With Bleach and Naruto in their final arcs a lot of people are wondering what in Shonen Jump is going to take their place in terms of an internationally popular series that rakes in tons of money. If you were super curious I don’t think One-Punch Man is going to fill that void. But that said I think it is a fairly fun series that is worth checking out from the one chapter I have seen.
I was amused that the whole first chapter was essentially a shaggy dog story building up to a single joke. But anyone who knows me in real life will know that I delight in a convoluted build up to a punchline. So when this uberpowered villain who looks suspiciously like Piccolo goes on this long rampage to show exactly how overpowered he is with his various high level powers the conclusion to the chapter is fairly predictable but still amusing.
I have heard a decent amount of buzz about this series. I knew this series had a bit of a fan following so it was distinctly on my radar. So it seems like a good series that easily could become popular. It has one major strike against it. It is a comedy. And Shonen Jump comedies have historically never done as well as their action based siblings. And despite the fighting that makes up the core of the storyline the soul of this series is comedy. And that so far has condemned any Shonen Jump in America to a second tier status.
But I wonder if the new digital format has the ability to change that. I’m not thinking it will do so on any major level but I do wonder if it might give an action/comedy combination show like this a little boost it would not normally have gotten. I am curious to see how this series does in the future. Either way it seems a refreshing addition to Shonen Jump’s weekly English line up.
The weekly English version of Shonen Jump has now come day-and-date with Japan. The online magazine also premiered a new series One-Punch Man (ch. 1).
The story is about a superhero named One-Punch Man, his power should be obvious. He is a hero just for fun and he looks out of place when he goes to take down a menace terrorizing the city. The humor in this manga extends all the way to combining two art styles on its pages; One-Punch Man is simply drawn in a way you might see in gag manga, while everything else is drawn with the detailed and gritty look one might expect of an action series.
I really enjoyed when the big monster got upset that One-Punch Man didn’t have a back story for being a hero.
This first bite gives you everything you’ll probably need to know for the continuation of the series. I for one am looking forward to more.
The Ongoing Investigations are little peeks into what we are watching and reading outside of our main posts on the blog. We each pick three things that we were interested in a week and talk a bit about them. There is often not much rhyme or reason to what we pick. They are just the most interesting things we saw since the last Ongoing Investigation.
Reverse Thieves 