just to do a boke and tsukkomi bit over Morihito flubbing one of his new techniques. And Ran is the final boss of the series and has had 0 comic relief bits or gags before this point. Freaking love Kenta Shinohara’s humour.

[oratokyosaigunda]

Witch Watch series banner

[hatsumishinogu]

Witch Watch Vol.11

[archivitos]

ウィッチウォッチ

WITCH WATCH

Volumes 7-12 (pt. 1)