One Piece 969: Eh, there was nice art and I suppose this tale does need to be told to its logical conclusion, but I didn’t find this particularly interesting. Nice imagery, though – Oda’s still having fun with the old classic iconography of jidaigeki…

Chainsawman 55: Denji’s as funny as ever. And this identity theft angle is pretty interesting. Looking forward to it getting built up to the usual frenzy soon…

Haikyuu! 381: Adults or not, graduates or not, weirdly not mentioning a few of their old friends or not, the idea of Hinata beating or very nearly beating Kageyama is one of the big potential payoffs of this series. And though I don’t particularly care about them, I did enjoy the little drama between the Miya twins in today’s flashback.

Dr. Stone 136: Excellent chapter! When the initial plan didn’t work, I thought that the backup option would be a disappointment, but it was actually very clever and this looks to be a great way to foil the series’ most obviously evil bad guy thus far.

The Promised Neverland 165: Hmm, I feel like Mama should be a bit more devious here. Just continuing to act benevolent has so many potential advantages should things go wrong for her. But I guess that would be a plot complication. Ah well. This should be an entertaining showdown.

Samurai 8 35: Urgh, this is terrible. I feel like Kishimoto just read about Schrodinger’s Cat and decided to shoehorn in a reference while the main characters talk to their universe’s creator for a whole chapter. Very generic, very wordy, very uninspired.  

One Piece 968: Some nice scenes as Roger’s voyage comes to an end. We should be wrapping the flashback up soon, after Kaido deals with Oden. I’m looking forward to moving on from this, I must say.

Haikyuu! 380: No, no, this is all wrong. I don’t like this at all, even if the reunion feeling is nice. I hate that Hinata is that tall. I hate that the story wasn’t about a group of talented high schoolers who did their best but players who would be on the elite international level and nationally famous. I liked it much more when they were just strong, plucky regional players, not gobsmacking best-in-the-world international-level talents. And I’m increasingly worried Noya is dead.

Chainsawman 54: a big laugh at the end of the chapter with our wonderfully simple-minded protagonist, but also yet again a whole lot more boundary-pushing. Naked orgiastic groups of freakish girls, a paedophilic old man and a very head-on depiction of animal death and how similar or dissimilar it is from killing a teenager. Chainsawman might be distasteful fairly often but it still always manages to be fresh and fun to read. Maybe I should check out Fire Punch.

Dr. Stone 135: Nice to see Senku being assertive – though so much could have gone wrong with his plan. This might be a huge development in the manga, though – now that the Kingdom of Science has the petrification weapon, what will they make of it? And can something like that be explained through science?

The Promised Neverland 164: the demon kids are so much cuter than the human kids, lol. But this was a good chapter on an emotional level, after the series got a bit distant. While I still think this arc is sure to be anticlimactic, ending with the ‘humans can be more wicked and corrupting than even the demons’ angle is probably wise.

Samurai 8 34: ooh, fudo myo-o, I talked about that god in my Narita video. But this chapter is still a good example of how the scale seems all messed up in this title. Planets exploding, millions or billions dead but barely a moment to acknowledge it. So why should we care about our basically robotic heroes?

Boruto 42: okay, the weird bulky older man was an interesting design for this manga but I’m not sure he had to get naked, even if it’s a Ken doll situation down there. The rhythms of this fight felt a bit off – but the end was cool. And perhaps we get a non-useless female in this title now. Perhaps.

Shingeki no Kyojin 125: I never thought for a second Levi wouldn’t return. And seeing Annie in action again is fun after all this time. But honestly I thought a lot more would happen in this chapter than we got.

One Punch Man manga 126: very funny extra content we didn’t get in the original webcomic. Poor Saitama. Flash recognizing his power in this way is also great. Wonder how this will alter their later dynamic.

One Punch Man webcomic 119-120: Great expressions from Saitama here, though he was a bit too much of a jerk, not even listening to Amai Mask’s big reveal about himself – confirming long-held fan suspicions. I actually found myself surprisingly siding with what Amai Mask had to say, even if he took it to extremes. But yeah, he has no idea how to deal with Saitama. I’m actually enjoying this angle quite a bit, though, and want to see what happens when the action kicks off next chapter.

One Piece 967: Yep, this arc has reached the part that’s a lot of fun. And yes, ‘Raftel’ as the fandom has called it all these years is actually ‘Laugh Tale’. Bit of a strange name, haha. Seeing the little versions of various characters, including a little moment with Frankie, was great, and this makes me really wonder what they all saw on that island. Interesting that Buggy and Shanks didn’t get there, too. Now let’s get back to the present day and our heroes.

Haikyuu! 379: ahh even if I didn’t enjoy the time skip so much, this old comedy clash of personalities is still wonderful. And Bokuto and Hinata being on the same team ought to be a riot. Looking forward to seeing how this goes – but where’s Nishinoya? What did he make of Tanaka getting to live the dream?

Samurai 8 33: that double-cross really didn’t inject more drama. Maybe the next arc will be the one that makes me get into this. At least the new companions didn’t get thrown away in the end.

Chainsawman 53: I really do like this title. This transition chapter had fun humour, the intrigue of Denji somehow being responsible for bringing devils to the world, and these new brothers from America as the next antagonists. All very interesting, and I want more!

Boruto 41: sometimes I’m surprised by Boruto being pretty good, and this is an example of that. The kids working out what they needed to do against a seemingly perfect technique was like old-school Naruto, and the art was great. I still don’t like how powerless Naruto himself is in this situation, but moving past that I can enjoy the fight.

The Promised Neverland 163: more upping of the ante, though it felt a bit like one step forward, two steps back. I guess anything to increase the perceived scale of these events will be beneficial to the series.

One Punch Man webcomic 118: I enjoyed the classic formula of building up a great threat only for Saitama to have already dispatched it. Looks like One got bored of this arc, though – hopefully he wants to move on to the next and draw lots of chapters nice and quickly. Looks like Sweet Mask is at the centre now.