Jump Review [2025: Issue 39], A Journey of World Exploration, and a Tale of Nepalese Cuisine

Instead of just getting through my Obon (summer holiday) material each week, my weekends from next month onwards are starting to fill up, and it feels like I'll have an overflowing amount of afterword material. I might talk about Obon like I just remembered it around the month after next. Anyway, I'll get to writing my Jump review.

Table of Contents: Ichi, Witch, Bachi, Sakamoto, Akane, Ao no Hako (Blue Box), Nue's, Ping Pong, Harukaze, Youth and Cupid, Himeten, Roboco, Nige Waka (The Elusive Samurai), Ruri Dragon, Afterword

Ichi

Are your eyes alright now? Kumugi is cute, so it's all good.

Witch

Life is going to be pretty chaotic the moment it's just guys, huh? But it's Christmas, so it's barely during school time, right? What were they doing? But Kanshi has been naked at school before, so oh well.

Bachi

What's with the mysterious subtitle direction? Did the author watch some weird movie? The development is so intensely heated, but it's depicted in a way that makes it feel like this guy is just writing a manga as a joke, so I'm confused. Maybe it's because Natsuki and Urushiba are stranger than I thought. There aren't really any characters that would be okay to die in terms of matchups, and if I had to say, I'd say Yu and Hakuri are the only ones who absolutely can't die. I don't know how it's going to end, so I'm too excited.

Sakamoto

Lou has been called invisible for years, and it looks like he'll finally be active again. The scale of the battle feels like it's going to drop a bit, but what will happen? Personally, I welcome a deflationary battle.

Akane

The opposite approach to Ryoken is easy to imagine because we often say "start with the form." Also, this one seems easier to understand as a performance, and it seems like he was doing adapted Rakugo to make it easier for the current audience to understand. Also, this might be a random thought, but has Jump started using grayscale recently? (Is it just because I'm reading it digitally?) Personally, I'm used to tone expression with halftones, and I like the impression that the pictures are clearer, but Akane seems to be using grayscale well.

Ao no Hako (Blue Box)

Today, Hina is shining again. I wonder if they made this development after seeing the readers' reactions? I don't really see the readers' voices for Ao no Hako, so I don't know, but aside from that, a heroine race that starts after properly losing is fresh. The floor-wiping race probably expresses Hina's current situation, and I get emotional when I see the descriptions that have started to progress even little by little.

Nue's

Shio's double-page spread is just too cool. I'm also happy to see Nue's Star Slave again after a long time. The Suzaku doll at the beginning and the coolness that the joking character who seriously pointed out that it was "too unnecessary..." could bring out is not something they should be able to do. That clash of Jin Ki in the latter half... the flow of storming the hideout last time was a bit subtle, so I was actually a bit worried when the battle started, but it's great that the battle is also interesting. I liked Star Slave's inscrutability, but if they're going to use it heavily here and show the whole picture, that's something to look forward to.

Ping Pong

I thought this abbreviation was too much like Taiyo Matsumoto, but it's too much of a pain to type 6 characters every time, so I guess this is fine. This is only the second time in four matches that an opponent has properly established their character before appearing. It's pretty silly and good. It reminds me of Doping Consomme Soup.

Harukaze

I'm glad that a cute manager has joined. She looks like she has a lot of secrets, so I'm looking forward to that aspect. I'm also expecting Sofu to be active.

Youth and Cupid

For some reason, this week's one-shot is surprisingly interesting. It was a runner-up manga for the Akatsuka Award. There was hell where the gags were explained on the next page of the manga, but the tempo was just good as the explanation said. It was only 15 pages, but they did quite a lot of things and I laughed. I liked the cleanliness of finishing off the lunch scene with one word: vegetarian. But at the end, it feels like they messed up pretty badly by making the dog poop almost invisible due to magazine circumstances... They're treating it a bit roughly.

Himeten

Last week, I complained that only Ponoka didn't have an interesting drawn character, but this week, I received a Posinon and I'm very satisfied. I really don't understand Poji!! I was thinking that they must be watching it closely, like a chinpoji, but I can't understand what Posinon is expressing. I need an explanation. That being said, Posinon was cute and good.

Roboco

I wonder if the regular horror episodes are well-received. They're actually not bad. Because Roboco is there, even I, who hates horror, can read it with peace of mind. Horror episodes give the impression that Akane is in charge, but how many curses is this guy multi-applied with?

Nige Waka (The Elusive Samurai)

The third recapture of Kamakura is, as expected, hot. When I look back on Nige Waka again from near the goal of Tokiyuki's life like this, it is certainly dramatic enough to make me want to somehow make it into a manga. I only had the impression that the land of Kamakura was a place that used to be the center of politics, but my impression has changed as it appears in important places so many times. Or rather, I feel like I'm rediscovering the impression I have of my hometown. I'm also away from my hometown, but I'm able to go back many times a year, and I think I'm feeling the importance of my hometown that I wouldn't know unless I lost it once.

Ruri Dragon

She's saying outrageous things with such a cute face. Don't we have to properly talk about the dragon? Am I being too Jump-brained to think about whether they were motivated or if they don't have enough forces? It's a Jump manga, though.

Afterword

I went on a journey of world exploration. Yes, of course, I didn't really jump out into the world, but it was an exhibition that was held in Nara. It was quite good. The mask that adorned the center of the poster was said to be worn to join a secret society, which was an outrageous setting, and the hook was outstanding. A wide range of things from different cultures, from around 4000 BC to the present day, were on display, which was interesting. Is this what's interesting to otaku? The explanation is too much like Gurren Lagann.

It was quite a nice exhibition that allowed you to take pictures like this. So, I'll post some of the interesting ones.

Taiwanese ethnic group's armor with a magical meaning. If you look closely at the explanatory text, it says that they wore this armor to go to other villages. They might have worn more different clothes, but even if they were in this outfit, I thought that they would be quite a pervert as someone who lives in the Reiwa culture of Japan.

It's RRR!! It's from India! That's what I thought. By the way, Rama is an incarnation of Vishnu, so it might not be wrong. It's a statue of Vishnu on Garuda, but as far as I know, Vishnu tends to ride on Garuda, so is it common in India? What I know isn't a piggyback ride, though.

The rumored secret society mask

A sushi chef (seems like he's not a sushi chef, just cutting fish). Also, I ate some strange food this weekend. On the way back from the above, I went to eat Indonesian food this weekend. The herb-infused fried chicken was delicious. Also, what I personally found interesting was Nepalese food. I thought (Japanese Nepalese food is just naan and curry), but I was served things I didn't know, such as Chatpat and Panipuri. What's interesting is that both of them contained instant ramen. Especially Chatpat, even if you Google it, it says to add instant ramen, and the person at the restaurant also said that it's what they eat most often, so I was like, seriously? That's how it ends. See you next week~