Boichi

Taiju is a high school student on his way to confess his feelings to Yuzuriha. However, just before he does it, there's a huge flash of light and a wave of something that transforms every person and animal it hits into stone. Most lose consciousness during this transformation, but Taiju stubbornly clings to his desire to protect Yuzuriha and finally tell her how he feels. Approximately 3,690 years later, he somehow breaks free only to find the whole world overgrown and filled with statues show more rather than people. Some were broken over time, but luckily Yuzuriha is still whole.

Taiju soon encounters Senku, his best friend and the smartest person he knows. Senku broke free several months earlier and has begun his plans to rebuild civilization from scratch. He's limited in what he can do on his own, though, and Taiju happily becomes the brawn to his brains. After Senku discovers a way to revive petrified people (but only those who haven't been broken to pieces over time), he and Taiju use their new knowledge to revive a couple people. Unfortunately, one of them, Tsukasa Shishio, believes that only some people deserve to be revived. He's more than strong enough to force Senku and the others to follow his lead, but Senku has science on his side.

Even before Taiju was revived, Senku managed to create a few basic tools, build a tree house, create pottery, find food that's safe to eat, and extract salt from seawater (for flavoring and preserving food). With Taiju taking over all the most physical work, Senku had time to concentrate on testing different methods for reviving people (starting with petrified birds as test subjects). After that, it's time to get some calcium carbonate, something that will help with several parts of Senku's ultimate plan to rebuild civilization.

While reading this, I couldn't help but think of isekai with female protagonists. Granted, this had way more shouting, muscles, and nudity (with strategically-placed greenery) than a lot of those series, but Senku's plans to recreate the world he used to live in reminded me a lot of the ways those heroines would try to recreate foods and personal hygiene products from their worlds. In Senku's case, it's looking like the first big thing he's going to work on, now that he's able to revive people, is weaponry. To be fair, he has a good reason, but I couldn't help but laugh that the cooking aspect of "rebuilding civilization" was (so far) limited to smoking meats/fish and seasoning them with salt extracted from seawater.

My library has volume 2 as well, so I'll be seeing at least a bit of where this goes now that the basic premise has been established. At this point, I have lots of questions I'm not sure will ever get answered like: Did this affect the whole world? If so, how did some of the animals keep from getting petrified? Maybe I'm thinking too much, but I've heard a bunch of positive things about the science in this series, so I don't think it's out of line to ask questions.

Extras:

Brief notes from both the author and illustrator, and a short side story in which Taiju attempts to make pottery and ends up with something that looks like a pile of poop instead.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.) show less

Senku manages to make gun powder and, in the process, finds evidence that there may be other humans besides himself, Tsukasa, Taiju, and Yuzuriha around. Unfortunately, Tsukasa tracks Senku and the others down before there's any time to investigate, and Senku is faced with several impossible choices. This volume also features an extended flashback to Senku's childhood, as well as the period of time when Senku was first revived and had to do things on his own.

As in the first volume, show more considerably less time is spent on the work and process behind things like making clothing (there's a brief mention of Senku chewing hide as part of the tanning process). Pulleys and stone tools are also covered fairly quickly, but those portions still felt more complete to me than than the two panels worth of clothing-making. (I'm willing to forgive Senku's unlikely leaf skirt, for the poor artist's sake.) And of course gun powder got several pages - the stuff that goes boom is always more exciting, I guess.

This series hasn't really won me over yet, but I'm intrigued by some of the things that were brought up in this volume. After I read the first volume, I had lots of questions about the premise, and some of them were addressed here. For example, Senku confirmed that only humans and sparrows were petrified, which explains why so many other animals are just fine, although it still leaves us (and Senku) with the question of what caused the petrification and why only those two groups of beings were affected. I'm really curious about all of that, and it sounds like the author might eventually allow the characters to figure those things out, so I'm tempted to continue reading for that reason. It's just going to be a little more difficult from here on out, because I've now finished all the volumes my library owns.

The discovery that there are other humans in the area is also intriguing, and I'd like to know the specifics of whatever plan Senku sent Yuzuriha off to take care of.

Extras:

A few Q&A pages.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.) show less

Boichi and Inagaki's collaboration, I'm hoping, will become as famous as the pairing that brought us Deathnote.

Whether this manga continues for 10 or 50 volumes I will likely always remember the wacky characters strategic hijinks.

Volume 6 brings several new inventions and some hastily concluded battles. Once again science outwits brutish strength. The characters, though they look like walking action figures, are detailed and entertaining enough to be memorable.

The artistic mystique and show more unique concept realty propel this proto-shonen. show less

This manga is a great example of science in a fictional setting. The main character is a scientist in a world that has been reset to some extent. Senku has to bring science back into society and this results in scientific processes being explained in depth. I would use this graphic novel to demonstrate the scientific method.