“The Retainer”
Creative Staff
Story/Art: Tomohiro Hasegawa
Translation: Paul Starr
What They Say
Third-grader Shota Aikawa’s pet beetle evolves from a larva to a pupa to a superhot human! The wacky adventures of the Aikawa family and the fabulous beetle who would be king now begins! You’re gonna LARVA this new comedy manga!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
With the slow growth in the cast in the first few chapters, Tomohiro Hasegawa won me over to the comedy of Moriking and building the family dynamic. I knew it couldn’t last and that we’d get a lot of insect-types showing up before long but I had hoped that it would go the slower route overall so that they’d all get some good time. We saw a bit of that with Oka and how she blended into the story with her defeat and becoming Shoka’s friend. This chapter brings us another insect but tries to do it a little creatively while hinting at what’s to come that will give Morking a challenge.
The initial focus is on the positive vibes between Oka and Shoka as they’re going to go out shopping the next day and we see Oka leaving work feeling great and happy about her performance there as well. But while on the phone with Shoka, she exclaims about an insect before the line goes dead, causing Shoka to fear. As it turns out, when she does find Oka she’s already dealt with the threat as it’s a blattella germanica, a cockroach type, named Ko Kurotsuchi. Shoka’s really mixed on this because he looks the same age as Shota and, as it turns out, isn’t actually a king candidate or anything. He’s one of a couple of soldier types that the actual king candidate can take with him from his home and Ko decided to try and take down some of the competition, namely Oka, in order to get into his king’s good graces.
With Oka having been previously defeated, that doesn’t quite work out well. A lot of the initial stuff is Shoka kind of cringing over what it is that Ko is and we only see him in his human form, so there’s still likely some time coming with some revulsion in the future. When Moriking arrives, we see the way he’s continuing to build his coalition that will be strong by its diversity of talent and ways of doing thing which is going to reinforce the diversity of the natural order of the world. Though the strong survive, a lot of things supplement that and strength isn’t a singular thing in how the world functions as an ecosystem. You can see what Moriking is doing here and why it’s working so well for me.
In Summary:
Moriking continues to be a fun title and it definitely needed a chapter like this after the previous one was just so badly timed and didn’t work at all. Here, we get a hint at some of what Moriking will face in the future while also building up his group a bit with a new addition. It’s fun in seeing how Shoka and Oka are getting along so well and building a relationship there that’s enjoyable to watch. Moriking himself is pretty solid with this as we get a clearer and clearer picture of how he intends to carry himself going forward, at least until things get challenging and he has to make some real decisions. The humor is working well and the lightness of the title is just right but I’m waiting to see how it handles evolving.
Content Grade: B-
Art Grade: B
Text/Translation Grade: B
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Shonen Jump
Release Date: June 14th, 2020
