I remember reading that the Tokyo Revengers mangaka was launching a WSJ series and then promptly forgot all about it lol
Astro Royale
(Ken Wakui)
April 2024 to April 2025
50 Chapters
What I Liked
- The powers linked to wishes was a cool idea. Even in how some people’s wishes resulted in pretty useless powers
- All the different siblings. It was fun meeting each one, seeing where they stood in the hierarchy and learning about their past
- Rieri was kickass and I liked how she and Kinpa (omg I forgot her name and had SUCH a hard time finding out what it was) had very feminine astro links that were still powerful/useful
- The character designs were really fun
Where I Think Things Went Wrong
- Shio was a very absent main villain. The police officer was a very annoying intermediate villain
- The Daybreak Ore could have been explained/linked to the situation better (especially given the final chapter reveals) but ended up feeling fetch-questy instead.
- More foreshadowing on how many siblings there were would have helped draw interest. For example, in Hunter x Hunter we knew Killua had five siblings and it was always really exciting when another one showed up in the story. I can’t rmb but I don’t think Tsubasa and Sora were hinted at earlier in the story?
- The fights weren’t that interesting even though the powers were, because it always ended with ‘and Hibaru punched em real hard’ lol. Maybe One Piece can get away with it but I don’t think any other series could.
- Given how interesting the powers were, surely they could have been put to use in other non-battle ways?
- Cast bloat despite being such a short series. Needed a way to cycle through the siblings while having them also do useful things in the background or something.
Conclusion
I liked this series. I liked Terasu and Cheshire Cat bro (oh yeah his name is Kuran. He was pretty much gone from the last couple of chapters…). I liked the character designs. But if I’m honest, there wasn’t anything special about it.
I think the reason I forgot this was by the Tokyo Revengers mangka because I imagine that series to be really dark and gritty (I haven’t watched or read any of it) and this series was so happy-go-lucky, yesterday’s enemy is today’s friend kinda battle manga. I think we’re seeing how some good mangaka are just not suited to WSJ (Mapollo3, Taizan5 etc). So maybe I should check out Tokyo Revengers? I guess it never really called out to me because the premise sounded pretty similar to Erased and I’m biased and don’t think it could top that. I guess if it ends up in a Humble Bundle some time I’ll bite.
Categories: Simulpub Review
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