Great Onion! Has it been a week already??? Hey, everyone! Another Jump Start coming in this week’s Weekly Shonen Jump! It’s called Noah’s Notes, and from the cover art it looks like a kind of Indiana Jones thing: A well-dressed guy who looks like an Action Academic and his fanservice sidekick, against a couple of backgrounds that look rather culturally diverse from each other. But he’s holding a book, so maybe this is kind of like Death Note?
Rule #1 of Noah’s Notes: The person whose name is written in this book shall turn into Russel Crowe.
Are you not entertained?! Wait, wrong movie. What was my line again?
Ok, on to the actual start! Again, these are my unedited, unfiltered, only slightly censored thoughts as I read:
- Opening line: “If you’re reading this book, it means that the professor is no longer on this Earth.” Well, no big questions there! Ok, story, you’ve got my attention. Blow me away.
- Yep, totally an Indiana Jones-feel so far. Or maybe Stargate. I’ll forgive the fact that the entire first page is someone essentially reading a book’s introduction, since the art looks neat (not amazing, but very good) and I like the build-up.
- “The title of my book is…” I’m gonna go out on a limb here: “Noah’s Notes”?
- “Noah’s Notes”—Called it. Oh wait, there’s a chapter title, too: “The Adventuring Scholar’s Ark.”
ARK???
As in, Raiders of the Lost Ark? FOR SHAME! Ripping off the best of the series! Or do they mean as in Noah‘s Ark? (Both arks are biblical, but they are not the same ark.) Ok, either way, this is an interesting pair of possible allusions.
- We’re restarting at “1” because I can’t figure out how to get WordPress to continue numbering after a hard return.
- Miss Fanservice appears! She’s a high school student with the bust of a 30-year-old. And the shirt of a high school student.
- Miss F. got a zero in History. She’s a business major. When her teacher chews her out, she retorts, “It’s just history! How’s studying this crap gonna help me in the future anyway?” Girl, if you have no interest in applying the past to the future, at the very least, your career in business is gonna last until the stock market closes at the end of Monday.
- Miss F. declares, “Coming to school’s just a way to kill time ’til I’m a grown-up!” HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! *breathe* HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!
- In the privacy of her own mind, or whatever most closely approximates such a thing for her, Miss F. asserts that she’s going to “get married, start a family, and find happiness that way. Who needs studying, right?” … Where do I start??? First of all, while I’ll be the first to encourage a young woman who feels that’s what she wants to do in life, most people I know prefer a moderately smart/educated partner at the very least. At the very least, you’re unnecessarily limiting your prospects! But of course, you wouldn’t know that, because you would have had to learn it from someone else. Second, while I sincerely hope that everyone finds happiness in their chosen relationships, that’s a pretty tall bet you’re making and one I wouldn’t be inclined to take. Aristotle said, “Call no man happy until he is dead.” (Morbid fellow, he could be at times.)
- An injured kitten! Miss F. follows it to see if it needs first aid, but apparently not. Bonus points for the cat puns she fires off on this page. 😀 Then she sees something else…
- An odd rock! With something embedded in it! Miss F. doesn’t know what it is, so she snaps a pic and posts it on social media. And tosses the rock in her school bag. Ok, I’ll admit: I’m legit intrigued as to where this going now.
- The post is mysteriously removed! And we receive a disconcerting editorial comment that something was very wrong with the world! Dun dun dun!
- Now we see a helicopter speeding along looking for the odd thing in the rock. In a few brief moments, we are introduced to two characters (Professor Noah and his helicopter pilot), informed that “notes” are a secret from the entire world, and get some character development as Noah pulls a gun on his pilot. And grins. See, Jujutsu Kaisen? This is how you exposit!
- Hanging from the copter, Noah comes swinging through the window of Miss F.’s classroom! Indiana Jones much?
- Noah drops a smoke bomb, grabs Miss F. around the neck, and abducts her at gunpoint. Honestly, I did not see this coming.
- Ok, turns out that was just a ruse to get her alone. Wow, I didn’t think there was anyone who wanted to be alone with Miss I-have-no-IQ that badly!
- Miss F. turns over the rock. Apparently it’s something incredible. We know this because Noah gleams and says, “Incredible…” Oh, and apparently because it’s a relic of a human civilization about 100,000 years old.
- Miss F. laughs in disbelief. “It’s just some rock… It’s basically garbage.” To which Noah responds, “Perhaps your brains are fossilized, too.” High five, Noah! He points out that there’s an engraving on the metal that dates it to… 2022 AD! Four years in the future!
- Miss F. makes the mistake of commenting that she doesn’t care about history. Noah decides this is a “teaching moment”—and really does kidnap her this time.
- Noah whisks her away to a secret excavation site, where, in the course of digging subway tunnels, a mysterious lock was uncovered—in ground 100,000 years old. It couldn’t be picked, and couldn’t be forced open without potentially damaging whatever was inside. The piece of metal Miss F. found might be the key!
- Ok, as an academic, the conversation about “why study history” intrigues me. And at this point, as they are approaching the keyhole, this theme gets brought up again. Miss F. trots out the same objections as above, and Noah responds, “To know the past is to know the future. History’s the most practical field of study there is.” Then she mentions wanting to be a bride, and he points out that everything she knows on the subject she learned from her mom—specifically, from her mom’s history, as he puts it. Wow, that got deep fast. Actually, this conversation, which I’m only summarizing here, is really well done.
- Of course the piece of metal turns out to be the key, and Miss F. (whose actual name is Mirai, I guess) has the honor of opening the door. Inside, they find what appears to be a control panel. Noah touches it, and something activates!
- It’s an ancient elevator! Our heroes begin faaaaaaaaaaalling…
- …and arrive. Back at their starting point. Buuut everything is in ruins, so they must be in the future, I’m guessing.
- Oh nope. They got me. Here’s the major twist of the plot: The city they are in is the real one, from ca. 2018/2022. The one they just came from is a different, identical city, and the year is actually about 100,000 AD. Indiana Jones, meet the Matrix. Matrix, Jones.
- It gets weirder. Apparently the ancient civilization went through the same historical epochs and events as the present one. Basically, history is repeating itself. Why? That’s the mystery Noah is seeking to answer.
- The mysterious “notes” are relics from that past civilization. Noah’s job is to collect them and figure out what caused humanity’s destruction in the past. (Not just civilization’s destruction: humanity’s. They’re clear on this point.)
- Final point of set-up: The year 2022 in the past was the year all of humanity was wiped out. So if the pattern holds, Noah has four years to figure out why humanity is about to be destroyed and stop it!
All right, I’m legit intrigued. I’ll be following this one.
Promised Neverland #78
I could give away all the spoilers this time, or I could just squeal in glee. Your pick.
Black Clover #98
Woah! We finally get some backstory on the Big Bad of Black Clover, Licht! And without going into spoilers, it looks fascinating! Raises lots of questions about the land they live in and about Yuno in particular. Looks like we’re in for a tragic tale about how Licht turns from being a kind person into an evildoer.
Yes, exactly. Wow. This might be the best chapter of Black Clover ever. Like seriously, if the series started here, I doubt I’d mind. And I like Black Clover!
Jujutsu Kaisen #2
So we’re on to the second installment of last week’s jump start. Reading the first page leaves me confused as to who is speaking and to whom. Seriously, I’ve read it four times now and I still can’t piece all the dialogue together. A few more pages indicate that the kid who ate the cursed finger (is that a phrase that ever had to be written?) is going to be murdered secretly executed. Tough luck, Hero who just saved the school and his classmates’ lives.
Turns out Mr. Hero kid and the finger demon now inhabit the same body and can switch control. Oh, real original.
And several more pages of relatively clear exposition, and we find that the kid’s execution is deferred until… what? I guess until he proves he can be useful in his current state?
Oh. They want him to eat twenty cursed fingers, then kill him. (It makes sense in context, at least more than most things in this series.) So after the typical shonen hero agonizing, he agrees and chows down a second pinky.
Beyond that, I’m not quite sure what happened at the end of the chapter except that the kid moved to Tokyo. Maybe it’s a faulty translation?
My Hero Academia #174
Several plot threads inch forward today. The prep for the dance continues. Midoriya practices control of One For All with All Might, and we get a guest appearance by—
And that bizarre tea-drinking gentleman villain is back, planning to cause trouble at the student festival. Why? Because he wants to strengthen the young heroes, of course. It all makes so much sense!
What is intriguing is that the villain deliberately plans to pull off his heist without using his Quirk. Will be interesting to see how he does that. Also, it turns out he’s a frustrated YouTuber and his accomplice is his greatest fan. Kind of like if Mr. Incredible had been the bad guy and had taken on Syndrome as his sidekick after all.
Dr. Stone #49
A nice twist on the usual recipe this week. Even though Senku had beaten back the invaders with science, the attack itself was a diversion—a group of enemies snuck around behind the village and set fire to the children’s quarters! Then they move to take a hostage. Instead of Senku having a prepared technology to deal with them, he has to play things by ear. It’s a young friend of his who comes out as the hero this week, as she leads the invaders to a place where (as we and Senku & Co. learned in earlier chapters) there happened to be some deadly natural gas. Most of the invaders end up… not in good shape.
Senku’s side is still vastly outnumbered, even though the enemy has retreated for the moment. So he promises that he has finally produced the most powerful weapon of the modern world, with which he will defeat them—and on that cliffhanger, the chapter ends.
Fun as usual! My money’s on the ‘weapon’ being the printing press or something like that.
Robot x Laserbeam #48
A surprise contestant shows up for the golf competition—someone who had earlier challenged Robo to ‘catch up with’ him. We start to see some of the character of the different contestants emerge, as Robo crosses paths with his first opponent before the match. A more laid-back chapter, but not in a bad way: Character development is rarely a bad thing to spend time on.
We Never Learn #54
WNL sinks to a new low this week: What started as a premise with a lot of potential (a tutor with actual pedagogical theory under his belt trying to teach two students with very different learning styles) has lost even the charm of its cliches. By the most contrived of coincidences, Nariyuki (our ‘hero’) gets roped into helping a for-hire service company, and all of his clients turn out to be the women who have crushes on him. (One of whom is one of his teachers, which, as a former teacher, I find all kinds of problematic.) Each one refuses to let him actually do the work they requested, as they want to show their best side to him: their cleaning skills, cooking skills, etc. It’d be cute if it was original, but it really feels like the author isn’t trying any more.
And I’m sure that’s not a fair thing to say, because out of the little that I do know about mangaka, it’s that they and their teams burn themselves to the bone to get these out. It pains me to see that effort wasting its potential.
But whereas Nisekoi could pull this kind of stunt off, WNL just comes off flat this week. I started out actually caring for the different characters in this series, but this week I didn’t. I’m hanging on hoping that this is a temporary slump and things will improve.
Series featured but not reviewed (because they fall outside my interests)
- One Piece
- Food Wars
- Hunter x Hunter
Thanks for reading, folks! If you read any of these series, what do you think of them? Also, if you have suggestions for tweaking these ‘saunters’ drop me a line in the comments.
Peace out!