Shuukan Shounen Hachi

[Lyendith]

Clearly, Hoozuki was the worst part of the series. Back in chapter 13 the series had a color page with a big "SURGING POPULARITY!" so said popularity only started to nosedive after that… I do agree that the whole Like Battle setup was a bit iffy… But even then that arc had plenty of strong moments like the geoglyph manga or the press conference, or anything involving Handa and Inohara, really, and Hoozuki was only focused on near the end of the arc. So I'm puzzled.

 

[geroshabu]

The strongest moments were with Hachi/Handa/Inohara for sure, which shows Masudas strength with romcom and drama. Problem is it was clearly pitched as a battle-manga, with a god-level rival and a school built on tiers; it needed a good battle about drawing manga for it's first big arc but we didn't get one versus Mikeya until the final chapters, and it obviously got rushed. Masuda probably should've either gone full-on Bakuman and heavily focused on manga, or made it about a manga club in a school or something to focus on the romcom - the main concept of battling with manga got lost when they started battling for likes instead, which is a darn shame.

 

[dabes115]

lmao axe owned this series

 

[Enderzone]

I'm gonna be butthurt about this for years.

 

[kronix]

trash manga stay away "romance" btw just for the sake of having the tag, nothing really "romance" happens OMEGALUL

 

[nivkh]

Thanks for joining us on this adventure. Until next time.

 

[Ellipsism]

Wtf i'm so salty goddamn nips and their shit taste

 

[Wart]

How is it already over???? The ending feels so rushed, but that's probably because I wanted to keep reading... I hope we can see these characters again, sometime.

 

[Seip]

@kronix this manga has more romance in 2 ch than most of the average japanese romcom and it was rushed because japanese audience is shit otherwise i guess it would have been better

 

[Sugioh]

Ugh. It hurts to see it over with so many plot threads abandoned.

I hope Matsuda's next series manages to get a long run. His real strength is in creating characters that grow (and grow on us as readers) over time, but unfortunately shonen manga isn't always a format where authors are afforded that luxury.

 

[Takonar]

That final chapter was pretty meta. I'm not really a fan of mangas about mangakas or light novelists, they just strike me as too self indulgent. That being said the author effectively managed to convey his passion for writing manga through this bittersweet final chapter. The art was amazing, especially compared to the early chapters of "Jitsu Wa", but I feel like the author erred in not making Mikeya a girl. While I enjoyed the theme of men clashing through their works, a waifubait character might have helped prolong this series.

 

[Tywin]

Sadly, I have heard of Hachi only for its cancellation so I waited for FWPA to translate the last chapters before reading it (and thank you for your hard work). So, I just finished it: it isn't a bad manga but neither it is special as JW3 was.

I noticed that Masuda's art is greatly improved: I mean, some tables in the last part of JW3 were beautiful but here he has reached another level. Also, I'm delighted he hasn't lost his touch for eldritch horror: yes, I'm talking about the eye in ch. 31.
Also (almost) all of the cast was enjoyable and the relationships between the characters were managed really well (as I would expect from the author) despite the few time to make them grow.

So... what didn't work? I don't know for myself, like gathering good ingredients and making a not so good dish. Personally, I wasn't too interested in the overall plot (but maybe it was me: I don't like manga about aspiring or professional mangaka) and I found the start and the E-rank rather annoying.

Anyway, I wish Masuda more luck for his next work: IMHO he is a really good author... he just has to find the right story to make his talent shine. Personally, I would love reading a supernatural/horror manga by him... even if I'm still waiting for Momobutttarou XD

 

[Lyendith]

@Tywin Reading back Masuda's works, it strikes me that he's more of a "character writer" than a "plot writer"… All of his mangas so far have had very simple stories:

>Toumei Ningen was a three-character story with a guy looking for a way out of the invisible world (okay, it was a short series, so obviously it wasn't too complex).
>Sakura Discord was pure slice-of-life dramedy without much of a plot to speak of.
>Jitsu wa was mostly romcom antics, although extremely over-the-top and parodic; there was a rather elaborate plot, but only in the last quarter or so of the series (and it was great).
>Hachi was your classic "aiming for the top" nekketsu story.

It's probably not a coincidence that his most popular series was the one with a supernatural setting where he could do pretty much whatever he wanted. So for his next work, I think he should either try a more plot-heavy approach or go back to SF-fantasy or even horror (or all of that). His grandiose artstyle with tons of dynamic shots, splash pages and detailed shadowings doesn't really seem suited for grounded stories. Even in Hachi you could feel that he was itching to break free from his realistic setting.

 

[Ixtab]

Well that was kinda abrupt. It's probably the twitter war that lead it to getting axed, imo.

 

[exxeld]

A shame this series ended so quickly, but the like battle really did not do the series a favor.

They spent so long building the MC up and I was really looking forward to further seeing his growth. A shame it wasn't able to happen at the pacing the author intended.

 

[bastek66]

Was there anything additional in last tankobon?

 

[Lyendith]

@bastek66 Some yonkoma that give a few additional details. We'll translate them… eventually. X)

 

[Ovnidemon]

@Ixtab Which Twitter war?

 

[Ixtab]

@Ovnidemon I meant the twitter war arc.

 

[Ironclad]

Masuda Eiji does well with simple premises. It gives the important grounding that allows him to go on silly tangents like time travellers fighting perverts or the homeroom teacher becoming a magical girl spinster.

Just the synopsis of this series actually sounds like one of those tangents padded out to its own dedicated series, and I'm betting there wasn't enough pages for character development or comedy in between the overarching plot.