I’m one of a pair of researchers for the quite splendid podcast Shonen Flop, and will be highlighting the full episodes on this blog each time one releases, as it’s where most of my research comes into play. Read more and find links within this post.
I have, due to a lack of free time, ended up with three distinct Shonen Flop episodes to talk a bit about in this post, mostly from a research perspective. I’ll link each episode as I get to them, but first and foremost please consider contributing to the Shonen Flop Patreon, and support this wonderful show that gives me somewhere to pour my unhealthy amount of manga knowledge into. I may well be in a bonus episode behind the very reasonable paywall on there soon, so it’s doubly worth it if you wanna hear more of me for some strange reason.
Champagne is the most interesting of the titles covered in this batch for a couple of reasons. First and foremost is how I had to approach research for this, as well as listing the various titles Joh has written over the years. A straightforward timeline would be endless, and full of redundancies due to sequels and continuations, and by and large if I want to make sure that the Flop Fellas (and anyone who subscribes to the patreon) actually read through my notes it helps to have them be even slightly readable.
My solution was to group Joh’s titles by themes or category, such as all ‘Bartender’ series being grouped together, all ‘Sommelier’ titles together, and a general ‘hospitality’ category for all work that was thematically similar to those mainstays, but not specifically part of those franchises. So ‘Hotelier’, ‘Garcon’, and so forth. I think it worked, and allowed people to understand the scope of Araki Joh’s career.
Another thing was working out if it was actually cancelled or not. Grand Jump (the magazine for older men that this ran in) doesn’t tend to end series too early, even if they’re not up to snuff, and as a story it reads fairly tight. It did have a troubled production, with a significant hiatus somewhere in there, which may have encouraged Joh to wrap it up early, but it also didn’t do well, even compared to other underperforming Joh titles like Garcon. So it’s Shonen Flop eligible, but… It’s hard to be SURE, you know?
The other interesting aspect of covering this is… well, I suggested it, expecting it to be a sure hit. Araki Joh’s alcohol knowledge is fascinating, and the episodic nature of the stories makes for a good read, even if cut short. They HATED it. I was genuinely surprised. It’s definitely not as good as Bartender, Sommelier, or even Hotelier, but I thought it’d sit above a lot of the cancelled dreck that’s been on the show before now. But be it the explanations of champagne coming off as wikipedia dumps, the art not getting to breathe due to dialogue focus, or the class reputation champagne has compared to other alcohols, this bombed HARD. A harsh lesson is having to think more about others’ tastes over my own when it comes to recommendations for the show. Still, Marvelous/XSeed localisation producer Oni Dino was a great guest, and even with an unexpected reception, the trio made for a great episode that’s well worth a listen.
When researching series, I may end up needing to buy the volumes to verify information. It’s not the worst consequence of my role, as I like reading manga, they’re inexpensive, and I like cancelled Jump manga, even the rubbish ones. That said, it hurt spending money on this. Demon’s Plan is one of the worst manga I’ve ever read, and I’ve read a good few. Just complete garbage without redemption. Ugly, ill-thought out, poorly written, and with one of the most hilarious “this is what you could have had” rushed endings I’ve ever seen in Weekly Shonen Jump, and that’s saying something.
The volumes were worthwhile in the end, though. The main reason to buy volumes is always the same: the assistant credits. Not every manga has it, but any creator worth their salt and with a modicum of respect for his staff will list them, and some (Kentaro Yabuki and Masashi Kishimoto come to mind) even hand over entire pages for assistants to make bonus comics or profile themselves. Okamoto gives a page for them all to do a self-doodle and name themselves, which is slightly more than the standard name list, and I can respect that.
What’s most interesting is who two of these assistants are. The first was easy to spot, that being Mizuki Yoda, artist of Weekly Shonen Jump series ne0;lation, and currently drawing the excellent Marragetoxin for Shonen Jump Plus. I don’t think he uses his full name here, but the author caricature he uses of a inkbrush fox is iconic enough to make it nice and obvious. The other is one ‘Keiji Kinoshita’, whose author caricature was familiar, but who I couldn’t quite figure out without some further research. It’s Kamiki Kei, author of the humble almost-hit Magu-chan: God of Destruction. That series is something of a Shonen Flop pet series (being featured as a bonus series on their patreon, even), so finding that connection was a big win, facts-wise.
Alongside this we got some interesting author comments that gave us an idea as to how this got split into two volumes (using one-shots to pad out the page count) and how author/editor relations can work, but beyond that anything interesting I found came from my old Weekly Shonen Jump digital magazine subscription, giving me access to Viz Media’s official translation of the first three chapters, with some key differences from the fan-translated version that the crew had to work off of.
The episode itself, despite my hatred of the manga itself, is excellent. Tehsnakerer was an excellent guest, and played off the boys brilliantly, giving us what I think is one of the best episodes since the Akaboshi -ibun Suikoden- episode, which I rate as their best ever.
Sometimes there isn’t anything interesting to find out about a series. It just had a one-shot, debuted, received cursory promotion and died on its arse. That’s this. That’s Tokyo Demon Bride Story. Thank god the boys and Rev Scarecrow managed to make something entertaining out of it, because as a research focus it was dry. The most I got was some youtube vomics (voiced manga chapters Jump upload) and a recommendation from Nakama’s old boss from the assistant days.
The comic itself doesn’t inspire any extra comment, either. I used my six word summary to describe it as a harem manga for aromantic people, and whilst such a thing could feasibly exist and be good, in this case it just makes for something vapid. The most interesting thing was me tinfoil hat-ing a possible Kero Blaster reference, a game that’s more interesting than this.
The Bee Hive 
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