Another manga gets put on ice

Yesterday, a new manga by Boichi called Marshall King debuted in Jump+. It was cool enough, but it made me do a double take. What had happened to that other new Jump+ manga based on recent-ish American history?

Many of you probably know about what's known as "axing a manga". This is a term common amongst fans of Weekly Shonen Jump, the world's leading manga magazine, featuring some of the most popular series in the whole medium. This magazine is always trying to innovate and get new lucrative series, but, of course, not everything is going to strike gold. Many mangas only last a couple of volumes and when you're printing a weekly magazine, dedicating space to something that won't really sell much with its volumes is just bad business.

Shonen Jump's biggest innovation this century probably is Shonen Jump+ (or MangaPlus), a digital version of the magazine that not only posts the new chapters weekly, but also has its own share of unique series. Their series' chapter releases are all spread out throughout the week instead of being dropped all at once on Sundays. Some series are bi-weekly even. Some of these series are huge new manga properties like SPY X FAMILY, DanDaDan or Kaiju no. 8.

Despite how Jump+ is an online website that's not limited by printed paper and space... its mangas can be canceled or at least, can meet a somewhat premature ending.

Drunk Bullet was one of Jump+'s new series, an action manga featuring a WW1 American soldier coming home to drink as much alcohol as possible since cockstails and the like were hard to find during the war only to find the US in its Prohibition era. Credit where credit is due, this is an original premise. the overall manga skews towards a mix of action and comedy with little to no drama, in which this WW1 Soldier is somehow a bonafide killing machine and Al Capone is a handsome rival that also had great fighting skills.

Most characters are interesting enough, though not spectacular. Such is the curse of only having 25 chapters. The main protagonist is likable enough and shows a mix of stupidity around a single trait (alcohol in this case) plus tactical brilliance and wisdom from fighting in the war. Alongside that, the secondary cast are all nice guys that all get their chance to shine and show how they think.

The main problem resides in the overall plot structure. A road trip around the US trying to get as much alcohol as possible on the way is a nice enough premise but the arcs lack the capacity to hold your attention that strongly. Each arc consists of the main trio travelling to a new city, meeting new characters that do/don't have alcohol while in prohibition, befriending them, encountering a main conflict that will involve fighting gangsters and a battle against said gangsters, finally ending with a glass of a new type of alcohol to be drunk.

After the third time they had done this I was positively tired with the structure and I believe the mangaka was too... or was preparing for the axe since the final arc is easily the weakest and most rushed. It definitely had all the signs for a rushed final ending, with a new sudden antagonist with a lot of sentimental importance to the protagonist and a very dumb reason for conflict to arise. Oh! and the secondary rival is here! For some reason! Not even the final confrontation was that great, lacking the strength of previous confrontations... which were where the manga shined most.

This manga's battles are fun! They are certainly imaginative despite the setting being technically realistic. They're not necessarily deep or very technical. This is not a shonen with power systems, but it is a shonen where characters do plan their moves and not just throw punches around. Art is also very appealing, with easy to understand and dynamic action.

Despite these nice characters and cool fights, the manga just lacked the narrative gravitas and variety to sustain a long-running serialization. I definitely couldn't see it surviving much longer and the final arc, while easily soured by the threat of the axe falling, made me realize how these arcs had been following similar structures. As it is right now, this manga is fine enough, nothing special. It has its good points but it's deeply flawed overall. There's a reason why I hadn't kept up with it early on.