Part two of what I published on Friday. So if you were curious, the wedding weekend was a blast! No one objected, which is always a good thing. It was a touching ceremony. The reception afterwards was crazy fun. Is “off the hook” too 90s early 2000s? What do you youngsters say nowadays? Anyways, Beelzebub is absent this week. Not exactly sure why. And since Hajime no Ippo was included last week, it most likely won’t be available for next week’s edition, since the other mangas in the magazine it appears with were on break this past week. So enjoy the rest of the reviews! I’ll be catching up on a few shows I missed last week, namely Glee and Flash Forward. Take care, folks, and I’ll see you on the weekend. Be good humans.
NARUTO (chapter 465) – Attack on the Summit
Sasuke uses Susanoo to attack the pillars and cause a cave-in. He uses Susanoo to get Karin, and they go locate Danzo, leaving Juugo and Suigetsu behind much to Karin’s chagrin. The two Kages and their protectors survive the cave-in. Suigetsu and Juugo both survive as well, and looks like they both have plans with the fallen samurai bodies near them. Sasuke manages to arrive at the Kage meeting room, prompting one of the guardians to attack him. Danzo escaes during the confusion, and one of the Mizukage’s guardians chases after him. Before Sasuke can also give chase, Mizukage stops him and seals the hole that Raikage made that Danzo escaped through. Now it’s her turn to fight Sasuke, to avenge what the Uchiha clan did to her village and her predecessor.
Not much really happened this chapter. No resolution to the Raikage battle, and Gaara was barely involved at all. Granted, I’m pretty sure that Sasuke would have been defeated had he stayed to face them. Not much you can do when you have to transition to a new fight at a relatively quick pace. I thought that the Mizukage’s comments about Sasuke’s looks was a little off-putting, since she’s planning to fight him. I suppose to others, they’ll find it humorous. Just not me. Hopefully she’ll be able to put up as good of a fight as Raikage. However, Sasuke’s already weakened a little, and not sure how much chakra he has left. Regardless, he’ll survive to fight again another day so he and Naruto can have their climactic battle. Disappointing chapter.
BLEACH (chapter 375) – Execution, Extinction
Flashback to Aizen recruiting Stark. As he sees Stark near a mountain of dead hollows, he sees his strength and asks him to join his allies, because he looks like he can stay with them without dying. We go back to the current time, with Stark suffering a fatally huge wound from Kyoraku. Starks last moments of consciousness are of him finally realizing that he isn’t alone, from joining Aizen, to becoming an Espada, to separating part of himself to become Lilynette. Kyoraku and Love exchange a few words after the battle. And prepare to finally stop Aizen. Halibel and Lisa continue to face off. As Lisa goes in for a strong attack, she’s joined by Hitsugaya and Hiyori. Halibel holds them off, but Aizen says it’s enough and gives a command to Gin that they should end this. Aizen himself kills Halibel with one blow, saying that she isn’t strong enough to fight for him. Now he, Gin, and Kaname will fight.
Once again, we get a flashback for a character that’s dead. Stark had a cool character design (like most of the characters in Bleach, and he had an interesting power. Sadly, he falls victim to the “underused badass gets killed” cliché. Meanwhile, Halibel isn’t even allowed to die at the hands of the protagonists. What a bummer for her. Hopefully Aizen’s group fighting can grab my attention some more. And by that, I mean I hope Shinji’s fight is interesting, whoever he fights. Looks like we won’t find out what’s happening back in Hueco Mundo for a while. God, never thought I’d say that. Disappointing chapter.
KATEKYO HITMAN REBORN! (chapter 259) – Escape
The man reveals himself to be Kawahira. As they head inside, Tsuna and Gokudera try to remember where they heard it before and realize that it’s the owner of the ramen shop that Future I-Pin works for part time. He has them hide inside the house behind some furniture, and with a flame ring, he’s able to create illusions of people walking around outside his house. Zakuro finds Kawahira, and questions him about the kids. Obviously not getting his cooperation, he checks inside the house, but can’t sense their presence. He thinks about burning down everything around to get Uni, but is reminded of something that Byakuran told him earlier: don’t kill ordinary people in front of Uni. She’s the type of person who would sacrifice herself to save others. Instead, he plans to smoke them out by burning down each house one at a time after searching. Kawahira trips and almost spills the ramen on Zakuro. Using that as a distraction, he sends out another flame and attaches it to Zakuro’s forehead, making him sense a fast moving group of people with murderous intent. Meanwhile, Dino and Hibari are getting the better of Daisy, to the point where they destroy all of his box weapons. Without any more box weapons, Daisy reveals his trump card: a box weapon embedded into his body.What is Daisy’s true power?
Thankfully, they didn’t take too long with Kawahira’s reveal. It’ll probably be a chapter or two before they explain what his abilities are, and how it’s related to that ring he’s wearing. Along with Zakuro taking a while before he realizes he’s been duped. I was hoping that Hibari would have a physically interesting fight, but it doesn’t seem that way. Daisy doesn’t look at all like a competent close combat fighter, but his “immortality” should draw out some sort of uniqueness to this fight. Back to things probably being uninteresting for me for a while again. Disappointing chapter.
PSYREN (chapter 88) – Father and Son
Ageha arrives at Elmore Wood and is greeted excitedly by the students, except for Frederica. Remembering what their future selves told him, Ageha gives everyone advice on how they should grow up. However, this reunion is short-lived, as Ageha’s father appears and punches him in the face for making Fubuki cry. Amamiya comments about how young he looks. His father continues to punch him until Ageha explains why he disappeared for so many days. Fubuki explains why he is like that: after her mother’s death, he tried to become an ideal father, going so far as to learn karate online to discipline Ageha (what?). Ageha still refuses to tell him. Seeing his resolve, he disowns Ageha, allowing him to do whatever he feels like. Fubuki is puzzled at this, but is told to trust and support Ageha when he needs it. Before he goes back, Amamiya asks him about the meteor Uroboros, because he’s an astronomer. He can’t tell her here, and asks that she sees him at his Tokyo research center. She and Ageha discuss what to do next, mainly to search for Amagi Miroku. First up though, is some reconnaissance with Amamiya’s mentor, Matsuri.
Alright, first appearance of an old-favorite side character, Matsuri. I don’t remember how much of Psyren they’re allowed to tell her, but they’ll definitely fill her in on as much as they can. I don’t know if they’ll tell her of her death. Like I remarked during the chapter review, I was very surprised about how Ageha’s dad was able to proficiently learn about karate online. I’m not sure how long he’ll be staying at Elmore Wood, but perhaps he can teach Ageha a thing or two about some more physical abilities with his use of psy. There’ll be less fighting in the upcoming chapters, but Psyren is also part mystery and part sci-fi besides being a battle manga. Looking forward to more exposition. Decent chapter.
BAKUMAN (chapter 55) – Illustrations and 3 Stories
While studying for the university exams, Mashiro and Takagi are struggling to come up with new names. Nakai calls Aoki, expressing his sincere desire to work with her again and is finally able to tell her his feelings he has for her. However, she rejects his feelings, saying she doesn’t see him that way. She gets another call, this time from another Jump editor, trying to get her to once again draw for Jump, this time trying to have some ecchi elements incorporated in a romance story. She tells him she’ll think about it. At Jump HQ, her new editor is excited to have Aoki potentially on board, however, her former editor is still trying to get him to be her new editor, so all the details aren’t final yet. On the other hand, Miura is under pressure from the EIC to get Mashiro and Takagi under contract. They have a meeting to discuss contracts and try to get a new name. They get in a heated argument about what to do next. Miura thinks they should go the gag route, but they insist that they should do something serious. Their conflicting views make Takagi come up with a strange solution: he’ll draw two series with six chapters each, one serious and one gag. He wants Miura’s superiors to decide which is better after he submits them, but Miura refuses to do that, saying he’s more than capable of deciding which is better himself. He also gives them a deadline of early March, and they have to be serious entries, not some half-assed concept. Mashiro has another idea as well: they enter a one-shot in the Treasure contest, with Niizuma and other editors as judges. With three stories to come up with, they have their work cut out for them. But both of them are very excited to get working on all three projects.
Three stories at the same time…and they had a hard enough time trying to keep up with one story. Granted, they weren’t really well versed in the mystery genre, like I said before, the comedy part was something thrown in last minute. Poor Nakai, finally able to confess his feelings only to get rejected. Been there, buddy. Curious as to where the Aoki side-story will lead (probably back to her writing for Jump). Can’t wait to see what’s coming up next after Detective Trap. Miura is slowly falling into one of the characters I don’t like in this series, which is fine, since there has to be some sort of protagonist. What better than an editor that they have to work with. Good chapter.
BEELZEBUB (chapter 30)
No chapter released as of this writing.
