Summoning demon’s is the best hobby ever.
Creative Staff:
Story/Art: Shun Numa
What They Say:
The series centers on high school student and summoner named Samon.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The Jump Start program brings us another new series, this time from newcomer Shun Numa. This is Numa’s first series and you can definitely see that he’s studied (or grown up with) what typifies a lot of Shonen Jump material in a general sense. I’ve read a wide range of series that have originated from the Weekly Shonen Jump magazine over the many years that manga has been released here and there is a good bit of variety to it overall. But there are those works that just feel like they’re the brand in a more general sense and Samon the Summoner represents it pretty well. While we can get complex and lengthy series like One Piece, we can also get things like this where it’s very much aimed at the young teenage audience and has a kind of frenetic pacing about it that may not click so well as one gets older.
The series revolves around a second-year high school student named Sakura Teshigawara, the class president that’s known as an angel because of a good deed she did a year prior and for generally being a positive and helpful person. That positive side is what gets her into trouble though as she tries to engage with the most isolated student in the class, Shosuke Samon. He’s a bit of an odd looking duck in general with his hair, but what really separates him is that he has the dread middle school syndrome. That not-growing-up element that bothers others that have matured a bit. He calls himself a demon summoner and revels in the pain and anguish of others.
So it’s no surprise that people avoid him like crazy. The unfortunate problem is that he really is a summoner and has decided that he really hates Sakura and the good nature she has. Enough so that he’s decided to continually torture her with various demons that will get her to give in to her darker side, from being greedy about things, being lazy, and even looking to eat a lot of bad food without thought of the calories. Suffice to say, it really drains on Sakura a whole lot yet she continues to have a mostly strong and outgoing personality. Which naturally serves to get him to make his hate for her clear and that he intends to break her in a big way. While you can see that they’re likely to try the whole angle of him doing this because he actually likes her for the way she is, it mostly comes across as fairly mean, not altogether engaging, and really just the worst kind of bullying in a lot of ways. It’s easy to imagine him going after her in the same kind of way but without actual demons, which Numa does try to make amusing in a kind of Takahashi-styled way in some instances.
Numa’s style is one that works decently for the nature of the story and what he’s trying to bring across, but it also essentially looks like a first timer’s work in many ways. There are some amusing facial expressions to be had and I generally liked his panel layout as it flows well, but the character design style just didn’t click for me. Shosuke’s hair style alone just reminds me of the kind of manga I dislike in the Yu-gi-oh fashion while Sakura’s expressions have their moments only from time to time and instead more often than not just don’t look right. I can see the humorous style that was being sought yet it simply doesn’t click for me. Numa’s overall page design is straightforward and we do get some decent backgrounds from time to time but the shortcuts of the weekly periodical are here as well, so they’re not all that rich or interesting.
In Summary:
The opening installment of Samon the Summoner largely told me everything I need to know about it. It’s mostly well put together but with plenty of room for the creator and the work to grow and become something more. But a decent chunk of what we get here is the kind of humor and style that I really don’t see it growing out of either. The relationship between the two is the easiest area that can change early on so it’s not quite so aggressive between the two of them yet I can also see that being what draws a lot of people to it and something that it wants to hold onto as long as it can. There’s a basic kind of approach here that’s functional and serviceable but it doesn’t engage me all that much and I found myself almost forcing myself to finish the opening extended chapter. Shonen Jump will be running the first three chapters weekly as part of the Jump Start program, but I don’t see myself returning for the second installment.
Grade: C
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Weekly Shonen Jump via ComiXology
Release Date: September 21st, 2015
MSRP: $0.99
It’s sad to say, but the second I saw the art style I was kind of put off by how ugly it was. Sure, story is always most important, but this chapter really didn’t do anything that special to establish a new franchise. It was pretty mediocre across the board but since WSJ is only running the first three chapters I’ll probably finish reading it.