Since Mangaplus was released a year ago Ive 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. Im in selfisolation for about a month now Ill 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 its issue 1 of 2020 I dont really get it either. Generally these manga dont really get any kind of hype or big promotion behind them unless its by a very successful mangaka like Samurai 8 by Kishimoto and now Burn the Witch by Kubo. So theyre 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. https://scontentlis11.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.09/828077711244773957365272020854581751185408n.jpg?nccat=104ncsid=8bfeb9ncohc=1E8w9at1cOgAXiVFpJncht=scontentlis11.xxoh=e20a81128fa76c33511f5977cec5cfa0oe=5EB2BBE0 At first glance you can tell why this caught the attention of people. Its My Hero Academia Well not exactly but its super hero themed and the art is very similar to our favorite ongoing superhero themed weekly manga from Shounen Jump that isnt written by ONE. Now this is easily explained the mangaka worked as an assistant for MHA and its not totally unheard for people to have similar drawing styles to their mentor. Id be more mad at it if the author had the style but not the quality but he does Sure its not yet at the level of Horikoshi but Horikoshi has some of the highest quality in artstyle that Ive ever seen in a weekly release. Shibata isnt 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 isnt the only thing to a manga. To begin with this manga to survive already needs to establish that its 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 isnt really a ripoff 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 superhero shows trying to get cast as an actor for the show Jackman one hes been a fan since child and Kaname has all the moves for the job hes a bonafied action movie actor but hes 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 theres a lot to unpack here Im 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 theres 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 brothers 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 wasnt sure it was enough to avoid cancellation but it had people talking about it so maybe I was wrong. https://i.redd.it/cb27m0mt1h141.png 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 powerup from the enemy. I think that last point could be enough for some interesting battles going forward but it seemed like the powerup was always just a different kind of punch so it didnt 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 timeskip which timeskips 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. https://1.bp.blogspot.com/8CMO70LOgpI/Xe4lqW2fTDI/AAAAAAAAnXE/vjsYT8hcrtUo7j99blbLWVF1eCAH4BxEQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/001.jpg With a story that went from okay to stale to a big mess to a overall meh theres 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.