Yotsuba&! 80: Yotsuba is a pumpkin! That’s pretty much enough for a chapter, methinks. 

One Piece 675: I’m not sure whether it was just the translation, but this chapter was very confusing. Hopefully another will be released so I can see. Ah, wait, Mangastream have one. Yes, that made more sense. Not a great chapter, though.

Naruto 595 was basically a few seconds of action, but with Naruto how it is just now, that’s welcome and looked pretty cool. It’s especially nice to see Gai treated very seriously. 

Soul Eater 99-100: surprisingly, the momentous 100^th chapter wasn’t a very interesting one. Still, these two chapters had a funny scene with Noah and Gopher, Death the Kid looking cute, Black Star being amusingly over-the-top and finally another glimpse of Crona, who frankly is the main reason I keep coming back. More Crona please!!

Naruto 594 switched to its protagonist again, who is at least having an interesting face-off with the character posited as the main villain - at least of the arc. A moment between him and Kakashi made it far more likely he is Obito after all, as I've said from the start even when I thought my theory had been shot down in flames. I really can't see where Naruto can go where it won't be underwhelming, though, and good build-up though this chapter has been, the pay-off hasn't been there for many years.

Rock Lee's Springtime of Youth 12 (only 12!) reminded me just how much funnier the gag manga is than its anime counterpart. Another simple idea - Naruto and Lee get their minds swapped into one another's bodies - works really well to build up silly gags and misunderstandings. It's really the timing that just works so much better, though. Panel flow is truly an art, and this silly spin-off does it better than almost any title I can think of.

One Piece 674 was mostly concerned with Nami and Usopp with the kids, which isn’t the most interesting part of the arc by any means, so it was a little dry. There was some interest with the other big supernova showing up in the shadows for the cliffhanger, but otherwise it wasn’t the most interesting bit of One Piece ever – and there’s no chapter next week!

Naruto 593 was a little out-of-nowhere, but at least it solved the problem of feeling like the series’ major villain was dispatched much too easily. I hope I wrote at the time that it clearly wasn’t enough and that he’d be back!

Yotsubato! 79.5 was an amazing chapter. It made me feel warm and fuzzy and had some big laughs too, especially in the bike shop. It was longer than most chapters and so utterly adorable.

Sword Art Online 1. I’m really loving the anime, but this manga adaptation (of the original novels) seems rushed, ugly and lacklustre. I’ll stick with the animated version. 

One Piece 673 was a bit of a slow chapter compared with many recent ones – not a lot happened, and too much space was given over to that silly slime that’s still the most annoying part of this arc. There was a small laugh with Usopp forgetting he had Nami with him rather than Sanji, and the throwaway ‘Yarisugi’ character was amusing, but the joke with a hamburger sounded too much like it was just covering up a drawing error to be funny (though the amount of drafts manga gets makes that very unlikely). I’m glad we’ve had an interesting twist at the end with who’s involved, though!

Naruto 592 comes with an intriguing implication at its end – which I’m not sure can be pulled off the way it’s hinted it will. I had almost forgotten Tobi was involved, too…and he’s battling the main character as well! It was a short, mostly throwaway chapter, but it was actually an interesting development, and thus the best Naruto chapter in some weeks. 

D.Gray-Man 213-214. It seems like a very long time since I last read D.Gray, and I suppose that since there was a month’s break, it has been a quarter of a year. It’s finally picking up, though – and I’m keen to know what’ll happen to Allen.