Shounen Enigma by Sakaki Kenji

[FanOfAniManga]

Any idea when the next couple of chapters should be up?

The raws tend to be released online around every Friday.
kewl0210 tends to release translations of the chapters at around late Saturday night or early Sunday morning.
As for Edited Mangas, I think they're released sporadically. I don't read them as by now, I would've probably waited for kewl0210's translation or try to read and translate the raw chapter myself.

---------- Post added July 12, 2011 at 01:11 AM ---------- Previous post was July 09, 2011 at 03:43 PM ----------

MY QUESTION: DOES ENIGMA HAVE A PILOT CHAPTER/ONESHOT?

I'm asking because I have yet to have heard of a manga series that doesn't have one, at least from what I've seen. And for a manga series to start off jumping straight into rising action from chapter 1 as opposed to the conventional approach of tens of chapters in exposition first, I'm EXTREMELY curious to see what the pilot chapter was like, if it even exists.

 

[Negative Syndicate]

I don't think there going to be pilot chapter for Enigma. I think it is very difficult to put pilot chapters for suspense series; Death Note also didn't have any pilot chapters, plus it also didn't original episodes on its anime.

 

[Jaymie]

Death Note had a pilot chapter. It involved a junior high student who wrote the names of bullies into the Death Note.

As for Enigma, I haven't heard of Sakaki at all prior to this. No one shots, no previous series, nothing. She just came out of the blue and ended up creating this.

 

[masgrande]

Sakaki was working as an assistant for Akira Amano, so that's probably why we haven't seen anything before Enigma. There could be a one shot like the one for Beelzebub that was the same as the first chapter with some minor differences.

 

[Negative Syndicate]

Death Note had a pilot chapter. It involved a junior high student who wrote the names of bullies into the Death Note.

As for Enigma, I haven't heard of Sakaki at all prior to this. No one shots, no previous series, nothing. She just came out of the blue and ended up creating this.

That one was kind of like spin-off, so I'm not sure to consider as pilot chapter (well, some may say this is pilot chapter). However, except that, there is absolutely no piot chapter in Death Note

Also, Sakaki did two one shots before Enigma, but I think they were different genre .

 

[FanOfAniManga]

Sorry guys. Thanks for replying to my question, but now I have more, although I still want to know if Enigma has a pilot chapter or oneshot.

With the fifth e-test officially ended, what's to come still seems so unpredictable to me. I believe the deciding factor as to where Enigma will go from here depends on how Sakaki's writing style evolves from here on. By at least 40 chapters, most manga series will have some degree of predictability as to what will happen next. Enigma, however, is open to so many options as to where the storyline will go.

My new questions are:
Do you think Enigma will continue as a suspense manga, or revert to another genre?
If you think Enigma will continue as a suspense manga, how will Sakaki continue to provide the suspense, and how effectively will she be able to do so compared with what she already has?
If you think Enigma will revert to another genre, which one would it be, and how effectively will Sakaki deal with writing the storyline in a new genre?

 

[Keino]

@fanofmanyanime Well I think since the manga is based around the "ability/talents" of Sumio and co. I think it will be part suspense/mystery as well as the typical shonen battle-esque scenarios. Its been mainly suspense/mystery so far because of Enigma trying to get them using their powers. Once this arc is over I think they might want to find out more about Enigma and Sumio will want to investigate his mom and dad disappearances.

 

[Negative Syndicate]

Sorry guys. Thanks for replying to my question, but now I have more, although I still want to know if Enigma has a pilot chapter or oneshot.

With the fifth e-test officially ended, what's to come still seems so unpredictable to me. I believe the deciding factor as to where Enigma will go from here depends on how Sakaki's writing style evolves from here on. By at least 40 chapters, most manga series will have some degree of predictability as to what will happen next. Enigma, however, is open to so many options as to where the storyline will go.

My new questions are:
Do you think Enigma will continue as a suspense manga, or revert to another genre?
If you think Enigma will continue as a suspense manga, how will Sakaki continue to provide the suspense, and how effectively will she be able to do so compared with what she already has?
If you think Enigma will revert to another genre, which one would it be, and how effectively will Sakaki deal with writing the storyline in a new genre?

Well, when or if you saw chapter 40, then you should know that Sakaki already thinks what happened next, yet whole e-test arc was kind of like prologue for real story.

For your other question, the answer is same as from above. Sakaki going to keep suspense genre plus she now going to add mystery to this series.

 

[Jaymie]

I've noticed that the chapters without very much suspense rank poorly. So I believe that the voters are voting for Enigma because they earnestly want a mystery series.

Right now I believe that Sakaki should focus on the mystery of the hijacking and Sumio's missing father/mother, depending on the one he gets back in a chapter or so. New characters with new abilities, and fleshing out the current ones, will make the series appear less one-dimensional (probably the series' Achilles heel atm).

 

[masgrande]

Here is the raw for chapter 41 Link.

 

[FanOfAniManga]

I'd reveal some spoilers, but I can't seem to translate any of it. Reading it visually confuses me too.

 

[kewl0210]

Yeah, this was really hard to translate. The grammar is tricky with the subject being unclear sometimes and Kirios use of really weird/uncommon phrases that have many definitions. I had to go through it twice to make sure I had it all right.

Ya can read it here though:
http://mangahelpers.com/t/kewl0210/releases/30507

 

[FanOfAniManga]

Yeah, this was really hard to translate. The grammar is tricky with the subject being unclear sometimes and Kirios use of really weird/uncommon phrases that have many definitions. I had to go through it twice to make sure I had it all right.

Ya can read it here though:
http://mangahelpers.com/t/kewl0210/releases/30507

That was very much appreciated.
And in all the difficulty of translating that chapter, you also released your translation on schedule. Props to you for that as well.



Now that I've read it, I can safely say that this chapter is the one that will determine the overall gist of the series from here on out. Having said that, there are still many unanswered questions and the future of this manga series is still up in the air. Not even vague details can be predictable at this moment as to how everything will play out.

I'm wishing all the best to Sakaki from here on out, as I'm still strong in my belief that this manga series has a lot of potential.

 

[Jaymie]

Wow, what an interesting chapter. It answered a lot of things, including

Spoiler

why the main characters have their powers

. We also have a vague idea of the direction the series is going in now that the first major arc is over.

In my opinion, if there's an Anime, this would be an amazing final episode for it. The denouement. Chapters 38 and 39 can be the climax in Episode 25, and Chapters 40, 41, and possibly 42 depending on what happens that chapter, could be the final episode.

 

[Divinenega]

Well I finally decided to give into temptation and read the raws for chapter 40 and 41 with the translations from here. All I can say is...wow.

Spoiler

We got some major revelations with these last two chapters, and I can definently see the story going in the direction of trying to fifure out the origins of the Enigma skull in addition to freeing Kirio. I was sort of surprised to see how cold he had become, but like Sumio said, the Enigma skull may be messing with his mind.

It;s pretty obvious that Sumio will become the next Enigma, though his personality may be the reason why Kirio was looking for a messiah like person. He likely didn;t want to risk the person getting corrupted by Enigma;s power and influence.

I pray that these chapters in addition to the other parts of the e-test climax can really give the series a boost in the ratings. It;s been going above and beyond lately.

 

[masgrande]

We are suppose to use spoiler tags for the discussion of unrelease chapters.

Spoiler

Maybe he'll choose Shigure to be the next Enigma since she had the highest score of the e-test and Kirio already said Sumio failed the test. I feel sorry for the ones who became shadows, but I still think Sumio or Kurisu will search for a way to save them.

Spoiler

If Kijima and Kirio had been the ones manipulating Takemaru in highschool, I wonder if they were the ones who murder the student when they framed Yumikawa.

 

[FanOfAniManga]

Spoiler

If Kijima and Kirio had been the ones manipulating Takemaru in highschool, I wonder if they were the ones who murder the student when they framed Yumikawa.

Note that

Spoiler

Yumikawa was in the festival when the scream was broadcasted.

From this, I'm deducing that

Spoiler

Kirio somehow tried sending Yumikawa to jail. Then in her isolated environment, she got forced to take the e-test and failed it, hence her disappearance up until now.

Either that, or a more complicated situation that I can't seem to wrap my mind around as of now.


On a side note, sort of related to Enigma, for those who visit the Enigma Wiki:
I've noticed that traffic on the Wiki had skyrocketed as of this past Friday, the day after the raw chapter 41 was released (this past Thursday). It's strange because I thought the traffic would skyrocket a week ago if anytime, when chapter 40 was released. What makes it even stranger is how the traffic skyrocketed over any given day when the Wiki was advertised on the Animanga Wiki network (this past May). Can anyone come up with a good reason as to why this happened?

 

[saladesu]

Might it be because that was the day chapter 39 was released by CXC? I think most English readers don't look at the raws, so I would think that most of them are unaware of the events in chapters 40 and onwards. Chapter 39 was a pretty titillating chapter so I'm not surprised that people would go check out the wikia to see if they could find some info or something, though the degree of the increase in traffic is rather surprising.

 

[FanOfAniManga]

Well, e42's raw is released. The title is

Spoiler

Sucession.

First of all,

Spoiler

Kirio describes the three times his wishes did not come true: The school festival, the plane hijacking and I can't seem to understand the last one.

Then, in prison guard uniform,

Spoiler

Kijima enters the room and apologizes to everyone. He reveals that he is actually Kirio's older brother, and that he's been guarding him to keep the skull safe from something I can't understand.

He reveals that in the past,

Spoiler

His father gave him the skull when he was a child as he thought it was "appropriate" for him, but the skull rejected him, so he failed to inherit it (hence the pattern only appearing at the front of his hand, not the back). As a result, his father got pissed and evicted Kijima and his mother.

During the Yuyami festival,

Spoiler

Kijima (I think) tried to pretend not to know about the skull when Kirio activated it. (I think) he tried visiting Yumikawa in the infirmary, but he was too late. That was when he suddenly realized a bad premonition. Then a short while later, Yumikawa got arrested.

His explanation

Spoiler

pisses off Takemaru, who wonders why Kijima likes to screw with other people. Kijima reminds him that Yumikawa also acquired an Ability/Talent from hearing the broadcast. And then, for some reason I can't seem to understand, Kirio starts to treat her as an enemy.

Seeing the

Spoiler

plane ticket, Kijima had a bad feeling that there'd be an accident coming her way. Having seen Yumikawa imprisoned on false charges, he thinks Yumikawa may die from the plane crash if he doesn't see her.

There's a part where

Spoiler

Kijima apologizes to Yumikawa for (I think) getting her involved with the skull.

And soon after the plane crash,

Spoiler

Kijima received this weird piece of mail giving him a job as a prison guard. And so, he happened to become Kirio's, where he's been guarding him since except for late at night and over the holidays.

There's a bit more in between about why

Spoiler

Kijima acted the way he did during the e-test.

Unfortunately, I've not been able to figure out what exactly yet. I'll figure it out later if kewl doesn't yet.



To conclude, having browsed through the chapters, I can certainly say that this is definitely the point where

Spoiler

Sumio's "destiny turns" and where "he bids farewell to normal days", as he said in the hospital in Chapter 1.

Now, here's why:

Spoiler

Sumio has voluntarily succeeded in taking his role to become Enigma (over Kirio's preferred choice, Shigeru), though I personally don't think that was much of a surprise.

And,

Spoiler

At the end of the chapter, Kirio sends Sumio and the rest back to Yuyami High to get a taste of their reality with their wishes granted.

Interesting to note is how

Spoiler

At that very point, Aru transforms back into his normal self, holding Pit-kun on his left hand.

 

[Jaymie]

Enigma is consistently interesting, so I don't understand why it doesn't rank higher each week. I guess the Japanese readers hated Kijima. SPOILER ALERT is definitely more of an appealing "Sasuke"-type rival that WSJ readers love, so I'm interested in seeing if the ranking rises for Chapter 40.

Spoiler

It looks like Sumio is the next Enigma. It almost feels like the series is just beginning, which is very odd seeing as it's almost been a year. I'm very excited for next week! We'll probably be getting a transition chapter after 42 chapters of non-stop action and exposition. Sakaki is a very impressive magaka, I have to say. She has a very intriguing career ahead of her.