Zipman!!

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Zipman doesn't deserve a 10, it's just that it deserves a better score and reputation than it's been given by other reviews and its general score. I wanted to give it a small bump so that others could give it a shot.

If you like the art and impactful moments of My Hero Academia, you'll absolutely love the first handful of chapters, and maybe a few moments sprinkled throughout the rest of this short-lived manga. The creator worked under MHA's creator, and the inspiration is clearly there.

What you should expect is to really love it at first, then realize that the last 75% of the manga ... is basically a summary of what should have taken place over a much longer period of time. Everything is EXTREMELY rushed because the series was cancelled prematurely.

I personally still found it enjoyable. This series had among the strongest and most impactful introduction chapters I've ever read, a single moment of humor that made me laugh out loud (which has never happened before), and a few emotional moments which got me good.

What happened to this series is a real shame, but I would still recommend the read.
Despite everything, I still consider it better than most manga/anime.
It managed to hit me stronger and more frequently in its 17 rushed chapters than most full series have. Hell, I made an account just to leave this review because I wanted people to give it more love.
Give the first 3 chapters a shot.

Zipman!! is a weird case of cancellation. I don't know what happened with the series, but it feels like the author was notified that the manga was going to be axed only 5 or so chapters in, which is unusual even for WSJ's standards. It's not unusual for WSJ series to get axed 17 or so chapters in, just like Zipman!!, but what happened with this particular series makes it feel like it was doomed from the very start.

Zipman!! imo had a very good first 5 chapters, the pacing was just right, the art was appealing and the plot was also interesting. Unfortunately, with ... the turn from chapter 5 to 6 everything changed. The manga suddenly got super rushed and the entire evil organization of the story attacked the MC at the same time. A different villain was defeated every single chapter and then at the end of this arc the story got into a time skip and the pacing just got even faster. The plot gets even more confusing going forward, and there was a new group of villains that the heroes were supposed to fight, but they just fought one and then skipped right to the final boss, probably because the cancellation was imminent.

The only interesting villain in the manga, imo, was the villain in chapters 2, 3 and 4, that was a guy crossdressing as a robotic girl and wanted to forcefully tell society to change their preconception towards his and others' similar habits. That was a pretty fresh take for a battle shonen manga, unfortunately that was about where the manga lost its interest for me. All other subsequent villains neither had a proper introduction nor a backstory or explanation to their motivations/goals. They were essentialy just fodder for the MC to shine while defeating them.

One interesting gimmick from the series was how the robotic suit of the MC could take powers from his opponents, kind of like Mega Man. But then they just threw that out of the window and started giving random power-ups to Zipman just so that he could defeat the villains.

The plot just gets worse from here on out, with a bunch of asspulss, confusing and unexplained events and a random final villain that we the readers never got a proper introduction from. I'm pretty sure even his name is not known, he just does evil things for no reason and no explanation.

Zipman!! was a manga that had a lot of potential imo. It was really unfortunate that it got axed so early but at the same time it's no surprise since the manga was only really interesting for 5 chapters. I hope the author can come back one day with something better, because not only is his art very good but he also has shown to have good writing skills, at least for the initial part of this manga.

Since Mangaplus was released a year ago, I've read a lot of manga from Shounen Jump that have been abruptly canceled, manga that never really had the time to shine or to improve, but I never really felt like reviewing one of them until now. So you ask "Why Zipman!!? What does it have to make you want to write a review about it?"
Nothing. I'm in self-isolation for about a month now, I'll review a rock at this point, Jesus Christ.

Zipman!! was written by mangaka Yuusaku Shibata and was released in the first edition of Weekly Shounen Jump in 2020, and by that I mean ... it was released in December of 2019, but they say it's issue #1 of 2020, I don't really get it either. Generally these manga don't really get any kind of "hype" or big promotion behind them unless it's by a very successful mangaka like Samurai 8 by Kishimoto and now Burn the Witch by Kubo. So they're kinda dependent of the buzz that their initial chapter creates and, in all fairness, Zipman!! did create a decent share of buzz, so lets check out why.


At first glance you can tell why this caught the attention of people. It's My Hero Academia! Well, not exactly, but it's super hero themed and the art is very similar to our favorite ongoing super-hero themed weekly manga from Shounen Jump that isn't written by ONE. Now, this is easily explained, the mangaka worked as an assistant for MHA and it's not totally unheard for people to have similar drawing styles to their mentor. I'd be more mad at it if the author had the style, but not the quality, but he does! Sure, it's not yet at the level of Horikoshi, but Horikoshi has some of the highest quality in artstyle that I've ever seen in a weekly release. Shibata isn't as good, but no question about it, he is good. The character designs of the characters are very appealing, the robots throughout the series look pretty great and the double spreads almost make this worth a skim, but the art isn't the only thing to a manga.

To begin with, this manga to survive already needs to establish that it's different enough from MHA that makes it worth staying alive in the same magazine, specially with how rutheless Jump is with their cancellations. But to give credit to Zipman!!, Zipman!! isn't really a rip-off of MHA, but rather a callback to shows like Ultraman and Kamen Rider.
It all starts with our hero, Tatara Kaname, a avid fan of super-hero shows, trying to get cast as an actor for the show Jackman, one he's been a fan since child, and Kaname has all the moves for the job, he's a bonafied action movie actor, but he's missing on a key point, his face being ultra scary, which makes him get the role as a villain, but he declines and goes back to mourn his dead twin brother.
Look, there's a lot to unpack here, I'm sorry.
Things go awry when he gets a message from his dead brother to meet him, while at the same time that a giant robot starts attacking the town, I said there's a lot to unpack. At the spot, Kaname finds a robot suit that enables him to fight and destroy the robot. The first chapter ends with the reveal that the dead brother's conscience is trapped inside the robot.
It was an alright chapter, it had a lot, even more than the things I mentioned, including a love interest, but it was around 50 pages long and the pacing was quite decent, when I finished reading it though, I wasn't sure it was enough to avoid cancellation, but it had people talking about it, so maybe I was wrong.



The next couple of chapters were alright, they followed an episodic premise of evil robot appears, our hero pops up and beats them, plus, it had the Megaman thing in which the hero actually got a power-up from the enemy. I think that last point could be enough for some interesting battles going forward, but it seemed like the power-up was always just a different kind of punch, so it didn't really add much to the story. It seemed alright for people who like those kinds of shows, which seems to be quite famous in Japan, but it quickly got stale.

After some chapters of this we got into bigger arcs and this is when the manga felt flat for real, the pacing moved incredibly fast, the story became incredibly confusing, despite the actually simple plot, and it was all just a big mess.
It felt like the author had got bored. After that arc, we got a time-skip, which time-skips at chapter 13 or 14 are red alerts that this manga is about to be discarded. Weirdly enough, the pacing of this arc actually felt better than the previous one, if you ignore all the unexplained developments, like the love interest girl now has a robot suit as well, okay, cool, why not? But a better pacing is pretty much the best compliment I can throw at this. I was never much invested in this story, and after skipping all of the character development, there was even less reason to care.


With a story that went from okay, to stale, to a big mess to a overall meh, there's not much reason to justify recommending this manga to anyone. It felt pretty bland throughout. The good point here is the art, which I do want to see more, even if Shibata ends up only doing art for another writer.

(This is my first time making a review. I've never done this before, but here we go.)

This has been quite the interesting decade for Shonen Jump. We would get new authors that started ok with their first series and one-shot, but would later became huge with the success of their other series (Kohei-sensei with Boku no Hero, Komi-sensei with Nisekoi, Haraichi-sensei with Haikyuu, Food Wars, Demon Slayer, ect.) we would get two of our favorite oldies, Naruto and Bleach ending, as well as another huge oldie Kochikame. And even have some series that although having succeeded and continued for a long time, did became ... some of our fav underrated series (mine being Magico, Samon-kun, Hungry Joker and others).

And so this year, 2019 was... um, I guess you could say a decent year (I think?? I guess???) for Shonen Jump. I mean the one that's currently running is Samurai 8, but I don't think you will s tay for a long time from what I read and heard. But gosh danget we're not here to talk about Samurai 8. We're here to talk about Zipman. The spin-off series of Bruno's stand from Jojo part 5 (jk. It's not really but I wish)

Plot (Spoiler Free) : The basic plot of this manga is that there are 2 brothers involved in this series. Kaname Tatara (the bakugo smiling ass mother fucker), who into super heroes and shit and his bro Koshiro, who years later is a famous mechanical engineer. And two also have a female friend who these two would try to pick on. But then one day, Kaname's bro, Koshiro dies somehow and of course, our boi Kaname and the female friend (Forgot her name sorry) are pretty sad about it. And then, one day, when they're just hanging out, out of nowhere they get attacked by a giant robot. While Kaname is trying to escape the building safe and find help for his female friend, he accidentally meets a robot who for some reason, has his brothers's (I guess) soul in it. His "brother" tells him that they need to work together to destroy that giant robot. So, Kaname gets inside the robot (who's his brother too) and they destroy the robot and save the female friend, of course. But that's not the only robot that they will have to take care of. As it seems, there may be other groups of people who also are in a similar situation as Kaname and Konshiro, but we don't know if they have good intentions.

Story: As I was researching to know about the author, I came to find out that he/she used to be an assistant of Kohei-sensei (Creator of Boku no Hero), which explains some of the similar elements in the story with a little bit of elements of Fullmetal Alchemist with the brothers stuff. A boy wishes to be a hero ever since he was a little boy. And now, with the help of his brother, that dream becomes reality. It's a little cliched but so far as I'm writing there are only 4 chapters, soon there's still a lot of room to improve. if we're being honest, we rarely see Mecha centered stories in Shonen Jump. The only one I can think of Mazinger Z but that one is like... I don't know 30 years old, so. The story is basically decent for now. (6.50/10)

Characters: The characters are pretty... meh. Kaname is the "I wanna be the best like no one ever was", while also wanting be a hero type of character. Koshiro is the smart and intelligent character, who also can be bit of an ass. And the female best friend who's the always smiling and supporting character. Yea, it's aight, I guess. But there is one character that I'm interested in, and it's the first villain the MCs encounter. I couldn't want to see what his deal is and the other villains too. But overall: characters... meh.

Art: The art is pretty good actually. Yeah, there are similarities in the art, that of Kohei's Boku no Hero, as he/she was an assistant of his. But I both artist stand in their own way. Some of the main characters designs are pretty good, even the MC looks cool (even tho he look like scary bakugo 2.0 with white hair), as well as the desings of the robots are neat. So, yeah, I like the art.

Overall: I think the series has potential. Although I haven't read Yuusaku Shitaba's first work Yoakemono, I have read Sahara the Flower Samurai. And for a one volume, it was pretty decent. Nothing great, but it was pretty enjoyable from what I've read. There is potential in Zipman it's only just a matter of time. Overall, for now, I give it a 6/10. Looking forward for more.

I read all 17 chapters and it seems to be ended, and I don't believe it will get a sequel or something like that. "But why?" you may ask? Then let us begin:

Story 3/10
I don't know if it was planned to be just 2 volumes, or it get cancelled after 5-6 chapters, but after these few chapters the story got rushed! Extremly rushed! The pacing was so fast, sometimes they just skipped important things, important explanations, and you jsut sit there asking yourself: "Did I miss something? Was there a chapter what I forgot to read?". And even so, you feel sometimes it's repeating itself, ... mostly because it just the same action scene with different villians.
Altogether, they put a story worth of at least 50-100 chapters into 17... So the poor story wasn't really the mangakas fault, he just tried as hard as he can to end his work within these conditions. However, for us readers it doesn't matter who's fault it was.

Art 8/10
It could be even a 9, because the art was REALLY amazing! A lot of double pages, great action scenes. It felt like it lives! What is truly amazing! What disturbed me was, it remembered me of the style of Horikoshi (Boku no Hero Academia), and I think the mangaka was in the past Horikoshi's assistant, maybe.

Character 3/10
Where should I begin? Due to this short story and the fully pumped action, you don't really get a character developing and you don't even get to know them... Also, only 3 characters have more than just 2-3 Chapter screentime and they are really mainstream. Mainstream hero, mainstream supporthero, mainstream girl.

Enjoyment 5/10
The action with these arts + the powers (which are kinda like in Mega Man) are really extraordinary and enjoyable. Which led me through this few chapters and hold me to the end. But anything else was below average, and I'm more into story than art/action.

Overall 5/10
You get an amazing art and action, and if you like these kinda stuff, than give it a try. If you are more a deep story type, don't even get near to it...

After reading the second manga chapter I must say its not just a cheap copy of My Hero Academia, that first impression someone could get first seeing pictures of this series without context.
With the setting about super heroes it has similarities with My Academia and some elements from Full Metal Alchemist, without saying too much about the plot, but they are mixed in a distinct way. Whats more interesting is that the heroes themselves arent the focus but the machines in their own right.

The author Shibata is or was to my knowledge the assistant of the creator of MHA, so thats where the influence ... of the artstyle comes from. The biggest stength this series has are the distinct robot designs and the interesting concept behind it. I especially like it that the mechas arent to big like in other shows and have a more humanlike size. With that Shibata found a way to separate himself from his inspirational source.

The characters are good designed but dont have much depth e.g. the strong stupid brother and genius brother dualism, but are none the less quite enjoyable written with the humorous parts. The only good parts for me are the triangular relationship with the girl and the mysterious villain whose motivations arent fully known yet. Could also be that the series is just in the beginning and the character development could change.

Overall I would recommend this series if you like good action and recognizable artstyle, but also if you dont have too high demands for character depth. The story and idea behind it are still well written with suspense and I hope the next chapters follow this path like the last and the series wont meet the same fate as the last serializations on Weekly Jump and gets cancelled too early, Shibata deserves more recognition.

First of all I love the first chapter, it's an amazing start. It tells you what you need to know in an entertaining way as well as jumping quickly into the plot. You don't feel confused and everything is clear from the start. It's entertaining and makes you want to continue reading. I am someone who tends to find first chapters to be either boring or confusing, so seeing how great it started just made me confused as to how this didn't get popular.

The mangaka Yusaku Shibata was an assistant for both One Piece and My Hero Academia, this was pretty obvious from looking ... at his art which has a few hints from both of these mangas. I personally found these hints to be very subtle, it's not really something that you think about while reading.

The characters were pretty interesting, more specifically the main character and his twin brother. The main character, Kaname, is strong, hardworking and determined. He is scary looking and his stupidity makes him oblivious to how terrified everyone are of him. His goal was to be the main character, the hero, from his favorite show.
While his younger brother, Koshiro, on the other hand is calm, a genius and cunning. He is adored by all and very well know for his inventions. This lead to Koshiro being targeted. Koshiro and Kaname are the opposite in a lot of things, yet they share one similar goal that they've competed in since they were kids. They are eachothers biggest rival. Though one trait they share is that both of them can be a bit hotheaded at times.

Now the one character that I do have a problem with is Cheena the love interest and childhood friend of the brothers. She is a extremely stereotypical female lead, no personality, constantly gets into trouble and getting kidnapped resulting in the male leads having to save her, being unable to defend herself despite being able to fight, always being the one to worry about the male leads health, etc.

Now this manga is cancelled and that is something you could tell in the story because the pacing shifts. This manga did have potential and I am actually a bit sad by the fact that it was cancelled. It would have been interesting to see a manga about a boy being inside of his brother (yes I had to word it that way), in order to fight the bad guys and figure out why they wanted to get rid of Koshiro.

Overall it was an enjoyable read.

This series had a ton of potential but from what other reviews have said and what Ive seen online the series apparently got cancelled. This shows from around chapter 5-6 and the pacing after this point is utterly terrible. This is probably not the authors fault due to cancellation but this ruins the fights and story progression. The pacing seemed rushed from the start but it didnt get to the point that the story started to suffer until around this 5th chapter point.

The artwork is honestly incredible, with cool action scenes and a lot of creative character and weapon designs. The author was an assitant ... for Oda and Horikoshi and the inspiration is obvious once you know this. The artwork looks like MHA mixed with the unique character and weapon design from One piece. The originality and creativity of honestly everything in the artwork is super cool, but falls short because of the rushed pacing. If this series would have followed the same plot over like 40-60ish chapters it would have been a solid 6 or 7 out of 10.

I could go on and on but overall the pacing just ruins the cool and unique ideas behind the story.


Spoilers now -

More on pacing - THeres a lot that just doesnt get explained because the pacing is so fast. The backstory of Steel-X and the team is glossed over. The story also just completely skips over Cheena discovering that Kaname is Zipmann, which could have been a cool reveal but is just explained in 2 pages as Kaname joins the team to help fight against the chairman and his goons.

All of the fights last less than a chapter, each of which could have been at least 3-4 chapters and actually had plot progession and background on making Zipmann grow in strength. There is also just bare explanations of many plot points, attacks, and how the tech behind all of the mechs work. Again, this is due to the pacing and story being cancelled but even 10-15 more chapters in total for the series could have allowed it to be a solid short run shonen.

Overall - 5/10 just for the artwork and originality, could have been much better with fleshed out storylines but like I said like 50 times in my review the pacing and cancellation of the series forced it to skip over many story points, backstories, emotion, fights, and explanations of anything that is happening.
Classic SJ series being cancelled, what can you do