Hello and Goodbye! Ah, I got a little ahead of myself. This is a greeting to all of you Sunday enthusiasts, but it's also a farewell to the features section despite it's short, short life. As detailed in the last (er, the one before this one) features section (which you can read here) the blog now has a dedicated twitter (which you can check out here) where news and impressions of new series will be located for now on. The TOC and editorials will still receive their own entries so no need to worry about them! Now, let's get this last show on the road.
On the cover this week is Nogizaka 46, as well as what really bring people to Sunday. (The idols are a part of it, but we wanna read manga!) While it's most likely because it's new, it's great to see Undine being included on the cover despite not having a color page or anything special going on. Aozakura is recieving the lead color page, and Komi/Zero are the Sunday headliners. In short it's business as usual.
Today's highly relatable topic comes from Kanagawa and asks "Tell us what you'd consider your biggest waste of money to be."
Aozakura Bouei daigakkou monogatari (Hikaru Nikaido): I can't think of anything I wasted money on.
Jyokyou Koala (Fujiminosuke Yorozuya): I hope you enjoy both the serial in webry and the volume of the series.
Undine ha Kyou mo Koi wo Suru ka? (Shinya Misu): I bought a stylish mini rose....and it withered within a week.
Maoujo de oyasumi (Kagiji Kumanomata): I got hooked on jewelry (When I don't have savings.).
Anonatsu 1959 (Ashibi Fukui): Probably when I was in my fourth year of college, forgot my reports and ended up having to repeat.
Fire Rabbit!! (Aya Hirakawa): When I'd buy a second of something I already have without realizing it.
Detective Conan: Zero's Tea Time (Takahiro Arai): The mountain of unmade Gunpla (It's been so many years since I've said I'd eventually get to them.)
Sokyuu no Ariadne (Norihiro Yagi): I don't even go out that much yet I've bought two cars.
Amano Megumi wa Suki darake!! (Nekoguchi): I spent 30 thousand yen on a beginners electric guitar set.
Imouto Rireki (Kei Nishimura): I got the wrong Apple pencil and ended up having two of them.
Kimi wa 008 (Syun Matsuena): I don't buy anything too expensive but I like jewels...
RYOKO (Kaito Mitsuhashi): When I buy two copies of the same video game, I guess....Why did I buy them?
Komi-san ha Komyusho desu (Tomohito Oda): Shoes! My friend said that the ones I had were lame and like an idiot I bought into it.
Tantei Xeno to Nanatsu no Satsujin Misshitsu (Teppei Sugiyama): It's so horrible that I can't say. Sorry.
Maiko-san chi no Makanai-san. (Aiko Koyama): I bought a plane ticket and got the day of departure wrong. By the time I noticed I ended up having to pay extra fees.
Daiku No Hatou (Michiteru Kusaba): A VR (Virtual reality) game (that immediately made me motion sick.) and a drone (which immediately fell apart.)
switch (Atsushi Namikiri): I don't waste money.
Memesis (Final chapter) (Takuya Yagyuu): "Memesis" is over! I'd like to thank my assistants and readers!
Tonikaku Cawaii (Kenjiro Hata): All of the audio I've ever bought.
Hoankan Evans no Uso ~Dead or Love~ (Mizuki Kuriyama): A box that I bought back when I had to move that remains in a room unused.
Be Blues! (Motoyuki Tanaka) An Electric Guitar. I never once played it...
Hatsukoi Zombie (Ryou Minenami): My school fees (By my parents).
Gopun go no Sekai (Hiroshi Fukuda): Let's just say life.
Chrono Magia: Infinity Gear (Takeshi Azuma): A Chinese electric bicycle. I bought it and the first time it rained it broke. Furthermore when I took it to the bicycle shop to have it fixed they couldn't do it so I had to toss it in the trash.
Souboutei Kowasubeshi (Kazuhiro Fujita): I went on a trip to Mont Saint-Michel to gather information, but when I got ready to draw, everyone had moved on!
Youkai Giga (Satsuki Satou): The trick to not thinking of something as useless is not to look back on the past, I think.
Tokaichi Hitoribocchi Nouen (Yuuji Yokoyama): There was a motorcycle I admired thanks to Street Racing and bought it....but I can't ride it at all!!
It's rare for all of the answers to resonate with me, but...they do. The spirit of buying something and regretting it immediately is one every person has experienced at one time in their life, no? I'm used to Namikiri's curt answers, but for some reason this one cuts deep, hah. Though I mostly want to know what Sugiyama bought that was so horrible...Also Fukuda giving a very Minenami like answer is...new. Sadly this is goodbye to Yagyuu --his upbeat answers were always fun to translate (if not a little weird from time to time.) It's also a slight bit surreal to have a TOC with Mitsuhashi in it --It's gonna take some time to really feel like RYOKO is back. On that note, the TOC itself is...kind of weird. Souboutei being basically last, Ariadne being suuuper high up, and Komi being lower than usual....it's probably no more than a blip, but still.
This week features not one, not two, but three Sunday gals from Nogizaka 46! This is actually their first time having a photo shoot in a manga magazine, so for it to be in Sunday is a big deal! (I think.) Above from left to right is Sayaka Kakehashi, Mayu Tamura, and Sakura Endou. They were born (respectively) in the years of 1999, 2002, amd 2001. Nogizaka will be celebrating it's 7th year anniversary with a live show on Thursday February 21st 2019. The theme of this shoot seems to be these ladies facing their fans and their idol career with unflinching focus which is admirable!
We're used to Sunday manga being a smidgen off season so you'll excuse Aozakura for having it's Christmas celebration in what's basically February, won't you? I've been kind of paying attention to the series for the last few weeks and the characters have been practicing dancing for this special occasion. This was mostly a chapter of the various characters getting together in preparation to dance --and the chapter ending with the unlikely combination of Kondo and Okita('s sister) preparing to dance. Which is a weird thing for me as the former Gintama translator to think about, really. That aside Forgive me for sounding maybe a bit harsh when I say I'm really surprised this series has managed to keep a pretty measured grip in the magazine --it's definitely a Sunday series through and through from it's pacing to atypical subject matter, and of course I'm not reading it nearly as closely as others, but Aozakura has always felt like the one odd duck in a magazine of oddities. Doesn't focus on a heroine, but isn't really an action series either. It's premise makes it seem as if it should have some agency, but yet it's approach is more in line with a slice of life manga. I'm not really complaining, just observing. Of course I want Sunday to have as many successes as possible so I'm happy it's doing well but it's an interesting case of being the oddity in a magazine full of them.
Apologies to Maoujo/Sleepy Princess fans! With the influx of new series I've been neglecting the series as of late, but now that this has slowed down a bit I can hurry back and...go to sleep. With some pretty accurate timing it almost feels as if the princess is crying over being forgotten for so long but in reality it's because of a drink she had that's meant to keep one awake --and she decided to casually drink it to see if it'd work on her, and it..does to shocking effect. The chapter is essentially the princess crying over her loss and one of the monsters --Poseidon trying to cheer her up and misunderstanding the situation. Probably what makes it great is Poseidon is having his own issues but thinks whatever is bothering the princess is way worse than anything he's going through and thinks of himself as selfish for thinking his little issues (which are actually a big deal --I mean your brother coming by after you left home to make something of yourself and finding that not only hasn't that happened but the demon king you're serving is...not fairing so well against the princess he kidnapped is a fair amount to be concerned about.) The princess implies they're having all the same kind of problems, so Poseidon spills his guts to her just to find out once the drink wears off she was actually really sleepy the whole time and just couldn't sleep. (By the way the princess spends 14 hours awake and 10 asleep, which Poseidon says is normal....though that sounds a bit off to me.) It's great to be able to talk about the princess again, and that's no misunderstanding!
Fire Rabbit makes a return, and by now you know my bias for when the main cast/new characters gather in a story so it should be no surprise that when Mahiro meets the characters of the Fire Rabbit squad that I'd feature it. I can say straight up that I didn't read all of Tenshi and Akuto (yet) but at least from what I can tell here, Fire Rabbit is way more....unhinged? Wacky? Weird? Than Hirakawa's previous work? At least the characters are all distinctly off kilter in that wonderful, wonderful way that only Shounen manga can do. I mean I really don't even have to describe what's going on above for one to understand that these people are by no means normal. I like that Hirakawa dedicated a whole chapter to just how weird these people are behind the scenes. From a klutz, to a chainsaw enthusiast, to a machoist, and finally the chief exercising in the buff, we can be sure the cast of Fire Rabbit is going to be entertaining even if it's much to Mahiro's chagrin.
Stepping in for Major and showing Ano Natsu how it's done is Zero! I don't think I've mentioned it much on the blog, but I recently found out from the official Zero twitter thanks to Arai posting storyboards from the series that Aoyama actually does do more than pitch story ideas --he actually corrects the artwork too. Gotta say I'm not really sure how to feel about this. It makes sense on a level that he'd want to ensure the artwork is as close to his as possible (though other spinoffs usually do their own thing, so it is a little unusual.), but y'know, it's also a thing where I have to ask if the Conan hiatuses aren't to allow him to rest but to allow him to work....on Zero's Tea Time. I want to believe that this isn't the case but man if this were a Conan case the evidence would be mounting...especially since Aoyama has gone on record to say that he's pretty happy drawing Conan (and the revenue it generates) so it wouldn't be surprising if Shogakukan just decided "Well if the series is going to be around for a while anyway, then..." Though I don't mean to diss Zero as whether we believe in Amuro or not, the sales indicate he's here to stay even if Aoyama gives Arai the keys to the car so to speak. Admittedly this (two part!) baseball game was pretty impressively drawn so if Aoyama is giving Arai a hand it does look like it's well worth it.
Komi's another series that got shuttered by the new serializations, though with the upcoming English release, I have to wonder if my little inconsequential yammering about it is necessary? I am happy to see so many more fans of the series coming out even if they're able to enjoy the series without my help. (Actually all the better if they can!) The last few weeks have seen the cast tackling a test of courage, of which Rumiko and Tadano have been paired together on. Oda (not that one) has done a pretty good job of being "romantic-ish" but not flat out "romantic" with the series --it's always been pretty squarely focused on the friendship of Komi and her classmates with hints of something more between she and Tadano. Though since Rumiko's entry into the series a bit of a love triangle has started to form. I say "a bit" because while it's heavily hinted both Komi and Tadano have a thing for each other, no one has actually acted on it, and that's more because while Oda (not that one) teases a bit, he never dwells on such things for long, and it's soon back to classroom hijinks for an unspecified period. It actually kind of works I think to keep the series from going too far into one direction. Though with this chapter, it's clear a storm is on the horizon, and dare I say it --it might be interesting to see how these developments shake up the status quo. Though it doesn't seem like we'll get that in the next chapter --rather the end of chapter text implies the siblings will get the spotlight. I can't complain as having a strong set of characters is what I like most about Komi.
Fujiminosuke Yorozuya (A very unusual name that stands out even if you don't understand Japanese) isn't a stranger to weekly Shounen Sunday. They've drawn mostly tie ins --including "Character Times" which followed the everyday life of the LINE emote characters and "Snack World" based on the video game from Level 5. The former series ran in Weekly Sunday for a while despite it being a commercial of sorts. NowYorozuya is back in the magazine for a brief moment to advertise again --though this time around from what I can tell this story is completely their own. Joukyo Koala is a series about two Koala brothers coming from their native Australia to Tokyo and the misadventures they have on the way.
It's a cute little romp helped out by Yorozuya's stylized artwork utilizing thick lines, but I can't help but wonder if this was the right place for it? This definitely feels like it would have been a better fit for one of Shougakukan's children magazines opposed to this one for teens. I don't want to be misunderstood --I'm not saying that as a knock against it's quality since it is genuinely very charming, and the characters cute. The jokes are simple enough to get --the type of things you'd see from misunderstandings and culture clashes, but nothing too serious as to take away from the very good tempo of this fourteen page chapter. I just think it would have gotten a bit better visibility in another magazine. Though I admit it is interesting to know that manga like this run on Webry which seemed to skew more toward the shounen and seinen crowd. (Though I do know that this is technically considered shounen too.) The bros only make it as far as the airport in this first chapter so if you're interested in seeing more you'll have to either head to webry or read volume one!
I know, it's weird to see Hatsukoi Zombie here when it's not getting a color page, but I felt like I needed to comment on this chapter. First thing; Ryou Minenami has been slated to draw manga for a new online publication for Shougakukan --a sort of "Sunday after hours" deal where "immoral" manga will run. No need to hide the kids though --the site will only be available from 6pm to 6am each and every day, (okay so maybe hide them a little.) It's an interesting experiment, and I'll give Shougakukan credit for trying something new and giving artists a reason to push their limits. Also for truth in advertising since y'know they're straight out saying it's "immoral" hah. Can't get mad at the content when the warning is right there, right? I think you well informed viewers at home can figure out what this might mean for Hatsukoi Zombie --and this chapter does feel pretty endgame-ish. Eve is "suddenly moving out of the country" at the end, and the whole chapter feels very somber. Of course it's not unheard of for an author to do two series at once, but as Hatsukoi isn't exactly a megahit and has run in the magazine for a while I think the more likely event here is this ends and Minenami moves to the new mag. We'll have to see in the upcoming weeks if my prediction bears out, though.
And with that the final features section comes to a close. As a parting gift (that isn't much of a gift at all, admittedly) I'll tell you what to expect in the next issue. Zero grabs the front of the magazine and gets a color page, leaving Evans with one of his own (to celebrate a reprinting of the series, so it's actually very good news!) and Yuugami will be stopping in for his monthly chapter. For the next issue you'll have to check out the twitter for the news, color pages, and a peek at the series not covered by the editorial. With the new format, I'm hoping I can comment on the entire issue for now on, perhaps, maybe. Of course they'll be snippets and nothing like these entries but I do feel like that'd be easier to read (and write) than these each week. I thank you very much for understanding these rapid fire changes --I really do want the blog to be a one stop Sunday source (or at least among the first five stops people make!) So I won't be neglecting this entirely...in fact I do have plans for the written blog over the next few months so please keep watching this space. As for the editorial, I'm thinking those will be out Thurs or Fridays most weeks, though Wednesday isn't completely out of the question. Until then, take care and know I appreciate your time.
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