Jump manga day!

HunterxHunter 320 had a lot of treats for fans – many, many old faces from the beginning of the manga, even including Hanzo and Biscuit. Kurapika at least got a mention, though poor Leorio is nowhere to be seen – and I’m betting there’ll be a big reveal with him soon. I have to wonder if this is partly to entice new fans in the wake of the anime starting, but either way I’m happy to see it. What I didn’t expect was for Gin to be such a funny, carefree character (despite it being in large part an act), or for Hisoka to be centre-stage for a while, which was fun. Plus now we finally get to the last Zoaldyck brother.

One Piece 642 wasn’t a particularly strong chapter, showing some of the revamped fighting skills of the straw hats but mostly reusing jokes and not taking the plot much further.

Naruto 559 brought with it a bit of a twist that invites a lot of speculation, but I can’t help but feel the solution it brings will be a let-down. We’ll see. Some interesting art this week, thanks largely to Sai’s rather stupid power, but I have to say the idea that Naruto swans in and the tide of the whole war turns is quite annoying.

Bakuman 150 (last week’s chapter, I think) benefited from last week’s arc climax, even if it was a weak end to a weak story, but was a strong chapter because of a background character with gravitas taking the time to talk with the various characters. It had a nice balance of character humour and drama, so worked well.

Deadman Wonderland 48: a long chapter with an unneeded flashback that really brought no depth to some very obvious characters. Nice double-page spreads, though, and I did care what happened to Crow.

Fairy Tail vol 27: this new arc is short on originality, but I’m enjoying it a lot. Juvia remains my favourite character by far.

Jump this week was treading water a little, with no pun intended for the One Piece storyline. Maybe HunterXHunter will be better when it’s released by scanslators.

One Piece 641 was an action chapter in which very little happened – Luffy tried to get near to the huge arc, Noah, but Hodi got in the way. He also destroyed the air bubble around it, and then it got put back again. So not a lot happened until the very last page, where we were promised a revelation next time.

Naruto 558 annoyed me – it was supposed to be a great, uplifting chapter where Naruto’s many clones come to the rescue in various places, but it irritates me that suddenly everyone seems so useless – and the humour fell flat.

(later)HunterXHunter 319 was a light chapter – it’s refreshing to be reminded how funny Togashi can be. I’m not sure it’s the right time, though, and several of the Zodiac are nothing like as cool as they looked in the last chapter, but I’m glad we’ll have more focus on Gin, and hopefully we’ll soon be back seeing our main characters and how they’re faring.

HunterXHunter 318 began with a rather mawkish embellishment on last week’s excellent chapter, which I felt was unneeded and detracted from, rather than enhanced, the powerful idea.

Naruto 557 featured a ninja art that involved making a clone blow up to a huge cloud of water vapour with a face. Luckily, Gaara could protect everyone with a huge stand statue looking like a loved one. Kishimoto is too far gone now to know what is cool and what is totally lame. Or so it would seem.

No One Piece this week, so I caught up on a little bit of Fairy Tail – I’m still on vol 24, as I haven’t been keeping up for months, but the end of the Edolas arc is full of great emotional moments. I love Natsu’s instant willingness to play the villain for the sake of another. Great end for Mistgun, too. I should get back to watching the anime…

It was also the cheapest way to have an emotional scene of characters reunited with a sister they thought dead (AND a tearful goodbye) I can really think of, yet somehow it worked.

On the other hand…’We needed to give the mission of hunting dragonslayers for “cover”’ was a bit far-fetched…

One Piece 639: not a highlight of recent years, but setting up some very nice fights for the upcoming chapters. This arc has been a bit anticlimactic, but it’s getting somewhere now, and already there are some hints at what comes later.

HunterXHunter 316…showed me I’ve been underestimating Togashi. Finally we see the major characters…albeit Gon only in shadow. And it’s obvious that he actually has planned all this out and isn’t just cruising along to bring the arc to an awkward, rushed end. He’s got some good things planned and the Reina twist was done deftly. I just want there to be some more chapters so that Gon gets some closure with his father. Without him being shoehorned into this arc. Oh, and Kurapika and Leorio back, too.

Naruto 555 was typical Kishimoto disappointment. He tries the shounen conceit of some clever trick working to beat an impossible opponent, but it’s such a stupid trick and so easily-done that it feels like an unimportant piece of padding.

Instead, there is manga. Chief amongst which is new HunterXHunter, chapter 313. It feels as thought Togashi is bringing this arc to an abrupt end very soon, which is a shame because after all it has taken so many years to write, but despite that very little happened in this chapter. Maybe the new anime adaptation will revitalise him. I can only hope so. I’m too emotionally invested in Gon for all the mysterious backstory about his father never to end up with good closure.

Catching up with Fairy Tail, which has been repetitive throughout the Edoras arc, but is still a lot of fun. Just…better in small doses. I suppose I should really continue the anime, which has gotten remarkably far through the manga material now.

Read the latest Bakuman last night, too – chapter 144. I would have preferred our heroes figuring out what is going on to just being shown, but at least it gets things moving. I don’t know where this is going, but we’ve had the message of ‘one or two creative minds doing something they believe in always outdoes hollow committee-created writing’ hammered into us now, so I’m unsure what this new iteration will offer.

New manga! One Piece 636 had some very funny moments, especially with Franky’s silly new creations, but the best part was the three most formidable Straw Hat Pirates in the final few moments. But where will the arc go to build on this?

Naruto 552: At least these chapters are mitigating the disappointment of Itachi’s final appearances a little, even if it’s in such a daft way that it hardly helps. On the other hand, it’s a bit rich having Itachi of all people lecturing Naruto about relying on others and not shouldering a huge burden on his own. At least a throwaway line at the end acknowledged that.

The…special chapter of Rock Lee’s Springtime of Youth, featuring lots of naked Gai jokes (in SD style) was…disturbing.