Manga 111834 Shuukan Shounen Hachi

I have a strange feeling when reading shounen manga. On one hand, I sometimes find those boring if they utilize common tropes that are found in nearly any shounen manga I read. On the other hand, I love the utilization of these tropes, as they bring forth the essence of what a shounen manga truly is. To make short, the use of these shounen tropes must be used well in order for the manga to be enjoyable. As to where I am going with this, it is simply to tell you that Shuukan Shounen Hachi utilizes these tropes really well.

Personally, the story of Shuukan Shounen ... Hachi was somewhat boring. I had difficulty getting into it, as it followed the usual shounen formula of someone with low skill climbing his way to the top. As you may have guessed, I don't think that this manga's story is not the greatest. At least for the first part of the manga. Initially, Shuukan Shounen Hachi seems like a plot driven story, which made for a rather weak story due to its unoriginality. However, as more chapters were published, it slowly changed its path to a character driven story. On the later parts of this manga, there is more focus on the relationships between characters, rather than the main plot of the story, being to follow the protagonist's road to success. Put simply, Shuukan Shounen Hachi's story started rather weakly, but made significant improvement as more focus was put on the characters, creating a really interesting group of people to follow, making the story a lot more interesting to read.

Personally, I really liked the art of this manga. It managed to portray the emotions of each character quite well. It helps into showing the intensity of specific scenes, with the art helping into rising the tension. There is nothing else more to say. The art is good, and it manages to compliment the characters and their emotions.

As I mentioned previously, Shuukan Shounen Hachi became a character driven story as the manga went on. As you might have guessed, the characters in this manga are quite good. For the majority, they all have an interesting personality. Although I initially thought that they were carbon copies of other shounen characters, the author managed to bring forth the fun and interesting parts of each character and reduce the more boring elements. For example, the protagonist may seem like your usual shounen protagonist. However, as the story goes on, the author enriches his personality, developing him as a character as he meets new people. Furthermore, the author also uses him as a catalyst in order to bring forth the personalities of the cast. Overall, the characters in Shuukan Shounen Hachi are really good, being developed as the story goes on, with their personalities getting enriched through the interactions they have with each other.

In the end, Shuukan Shounen Hachi was quite a fun manga. Although it initially gives off the appearance of a unoriginal shounen manga, it later becomes a fun ride, following an entertaining group of students. It is a manga that utilizes common tropes, and manages to utilize them in order to show the essence of a shounen manga, enriching the characters, which in turn, makes the story more entertaining to read.

This is my first review ever, so I'm sorry if I'm not too concise.
I'll try to keep it short.
(This review is Spoiler Free)
I liked this manga a lot and the fact that it got axed so soon got me off guard, so let me get to it.

Story:8
The story has the usual shounen tropes(pretty much the reason why i was skeptical to start reading this manga), but I'm not calling it bad because of that.
... An usual guy trains really hard to become the "main character", in this case a professional mangaka, starting from the very bottom and having, of course, a sworn rival, that is better than him in every aspect, and that ends up being his friend as well.
I have to admit that the romance was handled actually kinda well, and the ending didn't felt rushed at all, EVEN if it got axed.
How can i say it? Even if it ended, it felt just like a beginning.

Art:8
There isn't very much to talk about the art, if you are used to Masuda-Sensei's other works, like Jitsu wa watashi wa, you won't have a problem getting accustomed with the art in this manga, you might even be surprised how much better he got in this one. At times i got really exited, remembering the first chapters from his previous works, you can really see the passion and veracity put in his art.

Character:10
Now, this is where the manga gets separated from your usual, run of the mill shounen manga. Even if the characters might seem irritable at start, or even like they are "the same" as in Masuda's previous work, you will be surprised to find out that he actually put more thought into making them.
You will most definitely fall in love with the characters, even if they are not "special", their ambitions seem real, so you can relate with them, you just have to give them some time, a couple of chapters at most.

Enjoyment:10
I started reading this manga yesterday and i finished it in a mere day, thinking that it's a weekly manga and without knowing that it already ended, finding that at chapter 40, chapter 42 being the last one.
I could say that it reached it's peak of excitement in the last couple of chapters, so it feels like this manga could've gotten even more exciting if it went on.

Overall:9
Maybe the story wasn't the best, but i recommend you read Shuukan Shounen Hachi at least once, as there are only 42 chapters, so it's a quick read and it's really enjoyable.

Thank you for your attention.

----- Short -----
This series really showed what Masuda-sensei could do... and what he couldn't do. The endearing characters of Jitsu wa just didn't show up here, and what we got was an average sports series that got axed.

----- Long -----
I'm not giving this series a 6 because it was cancelled (Masuda-sensei wrapped up SO WELL on such short notice). I'm giving it a 6 because it was going downhill and becoming a boring slog... which is probably why it got axed.

Compared to his previous work Jitsu wa Watashi wa (one of my favorite seres), Masuda-sensei really tried something different with Shuukan Shounen Hachi, switching from ... a harem rom-com to something of a sports/battle-shonen. At first, I was both shocked and impressed. The first few chapters showed potential for great battles and unique, endearing characters.

But it quickly turned into a focus on the two least interesting characters: a self-insert MC with dumb hair, and his perfect rival with no personality. And worst of all - they never interact. In contrast, I loved the characters of Jitsu wa Watashi wa because they were so fleshed out and "real." You could see all of the characters talking with each other, and these interactions would change as more things happened in the story and more characters were introduced. Masuda-sensei weaved an incredibly complicated web of characters and relationships where almost every thread was funny and engrossing.

In Shuukan Shounen Hachi, there aren't enough interesting threads between characters because there just aren't enough important characters. The main conflict is between Hachi and Mike, who are so far separated from each other they might as well be in different manga series. Mike doesn't really interact with anybody else (Myaako might as well be a brick wall), and Hachi's group isn't too big, with only 2-3 other characters with any depth (there's a whole CLASS of unimportant background characters...). While Handa/Panda is a great character with hilarious interactions with Hachi, the other combinations just don't click.

There are tiny gems of Masuda-sensei's brilliance in this series (like the outlandish comedy), but this genre just doesn't do it for his style. The battles and conflict feel incredibly forced, while the comedic parts feel much more natural. Maybe this series would have succeeded in the long term when Mike and Hachi interact more, but the 42 chapters that we got didn't show any of that.