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Creative Staff:
Story & Art: Hajime Komoto
Translation: Nova Skipper
Lettering: Eve Grandt
What They Say:
Yo dawg, Komoto heard you like tournament arcs, so he put a tournament arc inside your tournament arc so you can read Jump while you read Jump.
The Review:
Content (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
As if the references weren’t already a bit on the nose, “Mash Burnedead and the Nest Stage” doubles down on the Harry Potter parody. Mash’s ax-kick from last week’s final panel is blocked and Orter quickly turns the tables. Just as Mash is about to get eviscerated, he’s saved by someone’s magical intervention. Enter Renatus Revol – one of Easton’s Immortal Canes. Renatus informs Mash that he’ll be moving onto the next stage of the Divine Visionary exam – and it’s totally not the Triwizard tournament from Goblet of Fire.
Renatus explains the situation in great detail – the Tri-magic-athlon is the final stage for Divine Visionary examinees, pitting candidates from the big three magic schools against each other. So far, we’ve only known about Easton, but there are two other elite schools of magic – Saint Ars Holy Magic Academy and Walkis Magic Academy. But there’s a catch to this year’s exam. It’s believed that Innocent Zero has a mole posing as a student from Walkis Academy. His goal is the exam’s final prize, the Wand of Beginnings. Because of Innocent Zero’s meddling, Easton decided to send Mash to defeat the Walkis representative. But it won’t be easy. The number one student at Walkis, Domina Blowelive, is said to be the strongest student magician ever and is most likely Innocent Zero’s child soldier.
Did you get all that? Good, because our beef-brained protagonist sure didn’t. Mash may be physically unstoppable, but if there’s anything he’s weak to, it’s extended monologues. Renatus tries to reassure Mash, claiming that some students from Saint Ars who competed with Rayne last year will help in his plight. But as we see from the double spread at the end of the chapter, Domina has already dealt with the opposition at Saint Ars.
In Summary:
For such an information-heavy installment, I enjoyed this chapter quite a bit. I love how self-aware Komoto’s characters are – Renatus appeared out of the blue to info-dump on Mash, and even he’s not sure how or why he showed up so suddenly. The battle shonen formula is alive and well as Mash heads to the next stage of his Divine Visionary quest.
Content Grade: B
Art Grade: B+
Text/Translation Grade: A
Source: Shonen Jump app, Manga Plus app
