Eyeshield 21 - Shōnen Jump Manga Marathon #2

To continue with my Shōnen Jump Manga Marathon, I picked an older manga that is also related to the post that I made last week about Kuroko no Basuke when I quoted a forum post comparing the characters and their "super skills". Even before I made the last post, I knew that Eyeshield 21 was going to be the next Jump manga I read specifically because I wanted to weigh in on the comparison. The Eyeshield 21 anime came out while I was in college and the manga was serialized from 2002 - 2009 in Weekly Shōnen Jump. Spaning 37 volumes and 333 chapters all together, the manga focuses on Sena and how he becomes involved with his schools American Football Club; which consists of 3 members including himself. The manga-time for this story is only a year, or a little less than.

As an American, I was tickled pink by the fact that there was a manga that dealt with American Football. From what I understood American Football is like Aussie Rules Football, way more popular in their home countries and generally ignored by the rest of the sports loving world. Was I wrong about that? Soccer is still king my friends.

Shonen Sports Manga and Kuroko no Basuke

As you all saw for my last post, I read the Kenshin manga in anticipation for the live action Rurouni Kenshin movie coming out at the end of this month.  While I was reading the manga, I got to thinking, 'How long has it been since I read any Jump manga?' I stopped reading and thought about it for a while and I decided that it had been a solid couple of years since I had put Naruto on hold because I had caught up with all the scanlations I could get my eyes on. 

Then when I thought about it a little harder, I admitted to myself that I really hadn't read other Weekly Jump manga besides Naruto. Case and point is that it took me many years to actually read Rurouni Kenshin or Shaman King, I gave up on Prince of Tennis when I was in college, I never read Eyeshield 21, and when the anime for Nurarihyon no Mago was a flop I stopped reading. These titles are really the only Weekly Jump manga I've ever read. Prince of Tennis was probably the first one I got into and then Naruto followed, but I started those back in high school and that was almost 10 years ago now. 

Being a self-proclaimed manga scholar, I am actually a little disappointed in my own readership. A couple years ago, I was talking with a friend about how we both knew and could recognize One Piece cosplayers and knew of the manga, but we had no idea what it was about. Later that same friend told me she was going to watch the anime since, 'It's so popular that I feel I need to watch it to really understand why and have an opinion on it'. Weekly Jump manga have the most readership and usually the largest audience. Look at how Naruto and One Piece are all over Japan. Not just in manga and book stores, but there are Naruto, Gintama and One Piece goods in souvenir shops, Uniqlo makes branding deals and sells special graphic t-shirts, and travel agents book trips for families on a replica Lufy ship. They have become a central point in Japanese popular culture and not only for the original manga readers. 

Now that I have opened my eyes to this error in my read habits, I have decided that a marathon of Weekly Jump manga was in order. I will be looking at manga that has been or is currently being serialized in the Weekly Jump magazine. I will mostly be looking at the manga that is currently being serialized and also has scanlations out on the Internet. So, I started with the manga that had the most recent anime, Kuroko no Basuke.

Rurouni Kenshin and Historical Redemption

At the end of this month, the long awaited live action Rurouni Kenshin movie will be hitting theaters in Japan. Never before have I seen such a large response from the anime and manga community over a live action adaption. Yet with Kenshin being such a beloved manga for the community and having hoards of fans not only in Japan but in America, it is unsurprising that this movie is getting people to sit up and take notice.

With the sheer amount of attention and anticipation this movie is receiving, it can only be concluded that this manga has keft a strong impression on the manga reading community. Since I actually hadn't read the manga before, it was pretty obvious that I wouldn't be able to jump into any type of discussion on it's merits and failings without actually reading it. At around 255 chapters, it was a lot of reading and I'll admit to gorging myself on it and then having to stop for a while to pick it up again.

The Guilty Pleasure that is Shōnen Jump and Which Can You Still Not Get Enough Of?

I have a confession to make, I have a very large soft spot for Shōnen Jump manga. Now I know that I've made more than one mention about how I find it frustrating that manga like Naruto and One Piece continue on this slow decaying cycle of power-ups and never ending plots. But, I for one will never tell you that they are not entertaining and a joy to read. Kinda like romance and military trillers for the American publishing world. These genres are guilty reads for some people and it keeps bringing them back decade after decade.


The sheer evolution gold that comes out of Shōnen Jump and Shueisha is mind boggling when put into scale. Shōnen Jump itself has been published since 1968, of course to compete against Shōnen Sunday which was very popular and successful. I mean Naruto has been running a weekly serialization for 15 years come this November. 15 years. One Piece has been serialized for 17. Of course, neither One Piece or Naturo hold a candle to Kochira Katsushika-ku Kameari Kōen-mae Hashutsujo, which has been running in Shōnen Jump for over 30 years. Guess what my friends, thats longer than I have been walking and breathing on this Earth. 


These manga then evolve into anime. Recently the animation world has been flooded with Kuroko no Basket, Medaka Box, Nurarihyon no Mago, Gintama and the return of HunterXHunter. Walk into your local, or website, animate and characters goods abound for these shows. I can find coasters, coasters for god sakes for Ao no Exorcist and Gintama, shirts, clear files, CDs, writing boards, cups, bowls, pencils, boxes, and just about anything else for them there. Why is this?


Of course, part of this is that there are always new little boys to catch in their plot depths, though maybe not if you look at the Japanese birth rate. We as older readers are also always sucked into them too. We've all seen the guy who still wears a Naruto headband, walks around with a Pikachu hat on, and proudly declares himself an Otaku. 


The reason I bring this up is fairly simple, I have been reading Kenshin in honor of the up coming movie. My friends are so happy about this movie and are going wild just thinking about it. I imagine that the online fansubing community has been conducting strategy meetings to be the fastest group to put it together in the best quality fansub. Hell, they probably have a random friend set up to record at the movie theater for them. I'm not even half way through Kenshin yet, but that's my plan for the next couple weeks. I gotta finish it before the movie comes out. 


While I was reading Kenshin, I was struck by how, for lack of a better term, different it was from normal Shōnen Jump titles. I mentioned this after I read Shaman King as well, how Yoh was not the stereotypical Shōnen Jump hero. Instead of putting all his energy and personality into defeating Hao and "becoming the best Shaman King ever", Yoh has got to be one of the most relaxed Shōnen Jump characters I have ever read. Kenshin, instead of being a young idealistic boy who is out to prove himself to the world, or within his own community, has already done so. He is much older, 28, and already possesses skills that put him at the top of the social ranking. 


Then I got to thinking about the whole Jump Universe, yes it deserves to be capitalized. All the Jump spin off magazines need to be involved in this discussion: Jump SQ, Saikyo Jump, V Jump, Grand Jump, and only slightly JumpX. When I look at a lot of the manga that comes out of these magazines, I just can't help but get a little nostalgic for their plot lines. I mean really, they are so entertaining and you are able to suspend your disbelief so well with these titles. I mean really, a world of ninja and pirates that are able to turn themselves into skeletons and giant rubber bands? What's not to love on a sheer ridiculous scale?

So my question is this: What Shōnen Jump or Jump Universe is your guilty pleasure? Do you have a secret bible to Naruto? Have you read and watched every episode of Reborn? Do you yearn for the days of Slam Dunk over Kuroko no Basket? You have a crush on Rukia that hasn't vanished? Are you actually happy that Shaman King now as a sequal? Have you seen the Prince of Tennis musical yet? Or are you still all about Goku and Dragon Ball? Tell me and share it with all and sundry! 

Sprite with a Splash of Time

So yesterday in my culture class, we had an introduction to the theme we would be discussing until the end of the semester, Japanese literature that reflects post modernist themes and what they are trying to reflect on Japanese contemporary society. The professor, a older Japanese man, started throwing out names of Japanese authors that I hadn't heard of and then looked at me and asked me who my favorite mangaka was. I was slightly surprised since I thought we were only going to be dealing with "literature", as in novels and short stories, but when I told him that my favorite manga was 20th Centure Boys by Urasawa Naoki he got very excited and ran to the board to write it down in English and Japanese. He followed that up by stating names like EVA, Akira, Ghost in the Shell, Blade Runner, The Matrix, and 7 Seeds.

What do all of these titles have in common? Of course, they all deal with a post modern world, the end of the world, atomic energy and how humans react to these different themes. The real answer is that they are all sekai-kei, 世界系, or stories that revolve around saving the world. Over the last 20 years many Japanese contemporary authors have started using these themes as major issues in their works. What my professor wanted us to start thinking about was this; what could have brought a rise to these themes? And not only in "literature" but in popular culture as well? What kind of reflections to they make on Japanese society and the Japanese mindset?

As a reader and as a social scientist, I am very excited about this subject. I have spent a lot of time and money reading many books and manga that deal explicitly with these themes. In preparation for this class I went looking for new titles in my logically titled "Manga I want to read" folder in my bookmarks and pulled up Sprite.

Now before you ask, no I am not talking about the refreshing lemon-lime soda that was brought to us by the great soda capital of the world, the United States of America. I am talking about the very well thought out and interesting manga drawn and authored by Ishikawa Yugo. Currently on volume 8 in Japan, it has only been scanlated up to volume 4 in English and has yet to be picked up by an English publisher. Now I usually don't pull up and discuss manga that hasn't been finished or further along in plot on this blog since I like to have a full range of the plot and characters before I start making my theories and observations. I am making a good exception for this manga because I want it to be on people's radar.

51 Ways to Save Your Girlfriend and Yourself

Disaster stories always walk a fine line between being poignant and being contrived. This comes from the fact that most of the plot points can really only run on the extreme side. Since the situation and setting are all an extreme, the rest of the story and characters must follow suit. What follows is usually the deterioration of humanity and a bleek outlook on the future. While they do make the audience or reader think, they usually leave a 'been there, read that' impression.

I thought all of this while I was reading 51 Ways to Protect Her written and drawn by Furuya Usamaru. He is the man who brought us Litchi no Hikari Club and it's sequel Bokura no Hikari Club, so it is not surprising that there would be more graphic depictions of rape and murder. This manga has obvious pros and cons with using such points as rape, post traumatic stress syndrome, and survival all rolled together to create a society on the edge. I'll be looking into how they are used throughout the manga, which is only 5 volumes long.

Shaman King and Racial Stereotypes

There are days where I miss a good old fashioned shounen manga. Not the new ones that are epic in length and are only continuing because the editors want to keep the money rolling in. As great as Naruto, One Piece, Conan, and HunterXHunter are, they really need an ending. I miss the shounen that actually have a well put together plot, characters that are not purposely made to be annoying, and new ideas. I attribute a lot of these changes to the fact that publishing companies are milking their money cow to the last drop and are forcing mangaka to keep a story going even when they want to end it.

Of course, being as shounen manga is aimed at a much younger audience than I, by 15 years, the reason why I could find some of them repetitive is unsurprising. Young boys don't care about seeing anything but cool moves and friendship until they get a little older and understand that in a lot of ways, nothing really happens in those manga till the ending finally comes around. The publishing giants know how to keep them coming back.

I was really excited by Shaman King. It wasn't ridiculously clique, I genuinely liked all the characters, and different races and cultures were actually active and important parts of the narrative. Yet the more I kept reading, the more stereotypical characters of different races and cultures got. Overall the manga was enjoyable, but those stereotypes were what really struck me about the manga.