Shonen Jump Manga Chapters: Week of June 27

One Piece Chapter 630: Lashing Out
As I said before, One Piece, is kind of boring me lately. And this one did nothing to stop that. This chapter gave me NOTHING. It would take like, a year of worthless chapters before I would give up on One Piece, but if next week doesn't have a cool action scene in it...I will be very peeved.

Okay, what can I remember off the top of my head? None of the Straw Hats were in this chapter. It revolved entirely around the New Fishman Pirates commanders. Dosun was defeated and captured by Fukaboshi some number of chapters ago, and he escaped in this one. I just don't care about the commanders. I just want to see Hodi get his ass kicked.

Some side effect of the Energy Steroid is harming Hodi. I know Oda can do better. Hopefully this will go somewhere.

Toriko Gourmet 147: The Chicken Tiger's Egg
I take back all the criticism I've ever given Toriko for its silly premise. This is one of the best chapters of any manga I have ever read. It has a lovely twist to it that you don't see often in shonen manga, outside of One Piece.

The basic premise of this chapter is that Toriko and Komatsu venture out to purchase 3 square meters of a special bit of land, which is the only place the Chicken Tiger likes to lay its egg. And that's all I'm gonna say.

Everyone should check this one out, seriously...do it.

Naruto Chapter 545: An Immortal Army!!
I actually don't remember anything about this chapter. We learned that Madara is effectively unkillable, I think it has something to do with the First Hokage's cells which he obtained from Yamato. It also effects the white Zetsu clones making up most of his force.

Nothing in this chapter really stood out to me, but I obviously didn't dislike it. It just didn't make an impression on me.

Shonen Jump Chapters: Week of June 20

One Piece, Chapter 629: An Ex-Warlord Stands in the Way.
It's well known that One Piece is my favorite manga series and well...my favorite serialized story EVAR. Anyway, that's not to say that I don't have any problems with the series. They're very minor and mainly just come down to pacing. It's nowhere near as badly paced as Bleach, but the recent story arc has gotten a little slow and complicated at the same time. Luffy, Franky, Sanji, Nami and Chopper met Jinbei and we get a few chapters worth of flashbacks(par for the course), it comes back to the present and I honestly forgot that Zoro, Usopp and Brook had been captured by Hodi Jones and Van Der Dekken hasn't even been seen or mentioned for like, twenty chapters!

Anyway, I was hoping that this one would start off with a bang, and it does. As the previous chapter set up, Luffy and Jinbei do have a brief scuffle; though it's not as satisfying as I'd hoped. The battle ends fairly quickly, which, I guess, is kinda smart on the characters' part. Those two guys could've destroyed the entire island had they continued.

The coolest thing though, is Brook's new astral projection power. He can remove his soul and fly around as a ghost. Pretty cool actually.

Overall, I thought this chapter was rather short(it just goes quick) and there was very little plot development. If there's anything I know about One Piece, though, it's that it will all come together eventually.

Hey...what's Caribou doing?

Bleach, Chapter: glahkhtq8378
I didn't read it.

Naruto, Chapter 544: Two Suns!
This chapter was pretty good, as Naruto been lately. Naruto finally persuades the Raikage to let him fight in the war.

Madara has created a new Six Paths of Pain by using six previous Jinchuriki and has endowed them with the power of the Rinnegan and the Sharingan. Interesting development.

Is Bee's rapping bugging anyone else? I mean, it's a cool quirk, but...it doesn't work for dramatic situations for a character to rap EVERYTHING.

Toriko, Gourmet 146: Surprise Apple.
I've said before that I don't like Toriko when Toriko and Komatsu just kind of dick around and eat for a few chapters. That said, this one is sort of like that, however, it's a lot of fun.

Our heroes make their way to Surprise Island where the Surprise Apple grows(it previously grew on Battle Island). See, the Surprise Apple gets tastier the more you surprise it. So people constantly shoot guns and fire missiles to make them surprised.

This chapter doesn't have any plot development(that I noticed) but it is very funny and Zongeh shows up again and I always get a chuckle out of him. The importance of the Surprise Apple will probably come to light as the arc progresses. Or maybe it's just a side story like the BB Corn arc...though Grinpatch did show up at the end of that...I'm rambling.