U19

U19 is like shounen's first post-modern existential dystopian novel... but with art!

It might be too early to write a review for this, as only the first chapter has been released; however, I believe that this has the makings of a great story in a fairly unexplored realm of fiction. Really nothing quite happened so far: there was an introduction to the setting, a few characters, and what will probably become the main conflict of the series. The setting is probably the most interesting: in the near future, after Japanese students' academic performance had been dropping rapidly, a Political party, the Grown-Ups Party, rose to power, re-instituted corporal punishment in schools, and redid the academic system to force students to be placed into castes after their 20th birthday Adult Admission Test. The contemporary dystopian setting really excited me, but the characters and conflict just don't seem to mix well with the setting. A hotheaded MC and a bland conflict and a premise that would make Thomas Pynchon proud is like oil and water, but U19 is a shounen and it might serve to deepen the author's intention.

The art is really good.The faces especially great given that they're expressive and we immediately feel what the mangaka wants us to feel. The color pages also look like they were done with colored pencil; a look that I think I enjoy.

The characters are what I liked least about U19, but I feel that the contrast of adults' and students' personalities and expressions might actually serve to further the simulacrum that the characters live in.

I gave this a high enjoyment score simply because this series really does have the ability to be a stepping stone to heavier Post-modern fiction. If this even piques your interest in that realm, definitely check out Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49, a short book, or Don DeLillo's White Noise, which is quite a bit longer.

U19 is a series with a interesting premise, but it may end up becoming another generic shonen series. Initially, after reading the first chapter of the series, I was somewhat interested in the plot, since it tackles a touching topic about the superiority of adults and the inferiority of children "under 19." However, due to this series being in Weekly Shonen Jump I am afraid that this series may end up being another new series ended shortly due to the popularity and rankings.

So far while reading the first 3 chapters of U19, the story isn't really doing anything new, but the author of the manga is doing something quite unorthodox, since he allows for the main character to confess his feelings to his childhood friend within the first two chapters, and he slowly building up hype for something to potentially happen.

The artwork is rather good, and the panels are very clear and the actions are easy to follow.

Overall, this series so far is pretty interesting, but I am not sure how the manga will perform.

This is a really good manga,i'm a sucker for a shonen romance manga and anime and this manga make my heart pump really fast which made me what to read on,it to bad that it only have 17 chapters and it's finished.if the series was not cancelled,it would be even better and might give a very satisfying ending and we may even get more character development for the characters and might have a even more interesting battle scene since the art style for the battle scene was really good but there is not enough,not only that,some character have really good libero that did not get enough screen time.If you take ninninger from the super sentai series,where that most of the time focus on only takaharu,yeah,this manga is a lot like that as it focus a lot on the main character,which is one thing i'm not a fan off.The story got a bit cliche but it's still good but not as good as the cliche in ao no exorcist,which for me felt satisfying.this shows that i have really high hope for this manga.