This was a great issue to kick off the year - no series had a 'bad' chapters compared to my expectations for each; some were great, most better than usual.
Undead Unluck especially continues to blow me away with how it's managed to turn itself around completely in my view ever since the big timeline reveal. Every new chapter feels important, loaded with content, and adds emotional connections to those early chapters that on first glance just seemed wild for the sake of silly entertainment. This and
Me & Roboco are the major winners of 2020 for me;
Me & Roboco also had a solid chapter again this week, loved the gag with the mum at the end, but it just so happened that a lot of other series had stellar chapters that slightly edged it this time.
Chainsaw Man had my jaw wide open with that last page. I just knew it was coming but boy I can't believe it actually happened! What an anticlimax to this epic battle in the best way. Will be sad to see this go next week but it's ending on a high.
My Hero Academia did a good job of highlighting a bunch of characters this week which was entertaining to read but I'm just glad to see the Best Boy is back on the battlefield. One series that blew me away was
Agravity Boys - definitely it's best chapter yet. You can tell its slowly beginning to wrap up now that it's giving us a conclusion to one of the longest running gags in the series. Can't wait to see how gay things get next week.
The Promised Neverland reminded me how stellar the early chapters in particular were, I'm always happy to seeing more content to flesh out that time period in the story.
Sakamoto Days kept my attention with the third chapter and the introduction of a likeable policewoman character. Also, that character transformation at the end should come in handy for some epic battles in the future and pleasing more fans in a certain way.
Everything else this week was genuinely enjoyable for me:
Black Clover is kicking off this new arc invasion in an impactful way;
Jujutsu Kaisen was an epic blitz, even if I still don't
really understand the battle mechanics of this series after so long... but at least it looks cool!;
Mission: Yozakura Family managed to highlight its massive cast in a way that made them feel important and was actually fun to read;
Mashle was very reminiscent of
Demon Slayer but it's a good formula so I'm not mad;
High School Family is going fully
Haikyuu!! and I love it;
Build King had its best chapter yet with some early
Hunter x Hunter vibes with the exam up ahead and some pretty solid worldbuilding to flesh out the continent.
Even series I usually don't like were fun to read this week. On the other hand,
Dr. Stone is proving quite laborious to get through on a weekly basis and I'm not 100% sure why. Perhaps I was able to skim over the science elements in my binge and focus on what worked better for me, but being forced to sit with it each week is just not my vibe.
Our Blood Oath probably had it's most impactful chapter as well this week (though the bar is low) but its still dead last because everything else just so happened to be better than usual as well, shame.
My ranking of the chapters compared to last week:
- (+1) Undead Unluck
- (+2) Chainsaw Man
- (-2) My Hero Academia
- (+13) Agravity Boys
- (NEW) The Promised Neverland (Special)
- (-3) Sakamoto Days
- (-1) Me & Roboco
- ( - ) Black Clover
- ( - ) Jujutsu Kaisen
- (-3) Mashle
- ( - ) Phantom Seer
- (+1) Mission: Yozakura Family
- (-3) High School Family: Kokosei Kazoku
- ( - ) Hard-Boiled Cop and Detective
- ( - ) Build King
- ( - ) We Never Learn
- (+3) Ayakashi Triangle
- ( - ) Magu-chan: God of Destruction
- (+2) Moriking
- (-8) Dr. Stone
- (-2) Our Blood Oath
Also, I'm pretty much fully up to date with my ratings graph for the WSJ 2020 year. I did plan on including Samurai 8, ZIPMAN, and Guardian of the Witch as well but frankly I don't have much motivation to go back and read them so I'll leave as it. It's a bit chaotic but such is the way with many of the series being pretty unpredictable and changing in rankings each week.
