We stay with Weekly Shounen Jump this time with a look at Akane-banashi. It’s one of the magazine’s breakout series and one of Samu’s favorites, to boot. Does it rank as highly with Enzo? Tune in on YouTube or your favorite podcast outlet and find out!
Podcast links:
Rob Barrett
August 20, 2024 at 6:36 amAbsolutely one of my favorite manga!
Guardian Enzo
August 20, 2024 at 9:18 amOh, really? I wish I loved it like you guys do, but I do like it.
Oddly enough my current favorite in WSJ may just be Psych House, which is about to be cancelled.
Simone
August 21, 2024 at 2:46 pmOh, yeah, Psych House is delightful but sadly doomed. I hear Jump is about to hold a special context for battle manga, which makes sense given that they’re bleeding those at a much faster rate than they’re replacing them, what with MHA and JJK ending within weeks of each other. The only new one they have rising right now is Kagurabachi, though personally as stealth picks go I really have a good feeling about Ultimate Exorcist Kiyoshi – have you checked it out?
Guardian Enzo
August 21, 2024 at 4:38 pmNot yet. What do you like about it?
Simone
August 21, 2024 at 10:18 pmIt’s got a nice good natured sense of humour mixed with action – reminds me of One Piece in the balance it strikes. Also a very good art in my opinion. Character designs that are sleek, simple, memorable but not overdesigned. Slightly wonky and willing to go off model for maximum expressiveness (another aspect that reminds me of early One Piece – really, this mangaka IMO has learned a lot on Oda’s work). A good trade-off of cartoonish and cool. And the storytelling and pacing throughout the first chapters felt confident and well-planned, fast enough to keep attention without making the common mistake of throwing too much at the readers and destroying all sense of naturalness in build up, or sacrificing character work.
Note, all of this is in service of a world and story that aren’t per se anything tremendously original (it’s yet another exorcist manga, after all, though with a One Punch Man-like twist in that the MC starts out immensely powerful but somewhat crippled by social awkwardness). But it’s well executed, and from what I hear it made 8th place in its first Table of Contents, which is plenty respectable. So I’m keeping an eye on it, it has all the marks of a potential classic in the making.
Michael
August 22, 2024 at 8:17 amI start and stop Akane Banashi a lot. And a lot of the times my feelings are that it’s a neatly executed series that checks the right boxes with a lot of people. But for me, every time I catch up to it I find myself wistfully thinking about much I miss Act-Age and PPPPPP.
Guardian Enzo
August 22, 2024 at 8:41 amYeah, Akane-banashi just doesn’t grab me. I enjoy it, it’s nice, but I never have intense feelings about it. It’s like a very attractive paint by numbers to me.