#kill blue | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

tokiro07 · 3 months ago

Text

Toki Reads Shonen Jump 2024, Issue #52

HxH: Morena's card game begins, and she exposits that she was conceived in a state-sanctioned non-consensual orgy; Borksen learns that thanks to Nen restrictions, she actually does have actually does have an escape route. The implications of Morena's backstory are certainly staggering, but also lost on me

Yozakura: Taiyo has an "I know you're in there" fight with himself, ending with him expelling Asa by shooting himself in the heart. Taiyo's willingness to damage his own body to make it uninhabitable to Asa doesn't seem ideal, but definitely preferable to being possessed

Undead Unluck: Soul tries to force Andy and Victor's souls back together, but Rip cuts them apart permanently with Unrepair. This is Rip's capstone, where he finally uses Unrepair for someone else's happiness instead of ruining his own with it

Roboco: Roboco writes more shameless ripoff manga, but finally learns that her own original material is a lot better. I have no faith that this lesson will stick

Sakamoto: Atari's luck has literally run out; she reveals to Tenkyu that his friendship w/ Uzuki is irreparable; Shin resolves to kill Tenkyu, even if it means severing ties with Sakamoto. Both Tenkyu and Shin are losing their friends because they're killing in their name against their wishes; Atari's an idiot for using such an obscene amount of luck last chapter just to fire ONE bullet

EluSam: Tokiyuki and realKojiro gush over Kojiro as he fights Nagao; the scene cuts away to Mima getting into architecture and interior design. This seems to have an affect on enemy morale, but I feel like it's not worth ignoring what seems to be Kojiro's most important fight

Witch Watch: The flashback gang discusses the legacy of Familiars and their prejudice towards humanity; Kuon warms up to the team, and Taiga raises more death flags. The idea of magic fading away as a sign of peaceful times is a topic I've been thinking about a lot lately because I've been revisiting Medaka Box; this may inform a future essay

Blue Box: Taiki endears himself to Chinatsu's dad with his earnest, if a bit overbearing, nature. I'm glad we're not drawing out the tension too much, it makes the dad more relatable

Akane: Despite Miroku's refusal to let them perform, Shiguma and Issho learn enough rakugo for Kiroku to give them a slot; Miroku offers to grant Kiroku his name and rank if he will use it to expel the pair. This is clearly the event that led to the founding of the Arakawa School, but even with a foregone conclusion, it's a nailbiter

Kill Blue: Juzo and Shin use assassin techniques to advertise the bakery; Yoichiro wagers his staff's bonuses to whichever club can beat their challenges. Clearly he's plotting something, but I can't quite see yet how this furthers his plans

Nue: Rido spontaneously achieves his Bankai Spirit Armor and promptly passes out. It looks cool, but I'm already so unclear on this power system's rules that such an upgrade only serves to confuse me further

Kagurabachi: In a side story, we revisit everyone's favorite guy, Sojo, trying desperately to enjoy a bath despite his routine being ruined at every turn. Looking back, I'm sad that Sojo died; I hope he continues to haunt the narrative

Chojo: Keinain's new assistant, Makami, finds everything about the Chinjuku station to be lewd; this is not because she's a prude, but an extremely repressed pervert. Would

Astro Royale: Himuro reveals he became a cop to stop the Yotsurugi family from interfering with his dad's business, but only found out later that they were supporting him through hard times; the damage he caused this business relationship resulted in his father's suicide; he eats the Daybreak Ore and becomes a mutated mass. Himuro's motivations now reflect Kinpa's, but just like he hurt his dad by targeting the Yotsurugi's, his rage is misdirected and self-destructive

Kiyoshi: Asuta's time runs out and he gets away, cementing the sacrifices made to summon him; as he leaves, he calls Kiyoshi his soulmate in a perverse twist on Kiyoshi's own desire for friendship. Axe-deniers when the lead fails and lets 100 innocent people die - 🎉🍾🥳🎊🥂; throw the yaoi girlies in there too since there's about to be a huge boost in sales

Hima-Ten: Tenichi takes up the rear on the class hike; Himari fakes an injury to keep him company. Very cute, but how the hell does this moron not realize she's in love???

Ichi: Just before the contest begins, Ichi sees a mysterious figure; the Kindake Magik vows to kill everyone who doesn't worship his mushrooms, then escapes into his mushroom forest. So much for not being a human-hater; Togeice's poor sense of direction will certainly make this challenge much harder on her

Shinobi: Yodaka sabotages Hachikuma's strings and turns them against him. Though heavy-handed, Yodaka straightening and braiding Hachikuma's discarded, tangled strings as a symbol of the value of putting effort into maintaining relationships is sweet

Hakutaku: The mechanics of the AR game are explained, but Hikuma sleeps through people actually enjoying it. Maybe it's cus I don't like mobile games, but I do not see the appeal of this game, which is probably the most damning indictment of a game design manga

Syd Craft: Elio is revealed to be Levie Olyn, Syd's favorite romance author, who became his assistant after he cleared her name in a case; she writes her books to vent her DEFINITELY NOT ROMANTIC feelings for Syd. That's a great dynamic, I love girls who pine, I'm super endeared to this idiot

My top 3 manga for the week are:

Undead Unluck, unsurprisingly, for its fantastic color page, multiple great spreads, and at least two of what will undoubtedly become the most iconic moments in the entire series; congrats on netting the final cover of the year!

Syd Craft for continuing to expand upon its concept in a way that really appeals to me; let it be known I never said Tsutsui was a bad author, I just said he was a coward

Kiyoshi for dodging the axe, establishing an interesting dynamic between Kiyoshi and Asuta, and the bravery to leave it on such a bleak cliffhanger

Runners up include Astro Royale and Shinobi Undercover, both for giving me some interesting symbolism to chew on, as well as Hima-Ten and Chojo for women in denial that fall short of Elio

Edit: I want to correct something I said last week - it does not seem like Bug Ego is joining Weekly Jump after all, I think someone I follow on twitter either got a bad tip or I misunderstood what they said. Bug Ego was added to the Shonen Jump app, not Shonen Jump itself. Apologies for any confusion!

27 notes · View notes

tokiro07 · 16 days ago

Text

Toki Reads Shonen Jump 2025, Issue #11

One Piece: While searching for the key to Loki's chains, the crew is approached by Mr. Ya, Ripley's husband, who leads them to the hidden chamber where the key is stored; he is revealed to in fact be Scopper Gaban, Gold Roger's Left Hand, and challenges Luffy to take the key from him. Nice to finally know who that guy we saw hanging out with Crocus that one time was; I really dig Gaban's aged design, and I'm glad that his personality is so distinct from other members of Roger's generation

Roboco: Fujisawa encourages Roboco to start an art gallery, which becomes such an unprecedented success that Roboco tries to sell sculptures of her knees at a huge markup; predictably, this bankrupts her. The only thing I could think while reading this chapter - "Bullshit...bullshit!...derivative..."

Sakamoto: Shin confronts Ando and demands to know why he was abandoned; Ando reveals that he had actually helped Shin escape from the JAA orphanage that was raising him into an assassin, an action that would put a target on his back; while Ando may or may not have done this out of love for his son, the resulting turmoil in his life has caused him to resent Shin; Sakamoto defeats Ikari and arrives just in time to save Shin from Ando. Fans have long theorized that Shin was in Al-Kamar, and this practically confirms it; the nuance of Ando's relationship with Shin is utterly fascinating, and I hope to get more insight before Ando dies

EluSam: Tadayoshi and Moronao's conflict reaches a boiling point, and Takauji backs Tadayoshi into a corner that forces him to either concede to Moronao or commit suicide; the horny trio convince themselves that what they're planning to do to Tokiyuki is completely wholesome and totally not rape, only to find that Tokiyuki was actually waiting for them to arrive so he could discuss their future together. How the hell does Matsui expect me to get invested in this historical drama when all I care about is whether or not he's going to give me canon polyamory???

Witch Watch: Kukumi pens her first original work to submit to Shonen Jaguar with Yuri as her chaperone, but both Yuri and the editor are literally floored by how lewd Kukumi draws women; her one-shot is too lewd for Jaguar, so she literally takes a page out of To Love Ru and censors the bits with smoke. As funny as the idea that a fujoshi can only draw women if they're naked is, I can't help but feel like this is a dig at Yuuna and the Haunted Hot Spring moreso than To Love Ru

Blue Box: Chinatsu manages to finally beat Yumeka, securing her team's spot in the Winter Cup; Yumeka slinks off to cry on her own, blaming her hiatus for ruining her team's chances at Nationals and believing she doesn't have the right to cry in front of them, but Chinatsu comes to comfort her; Chinatsu's dad agrees to let her continue living with the Inomata family. Yumeka's character has been one of the biggest draws for me in this series lately, so I'm a little worried that now that it's over I won't be as invested, but we'll have to see; also, the speech bubbles weren't pointing to anyone a lot of the time, so I was VERY confused who was talking in this chapter

Akane: At the venue for an upcoming performance, Rien talks smack about Akane as petty revenge for when she humiliated him early in her career; a jet-lagged Akane is picked up by Taison, a Zenza under one of Akane's brothers (I think it's Kyoji?), who's the only one of the Zenza present to ignore Rien's tall tales. I completely forgot who Rien was, I hate this guy, can't wait for Akane to kill him

Kill Blue: Juzo's medicine wears off and he returns to his child body, though through sheer grit he's still able to overpower Oka; just as he prepares to shoot him, though, he has a vision of all of his school friends and realizes that by taking a life now, he would be officially going back to being a hitman and wouldn't be able to continue on as a normal middle schooler with everyone else; however, Noren appears in time to see him holding the gun, making the situation exponentially worse. As much as I love Juzo's dilemma, the fact that his determination to protect Noren is being directly compared to how he once saved his ex-wife from danger isn't helping him beat The Allegations

Nue: We learn that Yoshichi resents Gakuro so strongly because he was ostracized for being Impure and had to prove himself to rise through the ranks while Gakuro was simply appointed Captain out of nowhere; after passing out from his wounds, Gakuro wakes up receiving a lap pillow from a girl calling herself Kyokotsu, the name of Shiroha's contracted Spirit; Gashadokuro appears to raid the Fujino Family compound. Gakuro tricking Yoshichi into self-destructing by trying to drag a shadow clone down with him as he jumped off the bridge was honestly kinda sick, and leaves me with an overall good impression for an otherwise extremely messy fight; Girl!Kyokotsu is...interesting, but I have no idea what to make of her or the apparent cloning facility that she oversees, I wonder if actual fans were able to glean anything useful from this introduction

Kagurabachi: While debating whether or not she should retain her memories of her father or go back to her normal life, Iori witnesses Chihiro massacring a slew of assassins, finalizing her decision to forget Samura again; Hiruhiko manages to overcome the massive skill difference between him and all of the hotel staff as swordsmen and appears before Chihiro. As a reader, I naturally thought the peephole scene was sick as all hell, but unfortunately that meant it didn't immediately click for me that it was supposed to be horrifying and show the tragedy of Chihiro's life path

Chojo: Ten years after his original serialization, Samon the Summoner appears in Chinjuku to help bring people to ruin by indulging their sinful desires; after Samon refuses to grant the desire of a child who wants to stop people who are accosting animals in a local park, Chojo and Ippongi find him actually doing so in secret so as not to harm his bad reputation; Nebiros appears and destroys his business, leaving Samon as the one in ruin for Teshigawara to find and annoy with her kindness. I didn't realize how much I missed Samon and co. until this moment, that series was so good, and every cameo made me smile so much; I hope they get more crossovers, but it seems unlikely

Astro Royale: Two more of the Yotsurugi brothers, Taira and Satsuki, fight in the next round and nearly get some audience members killed, prompting Hibaru to intervene; in a flashback, Kongo suggests that Hibaru and Taira would be great friends, though now they are bitter enemies. Either Kongo's a terrible judge of character, or that's foreshadowing a Heel-Face Turn on Taira's part

Kiyoshi: After a brief rundown of the Thirteen Club's members, Tsurugi takes the initiative by attacking the whole group at once. We got a couple good gags from the Thirteen Club and a cool panel from Tsurugi, here's hoping we get to see more

Hima-Ten: It's parent-teacher conference day, and we're introduced to both Honoka and Himari's mothers; Himari's mother approves of Tenichi because he's been looking out for Himari's nutrition, and Honoka's mother offers Tenichi a cleaning gig since her wrist is sprained. Looks like we're about to get a Honoka mini-arc, hopefully Himari doesn't find some ludicrous way to steal attention from her again

Ichi: Concerned for Ichi's prophesized death, Desscaras takes a trip to the bar for a stiff drink, only to be consoled by Togeice, who in turn compares Ichi to Desscaras' deceased brother, Libro; later, Desscaras sits down for a chat with Ichi to ask how he really feels about the prophecy; when Ichi says he's the type to live in the present rather than worry about the future, Desscaras comes right out and says how she feels - she wants him to live as a member of her family. Between Desscaras' backstory, her and Togeice having gay little nicknames for each other, and Desscaras opening up so readily to Ichi about how his attitude hurts her, there is a LOT to unpack in my upcoming review!

Shinobi: Suzume tries to play wingman for Yodaka and Aoi both through a small prank and by encouraging him to get her a birthday gift; Hachikuma reveals where the Fugitive Ninja's base is, and the team goes to infiltrate, but Yodaka's mind is preoccupied with the gift. Glad to see Suzume back in pants, and her annoying attitude makes for some fun dynamics with the team; while the tension is supposed to come from Yodaka being distracted during the mission, I'm willing to bet that the real turn is going to be when he gives Aoi the present and learns that she didn't mention her birthday because it's a sore subject

Syd Craft: Syd visits his parents to learn more about Zero Craft, but finds that Lulu has somehow become a maid for the house; the two get trapped in a room and need to solve a Twister-based puzzle to both escape and unlock a treasure; Lulu discovers Syd's weakness to women and resolves to seduce him...if only she knew how. I'm glad Lulu's going to be proactive in flirting with Sid, that dynamic is sorely needed from this cast; though the Crafts don't recognize the name Zero, I'm so sure one of the childhood photos from the treasure chest has a hidden clue to their identity, like perhaps the one where Syd is seen crying with a baby

Embers: While trying to return a wallet, Haitani's intensity gets his intentions mistaken for harassment, and he ends up in a confrontation with Bugai, the soccer team's captain; despite Haitani's lack of experience, he manages to force a draw with his exceptional defense, earning Bugai's respect; Haitani bumps into Takami, learning that his rival is now his teammate. Just cus it's predictable don't make it bad - I'm really excited to see how Haitani and Takami's dynamic shapes up from here; I'm not terribly interested in Bugai yet since his interaction was pretty similar to Takami's, but we only just started and I'm sure he'll win me over eventually

Star of Beethoven: After suffering a traumatic loss in a competition, piano prodigy Ichiro Yaso gives up music and drifts through his youth for two years; one day, a resurrected Ludwig van Beethoven spontaneously appears before him; while showing Beethoven a modern piano, Yaso runs into Kahoin, an old acquaintance, who forces him to play again; when Yaso is reluctant, Beethoven accompanies him, and they perform a perfect rendition of Beethoven's Fifth; Beethoven concludes that cosmic forces have brought the two of them together to create a new masterwork, and Beethoven labels Yaso as his new disciple. Not quite what I expected from the author of Life Liar From Hell, but I definitely enjoyed it! Beethoven's design is ghastly and intense, and Yaso's struggle with his perceived lack of talent makes him an interesting enough protagonist for now; I'm not big on the pseudo-isekai premise, but it's an interesting spin on the Hikaru no Go formula to have the mentor be a physical entity rather than just a spirit; my favorite bit though was Beethoven's reaction to being in the future - the modern piano, his legacy, and the persistent power of music as an artform; really looking forward to how this one develops!

Damn, dude, I wasn't able to sum up anything quickly this week, huh? No wonder it took me longer than usual

I'm gonna call this the Week of Tough Conversations, as between Desscaras asking Ichi not to die, Chinatsu comforting Yumeka after defeating her, Tokiyuki giving polyamory serious consideration, Iori deciding to forget her father again so she won't have to live in a blood-soaked world of vengeance, and Juzo needing to explain to Noren why he's about to shoot the principal, there were certainly a lot to be had. That said, the Week of Ghosts from the Past would be pretty apt too between Gaban and Beethoven, wouldn't it?

This Week's Top 3:

Ichi the Witch for delving into Desscaras's vulnerabilities in contrast to a few weeks ago when we saw her strengths

Star of Beethoven for how shockingly endearing I found Beethoven as a character and how much I love his design

Super Psychic Policeman Chojo for pandering to me specifically with the Samon the Summoner cameos

Overall, this was a really good issue for me, as I enjoyed just about everything this week, even including Nue's Exorcist which I'm usually pretty lukewarm on. My top 3 was hard to pick, but I do really like the balance it ended up having - battle, artistic, and gag. I certainly wouldn't complain if my weekly favorites were similarly arranged spread going forward

14 notes · View notes