Hungry Joker Chapter 16: The Anticlimatic Meeting

Comments:
A decent chapter, I did expect a little bit more to be honest. The character, which we've seen from at the beginning of the series turned out to be Nasyasu, Haijis big brother who erased his memories and separated his Mavro -part of the blood making him effectively human. Nasyasu weirdly enough forgot why he did all this.

That's basically the only thing that happened in this chapter and it was somewhat interesting, however I can't help but to wonder which way the series is going to go now. I think the author could give us some sort of long term aim for the readers to wait for: also the revealing of Haijis big brother at this point felt a bit soon since it was essentially the only mystery that we truly had at this point. I have to admit that Nasyasus power of Space distortion manipulation was a pretty impressive one: I can't imagine our heroes fighting against him in the near future.

Anyways, I hope that Hungry Joker will continue to be as interesting as it has been in terms of character abilities, but what I'm truly hoping for that its art would get a lot more depth: right now the colors used are a bit too "greyish" which leads to the feeling of this manga being a bit plain. It would be awesome if the author managed to make something to truly wait for, otherwise I wouldn't be surprised for this to be axed.

Recap of Hungry Joker Chapter 16: Showing His True Colors

-Haijis big brother walks through black portal near Haiji saying that he's in such a poor condition because of Dodomekis' poison.

-Haijis brother seems to have Space Manipulation power

-He then goes to Dodomekis and allows him to go "back", first sending his stomach which is very painful for Dodomekis. Haijis big brother's name is revealed as Nasyasu.

-Dodomekis then seemingly gets destroyed then and there.

-It is revealed that Nasyasu used Haiji for experiment, he separated the blood that made them brothers and erased his memories. He forgot why he did those things.

-Nasyasu then asks Haiji to join Mavro and that he has now possibility choose between the two (human / mavro)

-Haiji refuses saying that he doesn't know why he's calling him Barscheit. Nasyasu says that their mother was human, so their father must have been Mavro.

-Just before leaving Nasyasu says that Mavro against the reversal form human (which is Haiji) will be Barschheits fun experiment.

-So Haiji is a mixed Mavro, but he is their ally.

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Hungry Joker Chapter 15: Haijis Big Brother

Comments:
It's great that Hungry Joker manages to be decent or even good like this week. The Aqua Cage + Water Cutter was indeed clever and visually well designed. It's great that they can combine powers in such a manner that the possibilities are pretty much limitless: this will open up great chances for the author to make very cool stuff in the future. Couple of Points:

-Nils was a woman? What the hell.

-So the person who we've seen glimpses of in the previous chapter turns out to be Haiji's big brother. I'm actually a bit surprised how quickly we got to see this character. I originally though that he would be Haijis father, but close enough. His power seems to be somehow linked in time/space or something similar to that, which would somehow explain the black hole that he had generated. I think that his big brother being Mavro basically would mean that Haiji himself is either Mavro also or a half mavro and half human, which I think is a more probable choice.

I'm expecting pretty much from the next chapter, so let's hope that Hungry Joker 16 will deliver!

Recap of Hunry Joker Chapter 15: An Unexpected Meeting

-Haiji and Nils are about to make an joint experiment.

-Dodomekis attacks them with poison shaped like cross.

-It gets dodged, but Dodomekis has approached them and is about to hit Haiji & Nils

-Dodomekis however stops and realizes that it was somehow Vivianes doing.

-Haiji and Nils behin their experiment creating an aqua cage surrounding Dodomekis.

-They then attack Dodomekis with a water cutter and "cage violate", which spawn dozens of those water cutters.

-After seemingly destroying Dodomekis Haiji and Nils pump their fists and Nils is revealed being a woman apparently.

-Some kind of black hole appears which seems to have saved Dodomekis and then appears the person which we've seen glimpses of in previous chapters. He turns out to be Haiji's big brother. He also calls Haiji Barschheit.

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A Short Summary: Hungry Joker Review

This is only a short summary
Read my full review of Hungry Joker here

-New series, can't say much
-Main character is semi-interesting, personality not to my liking
-Side characters have disappointed
-Villains have disappointed so far though there hasn't been many
-Has potential however
-Art is pretty good, works with the flow
-Story has continuity

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Hungry Joker Chapter 14: Nils' Mist Minotaur

Comments:
It was a surprisingly good chapter, even thoug there are couple of things that I'd like to point out:

First, my fear of Nils joining the group most likely became true. I most likely have said in one of my previous recap comments that I really don't like Nils and nothing has really changed. However if this is the way it's going to be then I'm seriously hoping for some character development in this series (though we did see some in this chapter) for Nils to man up or at least for the author to try to make some value to the reader about him.

Second, I really liked Nils' mist minotaur power: it honestly looked very cool and it seems that "mist" may be surprisingly reliable force to have. However (once again) the author managed to make something that at first looked very cool into something less cooler: why not keep the minotaur as a impressive monster rather than a comedy bit of making his face cute? Of course it could work if the author plays it well, but what I've seen so far, I doubt it.

I'm still waiting for those awesome twists and plot developments, hopefully the character introductions are pretty much over or if the author is planning to add one more uninteresting character to the group then I don't know what to do.

Recap of Hungry Joker 14: The Grandmother

-Haiji and his group are in a pinch. Dodomekis is making fun of Nils and saying that he's a man with a weak spirit

-Dodomekis kicks Nils in to the gound

-Suddenly Nils' grandma appears: she says that she's just a mist vision she made just before dying.

-She raises her hat and shows the Eureka explaining that it is the source of their familys power. On her last moments she used its powers to create that labyrinth. She then gives the Eureka to Nils.

-The mist then disappears and all of them find themselves on an open meadow.

-Nils then gets a bit angry to Dodomekis and creates a mist minotaur to fight for him.

-Dodomekis is powerless against the mist 'cow' and tries to attack the adapter, Nils.

-Haiji however manages to stop him by using his force of gravity.

-It's time for their shared experiment.

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Hungry Joker Chapter 13: Dodomekis with Curare Beak

Comments:
It's great to see that there's finally something actually interesting happening. Grandma herself wasn't related to mavro, but it wasn't really hard to guess that in this story there would be a battle with one. Dodomekis seems to be pretty powerful himself and I believe that the author making Haiji and Viviane getting beat means that he plans to make Nils an Eureka user by leaving him as their last hope.

I really however do hope that Nils doesn't join into White Joker since his character is too unimaginative and uninteresting: In my opinion Hungry Joker already has too many uninteresting characters that we have to 'enjoy' for time being.

Anyways, action in this kind of Shonen is always a good thing and this weeks chapter was a pretty decent, maybe even a good chapter compared to the previous ones. I'm still hoping for those awesome plot developments that finally hook me to this series.

It says at the last panel that in next issue the gamble comes to an end: how lovely that these battles are not dragged on for needlessly long, for that I have to praise Hungry Joker.

Recap of Hungry Joker 13: The Truth of the Labyrinth
By Tabata Yuuki

-The old witch is dead, suddenly someone  called Dodomekis appears behind our heroes. They realize that the whistle sound was coming from him.

-Haiji asks who he is, but he despises talking to men. He then reveals that he is the man who killed Nils' grandma.

-Dodomekis killed her to remove Eureka inside her compatible body. He also belongs to Mavro.

-Dodomekis' Eureka is Curare Beak, which comes from an amazonian bird. It's beak gets coated with poison sap after the bird pecks with it, however nowadays the curare is used as a muscle relaxant drug in medicine.

-Nils' grandma  in her final moments used her power to create the labyrinth of mist to entrap Dodomekis inside.

-The battle is about to behin, Viviane goes into her blade mode and gets hit my Dodomekis.

-Dodomekis used her curare beak eureka to enlarge his hand

-Haiji then uses his gravity power to put Dodomekis down, but it has no effect at all.

-Viviane attacks but misses, Dodomekis uses a poison breath attack which is effective. Haiji pulls Viviane out of the way and Dodomekis then attacks with long range poison splash which hits Haiji straight on.

-It seems that Nils is their final hope.

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Hungry Joker 12: Two bites from the apple

Comments

Once again, nothing especially interesting in this chapter. I'm still waiting for those awesome plot twists that should raise Hungry Joker in my rankings from bad to readable. Baa-chan being dead is something unexpected, but nothing that would make me feel enthusiastic towards the next chapter.

Also what stood out in this chapter was Viviane: in a seriously poor way. I think that she's an extremely poorly designed character that isn't at this moment suitable for a long story. Her power is as generic as it gets and her personality is kind of that I'm especially not fond of. 

I think that if this keeps going Hungry Joker may easily get axed (cancelled) in the near future. Though I'm not exactly sure how people are liking it, but as far as I know it's ranking in shonen jump polls has been more on the lower side.

Recap of Hungry Joker 12: Exploration in the fog

 Viviane is feeling confused with Haiji praising her abilities.

Meanwhile the fod minotaurs are going back how they were after being sliced up.

Haiji decides to pick up everyone with his gravity power and fly away, but the labyrinth changes constantly, hence separating them into 2 group: Haiji and Nils / Viviane and Toriiooji.

Toriiooji checks her Eureka locator that was given by the white joker and sees that the Eureka isn't far away.

Meanwhile Haiji and Nils are lost and trying to figure out what to do, going upwards doesn't work. Nils is being an emo.

Haiji decides to do an experiment with his apple: he takes two bites of his apple granting him even greater power. He destroys a huge part of labyrinth with only one move. Haiji however suffers some backlash from two bites and coughs some blood.

Haiji's group and Viviane's group finally meet in front of a house, in which the Eureka resides. They heard a whistle coming out of the house before.

Inside the house they found Baa-chan, dead.

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Hungry Joker 11: Viviane and The Ruby of Sumer

Recap and Comments of Hugnry Joker 11: The Woman Of Steel

Haiji and his group are about to enter the labyrinth of mist.

After entering the labyrinth they begin talking about how it's highly probable that Nils' "baa-chan" is Eureka compatible. Haiji  comes into conclusion that the labyrinth which looks like made from the stone is in fact concentrated must which has solid form which would be an impossible feat without an Eureka.

Nils implies that his grandma was unusual even before, Viviane speculates that maybe she went on a rampage because of her Eureka powers went berserk.

Viviane loathes Nils' cowardness and she tells how she has always been alone, even on missions.
So we are slowly getting into Viviane's past.

Toriiooji says that some townspeople who had entered the labyrinth before all of them encountered monsters so they escaped.

Immediately after she mentions about the monsters in the labyrinth couple of minotaurs appear in front of them. Interesting looking, huge monsters, nothing original though.

Haiji gets grabbed by one of them and says that he isn't fine - he ran out of power while ago. He asks why won't they leave these monsters to Viviane to handle?
An obvious lie in my opinion, he hasn't really used his power at all.

It seems Viviane doesn't have a choice, she says to them not to close their eyes so that they can see how harmful her Eureka power is. It says that she lied: in reality she didn't want them to see it, since people would pull away from her.

Viviane then transforms his hands and feet almost in to a huge blades.
In my opinion this Eureka could have been more aesthetically pleasing to my eyes, but i'll let it slip. The idea of molding your body with blades in itself is nowhere near original, but many things rarely are nowadays. It sure has potential, but it's really up to mangakas creativity, like always

Her Eureka is The Ruby of Sumer, it is said that oldest alloy in the world is the bronze by the old sumer civilization who made and discovered how to mold this ruby.

We get a small flashback of Viviane, how six years ago there was a scandal and it was find out that the metal was embedded in her body. The Zaibatsu (literally: financial clique) used a lot of money to get the Eureka from her. She was eventually abandoned by her parents and later she got in White joker and they taught her how to manipulate her body. Essentially she had lost her noble envirnoment in which she had grew up and she plans to take it all back with her power.
I like it how this flashback was summarized in only two pages, which is a great thing: most of the flashbacks in different mangas tend to be too often a bit boring, even in One Piece.

She quickly decimates on one of the minotaur monsters with a nice move and then plans to go save Haiji, but Haiji had already freed himself.
Yeah, I knew he was lying.

Haiji lied about him running out of power, he just wanted to see Viviane's Eureka power. He says that it's beautiful and then begins to praise it from earth to heavens.

Will be continued in Hungry Joker chapter 12.

Comments: Chapter 11 was a decent, but really didn't have me excited: Viviane's Eureka feels a bit too generic, it honestly feels like I have seen similar power in a dozen of different mangas. In the span of 11 chapter Hungry Joker has not made a very good impression, but I'm willing to give it more time, though I wouldn't be surprised for it to be cancelled.

I think what Hungry Joker needs is a seriously amazing plot twists which would keep readers eagerly waiting for the next chapter. What this kind of manga often needs is a intriguing mystery which makes readers go speculate about it on blogs and forums and or more interesting characters with varying abilities which keep wanting to read more. At the moment Hungry Joker has not managed to be successful in either of these, but if you remember how tedious One Piece was at first I'm of course willing to read more of this and hope that it will exceed my current expecations.

I still acknowledge Hungry Jokers potential: it's only a matter of its usage.

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Hungry Joker 10: Viviane, Witch and the Labyrinth of Mist

Recap of Hungry Joker 10: Labyrinth of Mist

Chapter begins with a explanation: about 5 months ago on a certain plateau of the Kelsea area in France, suddenly a heavy mist of unknown origin appeared. The people nearbu tried to see inside the mist, but no signs of life were nowhere to be found. From this labyrinth frightening monsters have been seen lurking within.

White Joker's think that this maybe work of an Eureka. It's Haijis first mission! Alan and Mira unfortunately can't join him in this mission, but no worries: they say that he will be meeting with other White Joker member "Steel woman". We also get a name, this "Steel Woman" is called Vivi-chan. Alan thinks that he's been on a mission once before with this woman and doesn't want to experience it ever again.

Alan and Mira begin to talk to someone higher up on White Joker, who asks whether Haiji is still a human.

Back to Haiji, he finally gets to meet Viviane Blanchard, whom he will be doing this mission with. She greets them with roses, but Haiji uses his gravity power to pull her down. Reason for this was that Haiji wanted to examine the 'thing' that Viviane was riding on.

Haiji then asks her whether she knows where "steel woman" is and this gets her mad: not "provoking" her enough Haiji also slaps her on the chest saying she has no breasts. Haiji understadably gets punched because of this.

Toriiooji then explains about the witch that is living there apparently being the cause for the mist labyrinth. They walk into a seemingly empty house, until some weird, gloomy character shows up: his name is Nils and he's the resident of this house.After a while he begins to talk about baa-chan, who turns out to be no other than the witch that the white jokers are looking for. Nils says that she secluded herself in that labyrinth.

Haiji uses his powers to rush all of them outside and they arrive at the labyrinth soon. There we see a glimpse of the witch hanging around in some tower...

Comments and predictions

Just as Hungry Joker was starting to look promising, when looking back at couple of last chapters, mangaka decides to introduce us to a very uninteresting character. It doesn't feel like she has any depth and her personality is kind of that I'm not fond of. Altough it was only the first chapter in which she appeared I'm not going to draw any conclusions, but the first impression wasn't any good.

What I'm interested to find out what kind of Eureka this witch is using, story at this point hasn't yet picked up so can't say anything about it just yet.

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Hungry Joker 9: Combined powers!

Recap of Hungry Joker chapter 9:
Now Haiji + Alan versus Ragins truly begins. Ragins shows that he can be either with or without the Amber of Thales very swift and damages Haiji without him even having a chance to react. Haiji tries to hit him with gravity press but is unsuccessful hitting Ragins due to him being too fast.

Ragins is seen bouncing everywhere and he's damaging Alan and Haiji consecutively. Ragins says that they can't escape his electrical discharges - he still hasn't show how he uses his Eureka usually.

Haiji and Alan are aware of their bad situation, as their attacks don't hit. Haiji suggests they try combining their powers: Newton's apple + Pythagorean hammer. As they draw closer the Eureka's seem attracted to each other. When the come in touch they whiten some. They both get some damage using their Eurekas for third time and cough some blood.

Their combined attack is incredible: it combines the sound spreading and gravity crushing destroying literally everything around them. Ragins is also caught in this destruction. Just before Ragins is dying he sees something before Haiji, someone from the past that he knows, but doesn't get chance to explain who he is.

Ragins dies by  getting his body molecules destroyed by vibrations + gravity and Amber of Thales drops to the ground.

We get a small scene bact at Mavro headquarters, where Rosalie and Kild are speaking and watching the happenings at White Joker hq. Chapter 9 ends in Kild saying that he'll be meeting with Haiji-kun very soon.

Will be continued in Hungry Joker 10.

Comments and Predictions


It was a great Hungry Joker chapter, if not even the best so far. I'm pleased to see that this Ragins battle wasn't dragged on too long. Unfortunately we apparently didn't get to see how he uses The Amber of Thales usually, but it doesn't bother me too much.

The consept of combining Eureka powers seems very viable, though it causes some unnecessary destruction to be used too often. Combining the powers presents basically unlimited possibilities in this manga and I like that.

And about the character that Ragins noticed "in" Haiji, it will be interesting how that will be unveiled. I think it has something to do with someone from Mavro, most likely it's someone very powerful who has connection to Haiji. He may even be Haiji's father and that's why Ragins noticed some kind of resemblence between them.

I think that next chapter the Hungry Jokers will have to seek for new headquarters for themselves.

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Hungry Joker 8: Amber of Thales

Recap:

At the beginning of chapter 8 Rosalie and Kild are speaking, nothing important except revealing name of the enemy who ambushed the white joker headquarters: Ragins.

Also in this chapter it is implied that the Eureka users grow stronger over time in using their powers. In example Haiji couldn't use his powers for longer than 5 minutes before, but now he managed to pass the time limit easily.

Shortly after this Ragins pulls out of his mouth Amber of Thales which gives power of electricity to the user, in this case to Ragins. The battle between Alan, Haiji and Ragins begins, but Ragins quickly just overpowers them with his lightning attack.

Mira says that she can make Alan and Haiji recover: she reveals us that she's "Eureka Compatible helper". She apparently can somehow magnify other people's Eureka powers. We are told that it was her that managed to find Pythagorean hammer's special frequency which heals people.

By the way, Ragins has freakishly long hands.

Tojiioori comes and splashes some gasoline on Ragins, clever scheme so that he couldn't use electricity any more without igniting fire on himself. He begins to strangle Tojiioori for this.

Chapter ends Haiji beating Ragins a little bit with some gravity power and saving her assistant from death.

Comments and Predictions

Hungry Joker chapter 8 was a good one. We got some new information of all kinds of stuff. It's encouraging to see that the Eureka user's powers are growing, and I'm absolutely eager to see what kinds of things mangaka invents for our pleasure. It's great choice to give "gravity" as a power for this mangas antagonist, since it has so many uses that only imagination limits it's uses. It's great to see that Ragins had a Eureka with him after all, but I'm a bit disappointed in it. It could have been made a lot cooler with a little bit more effort on art.

Anyways I think we'll next time in Hungy Joker chapter 9 we see either the end of this fight and I have a sort of suspicion that we may have another Mavro join the battle / save Ragins from the White Jokers. I would have liked to see something else of Amber of Thales, but maybe I'll have to put this on the beginning of the series where we are just getting explained all the things and battles shouldn't last for too long.

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Hungry Joker Review: Some Potential

Hungry Joker begins with a glowing body found on the streest of a city. They decide to call the usual scientist, "doctor" who is called Haiji and is this story's main character. He is certainly unique character who could only be called as simply mad. Nothing is known of Haiji since he doesn't have any memories from before 6 years ago and basically the only memory (which is shown to us) he has is about this mysterious black apple and numerous glowing corpses around him.

This black apple certainly is interesting: when damaged it recovers completely and it seems that it's existence dates back into distant past as it has been worshipped as divine fruit. According to Haiji and his research Newtown achieved the knowledge of "Law of gravitation" from this particular apple. The only problem is that every other person who has eaten from that apple has died, but not long after our hero is forced to do so, after the glowing corpse transforms into vicious monster. Haiji didn't get the knowledge of gravitation from eating the apple, but rather the power of controlling gravity itself!

This is how the story of Hungry Joker manga begins and I have to admit that it isn't too bad of a start for potential manga.

Art can be considered fine, but in my opinion it lacks something, some depth to be precise. It leaves me a weird feeling about the flow of the series and if I should describe it with a word it would be "dull". It may be that the author has tried to make something in between shonen and 'dark' and hasn't really succeeded in it.

As for the characters they've been a definite disappointment for me. Haiji himself is a decent character, but really isn't suitable for being a main protagonist, if I had to describe him with a word it would also be "dull". With the side characters of the series comes the true disappointment: basically every character has been somewhat uninteresting while immensely lacking some depth.

Story pick up very quickly after the first chapter and that is more than fine for me. However it's still too early to say since we've only gotten some hints how they story is going to develop. There are some aspects that the author is obviously making for the long run.

All in all, Hungry Joker is nothing but very potential manga to be success if the author manages to improve the characters. In the span of 12 chapters I'm not yet too convinced, but only future will show whether or not it will be something better than we are shown at this point.

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Hungry Joker, interesting new manga

Read my (improved) review here

After reading the first chapter of Hungry Joker I have to admit that it's pretty interesting. Story beginning is a bit messy but it manages to keep me intrigued through out all 52 pages. What I find great about the first impression is that it feels like it really doesn't underestimate readers. That's sort of a rare quality in new mangas nowadays.

The story begins with a strange glowing body appearing in midtown. After that we are quickly getting familiar with this storys protagonist: young scientist slash doctor who has kind of a odd but interesting personality. Long chapter short: The first chapter shows us weird protagonist, cliche sidekick, glimpses of this series antagonist and a couple of mysteries including this black apple which origins no one knows of. I'll be reading this one some more before making any more conclusions.

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