MANGA REVIEW | "Ichigoki's Under Control!!" Loses Its Sanity
Just because you've earn the right to be in Shonen Jump doesn’t mean you’re a guaranteed hit. In fact, there are more failures in Shonen Jump than there are success stories. It is the way of the manga life, as one can’t predict what your audience truly likes. Perhaps that’s why Shonen Jump found itself giving Ichigoki's Under Control!! the boot after less than 20 chapters. Or, and this is my guess, maybe Seiji Hayashi’s series had a huge identity crisis problem.
At first, Ichigoki's Under Control!! seemed to have a good idea on what it wanted to be. A sci-fi rom-com, the titular character one day finds himself turned into a robot, with his Misao piloting him. Of course, when you attempt to infiltrate a zoo and get killed by a gorilla, you’re kind of asking to become a cyborg. Yearning for a normal high school life, Misao promises to help Ichigoki make some memories, so long as he vows to help her grow back to normal.
From there, it’s one chaotic situation after another. The return of the killer gorilla, a robber with a mommy complex, and even a shadowy student council president who aims to reveal Ichigoki’s secret basically come barreling one after another. It’s every single Shonen Jump comedy trope rolled in a small package, and on paper, that sounds like fun. So why does it instead feel exhausting?
Ichigoki's Under Control!! throws in every exciting shonen plot line as quickly as possible. There’s no break between the madness, nor do we get some deep character developments. Instead, it’s wackiness mixed with more wackiness, to the point where the urge to take a nap after going through a chapter will no doubt hit you like a dump truck driven by Ichigoki himself. And the worst part: the majority of it makes zero sense.
Normally, I’m all for crazy stories, but even the best nutty stories have some structure to them. Although there’s an endgame in mind for this series, it doesn’t have a clear means of reaching it. Misao’s desire to grow back to normal size may be a key aspect towards it, but she spends way too much time making Ichigoki’s life more bonkers than she does working towards that goal. On top of that, there are the “memories” Misao promised him that she’s help make.
“Memories” is in parentheses because Ichigoki's Under Control!! doesn’t seem to care much about doing that either! Even before the manga reaches it conclusion, Ichigoki and his “friends” have all graduated high school. It even goes so far as to explain why the manga jumped four years into the future after only just fourteen chapters. (I will admit that this particular chapter was funny, as it brought to mind the finale of the underrated OK K.O.! Let’s Be Heroes.)
From there, it goes full throttle into getting Misao’s body back to normal, on top of having Ichigoki having full body independence. They break into America, go to jail, dive straight into Hell, and even have an impromptu high school reunion in just a couple of chapters. Perhaps it’s here where Seiji Hayashi saw that the writing was on the wall and said, “Fuck it! Let’s lose all of our marbles!”
Could Ichigoki's Under Control!! been better? Absolutely! But I think the problems with the manga started popping up way early on, as it kept on rushing through the tropes too quickly. There was no room for the story to breathe, nor did it allow us to really get to know any of the characters Ichigoki and Misao crossed paths with. In fact…who exactly made an impression on these two, anyway?!
Not every Shonen Jump series will be a hit; most get cancelled after around 30 chapters. Ichigoki's Under Control!! managed to only reach 2/3 of the way, no thanks to it lacking solid ground to walk on. It had promise early on, and there are some pretty good laughs to be found. However, after reading through both volumes, it’s easy to see why Ichigoki's Under Control!! malfunctioned so quickly.
VOL. 1 RATING:
VOL. 2 RATING:
FINAL GRADE (series):
Promotional consideration provided by Chantelle Sturt of VIZ Media.
