Joujuu Senjin!! Mushibugyou

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Alternative Titles

Japanese: 常住戦陣!! ムシブギョー（蟲奉行）

Information

Type: Manga

Volumes: 32

Chapters: 316

Status: Finished

Published: Jan 5, 2011 to Sep 20, 2017

Genres: Action, Fantasy

Themes: Historical, Samurai

Demographic: Shounen

Serialization: Shounen Sunday

Authors: Fukuda, Hiroshi (Story & Art)

Statistics

Score: 7.44¹ (scored by 1,377 users)

¹ indicates a weighted score.

Ranked: #3424²

² based on the top manga page. Please note that 'R18+' titles are excluded.

Popularity: #3883

Members: 5,764

Favorites: 43

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7.44

Ranked #3424Popularity #3883Members 5,764

MangaShounen SundayFukuda, Hiroshi (Story & Art)

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Volumes: /32

Chapters: /316

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Synopsis

In Feudal Japan, the people of Edo are under siege by giant insects that ravage the land. The people desperately beg the government to do something about it. Thus the Insect Magistrate Office is established, gathering strong warriors to defend against the onset of pests.

Joujuu Senjin!! Mushibugyou follows Jinbee Tsukishima, a young man striving to be a master swordsman like his father. To atone for a horrific incident that occurred at his fault, Jinbee seeks to take his father's place as a member of the Insect Magistrate Office. On his journey there, he meets the lovely Haru, a young woman who helps manage her family's tea house, and is forced to put his sword to good use in saving her from a grisly fate. This act of bravery that earns him a spot in the Insect Magistrate. Will this rookie exterminator be able to rid the land of the horde of insects swarming in?

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Characters

Tsukishima, Jinbee

Main

Hibachi

Main

Koikawa, Shungiku

Main

Mugai

Main

Ichinotani, Tenma

Main

Mushibugyou

Supporting

Haru

Supporting

Matsunohara, Kotori

Supporting

Sanada, Yukimura

Supporting

Tokugawa, Ieshige

Supporting

Reviews

Jan 28, 2024

khaego

Recommended

This is THE most shounen shounen series I have ever read, and honestly? It's brilliant.

Story
Premise: 8/10
Huge bugs infested the world and only the Mushibugyou can stop them from killing everyone. Stupid? A little. Simple? Hell yeah. Good? For sure.

Execution: 9/10
The story is great. It starts off fairly shallow, the main character wanting to save people from monster-like insects, you know, basic hero shit. However, as the story goes, a larger narrative starts to present itself. The enemies get stronger, but so do the good guys. There are epic, dramatic battles to the death, insane weapons, great character backstories and connections. The story is ...

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Feb 19, 2025

hexashadow13

Recommended

This manga is set during the Tokugawa period, predominantly in Edo. It features the Mushibugyou, which means the Insect Magistrate Office, who are a group dedicated to the extermination of giant insects that appeared in Japan 100 years before the start of the story. It primarily follows Tsukushima Jinbee, a very earnest samurai that joins the Mushibugyou in place of his injured father. He starts off weak compared to the other members, but thanks to hard work and some secret abilities he turns out to have, he quickly becomes one of the most powerful.

The plot begins with the Mushibugyou simply defeating random mindless insects that ... attack Edo. The overarching plot, which is centered around the origin and true nature of the giant bugs, begins in volume 5 and continues to the end of the manga, with a bunch of smaller character focused stories thrown in in throughout. The plot is solid enough. It’s not amazing and the main themes are the standard shounen stuff like power of friendship and such, but it builds upon itself well with some good twists and ultimately reaches a satisfying conclusion that overall felt very fair.

The way the story flows isn’t very good though. It feels very segmented. It’ll focus on one thing and it’ll go all in on that. And then after that’s over it’ll move to focusing on what feels like something completely different. Everything is ultimately connected, but in the moment it kind of feels like it’s jumping around. This is heavily in part due to how the manga doesn’t really lay the foundation most of the time. It’ll introduce something new and then it’ll just suddenly become the most important thing in the manga. The anime actually did a pretty good job at fixing this, in that it added filler scenes that built up to certain plot points.

Character wise, Jinbee is a generic good guy that just wants to help people without any more depth to him, so he’s certainly not a very unique protagonist. Still, I felt the execution on him was good, in that he’s just so earnest and straightforward all the time that he naturally helps bring out others best selves. Most of the rest of the cast have darker aspects to them, and Jinbee having a positive effect on them and their way of viewing the world is satisfying.

The rest of cast overall are developed pretty well too. Their backgrounds and character arcs aren’t anything too special, but they’re solid enough. However, the issue with segmentation that applies to the plot also applies here. And it really screws over some characters who don’t get properly fleshed out until very far into the manga. For example, Tenma is one of the main characters from volume 1, but he isn’t really fleshed out until volume 24, and he doesn’t have much of an impact on the plot or in battle until then either. The side characters are a mixed bag. The villains I felt are especially bad. Some of them actually worked decently as just cartoon villains, but then it tried to add depth to them by giving them more complicated motivations, but those motivations often just turned out to be really dumb.

The manga also has romance, but it’s kind of half assed. Jinbee has a very positive effect on the mentality of Hibachi, a ninja member of his squad, and Naa, a girl that’s at the center of the mystery behind the giant bugs. As a result they end up falling in love with him, and this is fleshed out reasonably well. There’s also another girl, Haru, who is just a waitress at a local shop without any major plot significance who just falls in love with Jinbee because he’s awesome. This sounds kind of stupid, but in context it felt fair enough. However, there is absolutely zero development on Jinbee’s side of romance with any of them. Despite that, I felt the ending to all this was really good. It caught me completely by surprise in that there’s an actual proper ending and not an indefinite one. It’s one that probably wouldn’t work if the romance was taken more seriously, but this manga did not, and thus for this manga I felt it was absolutely perfect.

The action in the manga was good but not great. There is a general progression to the ability set of Jinbee and Mugai’s abilities and thus their fights are the best because they build upon previous ones. With everyone else it was much more random and thus not as good. The art is okay. The style looks messy, but it’s a manga about bugs in feudal Japan so it fits pretty well. The character designs are a mixed bag, though that heavily comes down to how I don’t really like bugs and like half the characters are bug themed, even the ones that aren’t actually bugs.

tl;dr: A shounen manga that’s somewhat cliche and very messy but still comes together really well.

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Nov 1, 2023

Deago

Not Recommended

This abomination of a manga exemplifies everything that can go wrong with 'nekketsu' shounen manga. One of the 'highlights' of nekketsu manga is its astonishing ability to deliver an inconsistent and episodic plot structure. 'Joujuu Senjin!! Mushibugyo' proudly continues this tradition of confusion and bewilderment.

In the 'Ten Crucifix Insects' arc, the 'main' antagonists are finally introduced as a group of insect-humanoid hybrids with the goal of ruling over Japan. However, the lack of a coherent and continuous storyline makes it difficult to invest in the overarching plot. Instead of building upon previous events and establishing a well-crafted narrative, the manga jumps between different adversaries ... and storylines, preventing the story from reaching its full potential. This becomes even more apparent in later chapters and arcs.

In Castle Insect Arc, the story introduces a new set of antagonists known as the Castle Insects, who possess unique powers and threaten the peace of the city. In Chapter 20 (or Battle 20, as the manga refers to it), just as the tension builds and readers anticipate a climactic confrontation with the Castle Insects, the story abruptly shifts its focus to a different subplot involving side characters, relegating the main antagonists to a secondary role. This sudden deviation disrupts the narrative flow and undermines the stakes established in the arc. The lack of a cohesive and continuous storyline prevents readers from fully investing in the overarching plot, as the manga fails to build upon previous events and establish a well-crafted narrative.

The lack of originality in the manga's execution is worth mentioning. Although the premise of a group of insect-humanoid hybrids threatening Japan initially sparks interest, the execution of this concept feels derivative and fails to offer a fresh take on the subgenre. The 'Ten Crucifix Insects' served as major villains, but their motivations and development remain surface-level. Exploring their origins, their relationships with one another, and their individual struggles would have added complexity to their characters and made them more compelling as adversaries. Unfortunately, these aspects are not fully explored, resulting in underdeveloped villains that lack depth and fail to evoke genuine investment from readers.

Another drawback of the manga is the lack of clear world-building and cohesive mythology. Despite the potential to delve deeper into the lore and history of the world through the 'Mushibugyo' organisation tasked with protecting the city from insect attacks, the manga misses the opportunity to explore its origins, structure, and the significance of its members. The 'Black Ship Arc' is an example of how the manga introduces new and mysterious threats, such as a black ship, but fails to explore their origins and purpose.

In terms of thematic exploration, the manga touches on the concept of fear and overcoming personal traumas, particularly in relation to Tenma's fear of bugs. However, this theme is not fully developed or utilised to its potential. Chapter 3 briefly touches upon Tenma's childhood trauma involving insects, but the subsequent exploration of his growth and the resolution of his fear remain relatively shallow.

While the manga initially introduces strong and capable female characters like Kuroageha, the narrative frequently relegates them to supporting roles or objectifies them for fanservice. An example of this can be seen in Chapter 7, where Kuroageha's abilities take a backseat to her sexualised appearance, undermining her agency and potential as a multifaceted character. And let's not forget about Irori, who serves no purpose beyond the obligatory fanservice for the horny lolicons.

Occasionally, just every now and then, the manga manages to capture a fleeting glimpse of the Edo period's essence. It's almost like a rare unicorn sighting. But don't get your hopes up, because consistency is not this manga's strong suit. In the 'Giant Insect Arc', during intense battles against gigantic insects, the action sequences lack the necessary impact and fail to convey a sense of scale and danger. The artwork in these moments lacks the level of detail and dynamic composition required to fully immerse readers in the high-stakes battles. Comparing these scenes to earlier chapters, such as Chapter 5, the decline in artwork quality becomes more evident.

Overall, it presents an intriguing premise, it suffers from issues such as inconsistent and episodic plot structure, inconsistent artwork, lack of world-building, derivative execution, rushed pacing, horny fanservice, and underdeveloped thematic exploration. Not recommended.

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Recent News

Manga 'Joujuu Senjin!! Mushibugyou' Ends

The 42nd issue of Shogakukan's Weekly Shounen Sunday has announced that Hiroshi Fukuda's Joujuu Senjin!! Mushibugyou will end in its 43rd issue of the maga...read more

Sep 12, 2017 8:33 AM by tsubasalover | Discuss (11 comments)

Weekly Shounen Sunday Announces Multiple OVA Adaptations

Wednesday's issue of Weekly Shounen Sunday is announcing multiple new OVA adaptations. Joujuu Senjin!! Mushibugyou, previously adapted to a TV series in Spring ...read more

May 9, 2014 5:18 AM by tsubasalover | Discuss (32 comments)

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Poll: Joujuu Senjin!! Mushibugyou Chapter 228 Discussion menpe - Aug 18, 2021	0 replies	by menpe »» Aug 18, 2021 1:54 PM
Poll: Joujuu Senjin!! Mushibugyou Chapter 57 Discussion Stark700 - Nov 3, 2016	0 replies	by Stark700 »» Nov 3, 2016 7:55 PM
Poll: Joujuu Senjin!! Mushibugyou Chapter 52 Discussion Stark700 - Aug 15, 2015	1 replies	by korn7809 »» Feb 9, 2016 7:31 PM
Poll: Joujuu Senjin!! Mushibugyou Chapter 51 Discussion Stark700 - Jun 15, 2015	1 replies	by korn7809 »» Feb 9, 2016 7:31 PM
Poll: Joujuu Senjin!! Mushibugyou Chapter 56 Discussion Stark700 - Dec 1, 2015	0 replies	by Stark700 »» Dec 1, 2015 5:58 PM

Joujuu Senjin!! Mushibugyou
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