One Punch Man (webcomic version) 126-8: I love when One retroactively puts characters that first appeared in the manga adaptation back into the webcomic. Great Philosopher looks just wonderful in his style. I’m pretty interested to see what One does with the Neo Heroes now that they’ve gone public. And whether Saitama will care. At all. At the moment he’s just protesting about his uncool name. The Neo Heroes send out their best so of course they show up the mediocre members of the Hero Association, though it was interesting to see Dotei-kun (Child Emperor) impressed by the tech and yet again suspecting Bofoy of having dubious intentions. Relying on tech usually ends badly in manga. Such an illustrious title as Boruto has recently been exploring that idea. But I liked how not every single neo hero was successful. This will all obviously end in a showdown and I’m pretty interested to see how things will escalate. But so far we’re still laying the groundwork. I’m sure it will pick up soon – and hopefully Saitama will get more involved in the next few chapters!

Agravity Boys 22: Not sure about that no-context opening. But the higher being is here, so the chapter will probably be a lot of fun. OR IS HE? OR SHE? OR OTHER? That’s a very strange shape for the higher being, and I love the resentment when they don’t realize the different. I normally hate meta-humour in my manga, but somehow them even missing the differently-shaped speech bubbles made me chuckle. Chris loving to sing heavy metal just makes him even more the perfect being, and the higher being getting so upset at being left out and replaced was strangely adorable. Though his wrath was pretty horrifying, I must say. The punchline was pretty obvious but I laughed nonetheless. A lot of fun, as always.

Boku no Hero Academia 273: As expected, the action kicks up several notches, even if Shigaraki is still far from the action. Toga has been seeming a bit outclassed lately so it’s intriguing to see her go a little crazy after what happened to Twice. I wondered last week if this series was reaching its climax, but the way Shigaraki is acting makes me feel it’s unlikely. It seems to me like he’ll retreat and Gigantomachia will be the main problem the heroes have to deal with. But we’ll see. There aren’t many more hidden cards on this table, unless All for One ends up being able to take over. Shigaraki is definitely the stronger and more iconic adversary here, though, and that flashback to one of the series’ best, creepiest moments where he met Midoriya at the mall and had his hands on his neck just reinforces that. Will Endeavor make it out of this situation? Got to say, all those family scenes raised some pretty prominent character death flags…

Time Paradox Ghostwriter 3: Hmm, this wasn’t very satisfying. There’s been a realistic feeling to what characters say and do up until now, even within a manga about future copies of Jump appearing in microwaves. But this confrontation was just too daft. She wanted him to see her nib so almost stabbed him in the eye? She just accepts they are kindred spirits so accepted they wrote exactly the same story? Mmm, it’s all a bit much. I guess she’ll be more of a rival, but now I really don’t know what interesting places the manga is going to go. I guess I’ll keep giving it a chance and find out.

Moriking 6: The chapter started off a little uneven, with the gags about Oka’s slicing powers falling a bit flat, but the girls interviewing MoriKing and him just coming out with how he’s a pet raised definitely got me laughing again. If anything, it could have been pushed a bit more. Still, I liked the chapter taking on a sentimental tone, that was pretty sweet and makes it feel like there’s more at stake than it might have, had the manga just been all gags all the time.

Chainsawman 71: Ooh colour art and a popularity poll. Kind of fun to see Angel is so high. Poor Denji is 5^th in his own manga, and Pochita makes it to number 9 despite one of the saddest things about the manga being that he didn’t make it past chapter one, at least in the form we see here. As expected, the arc just abruptly ended and we have a bit of a comedown chapter, though we’ve lost some good characters and most of the rest have lost limbs. Poison is also totally traumatized and acting bizarrely. And it was nice that Denji actually put her first and is showing just a little sensitivity. Their shower scene was once again pushing the boundaries of what it feels like should really be in Jump. Though far less so than other chapters, to be fair. At the very least, Chainsawman always feels completely different from anything else in Jump. It reminds me of certain other series that pushed what’s acceptable in shounen manga like Fire Candy and Bokurano. But it’s definitely totally singular and idiosyncratic. In a very good way. Interested to know what’s next.

Haikyuu!! 395: Hmm, an Ushijima chapter. A character whose whole personality is being the strong, silent type doesn’t make for the most exciting side story. The unsurprising revelation about his father raised a little smile but I can’t say I care that much about the big cow.

Bone Collection 5: Ooookay, so Abe’s design was basically not the design we’ll be seeing going forward. It’s a pretty girl’s technique to look that way. Throwaway gag or editorial intervention? Or maaaybe the plan all along? Either way, it was jarring. I feel like the point of the series is undermined a bit when the combined power of our heroes doesn’t actually match up to this random genius kid’s. And her being able to grant them amnesty is very contrived. We’ll see what happens.

Dr. Stone 152: Still not liking this arc. I’m not pumped for a science showdown, I’m still lamenting how the main characters have lost what makes them unique. They do still have their revival fluid as a very unique asset, but I just don’t know that this arc is going to be particularly enjoyable.

The Promised Neverland 179: colour pages here too. I actually really loved the frontispiece, with the main trio looking so peaceful with the younger kids around him, but those tattoos totally undermining the sweetness there. I’ve been pretty negative about Yakusoku no Neba-rando recently, but this reminds me of how it made me feel in the early days. And the chapter continues to answer some of the big questions I had. There does indeed seem to be more to the promise, and here we see that there are Ratri in the human world, which is a bit of a cliché sci-fi nationless world. I can let the loose ends from the demon world go. If there really is a cost to the new promise, not just Emma being separated from the others, and if there’s some exploration of the fact that these humans have been fine with the status quo so far with all the moral implications that brings, I think I’ll be pretty satisfied overall. But it looks like our final arc will be Saving Private Emma.

Majo no Moribito 16: The chapter title, ‘Last Stand’, had heavy cancellation vibes. Again, the action doesn’t seem very fluid or connected, and the dialogue is clunky. Predictably, Claude did a total U-turn and joined the good guys as soon as he saw them protecting his partner Spica. Very original. Now for the counterattack, the cliffhanger leaving us in no doubt will be a cakewalk for our heroes. Still expecting Claude to die but maybe not, since there’s probably not going to be much more of this series so they don’t need to worry about him and Spica complicating things down the line. I don’t see this getting better and if I didn’t think it would be over in a few weeks, I’d probably drop it.