Viz's domination of the manga market continued into this year, but that domination was pretty much entirely on the back of its Weekly Shonen Jump properties. That's a good thing when their non-WSJ shonen titles includes manga like this.
RECORD OF RAGNAROK (Shumatsu no Warukyure), written by Shinya Umemura with script by Takumi Fukui and art by Azychika. First published in 2019 and first published in North America in 2022.
PLOT:
The pantheon of gods have decided that humanity is beyond hope and worthy only of destruction. Only the valkyrie Brunhilde is willing to speak up on behalf of humans. She convinces them to participate in a series of one-on-one battles, pitting some of the greatest champions of human history against a selection of the most powerful deities. This is the fated tournament known as Ragnarok.
STORY:
I don't like tournament arcs.
To me, nothing is more boring than the times when a shonen manga stops dead in its tracks to have its protagonist and their pals fight a series of gimmicky opponents, one that always ends with the protagonist making it to the finals and most of the time they win. It's a move that more often than not speaks to a mangaka getting pressure to stretch out a successful series but finding themselves short on ideas, if not outright exhausted with the manga they created.
So right from the start, Record of Ragnarok was always going to be a struggle for me because it is nothing but a tournament arc. Worse still, it's the worst sort of tournament: the power ranking tournament. It's the most forced, juvenile sort of competition, one that is of interest only to those pedantic and bored enough to explain precisely why Goku could totally beat Superman. Its problems go much deeper than that, though.
The formula for these supposedly epic battles goes like this: the respective champions are announced with great fanfare and much commentary from the audience, who are full of notable figures from both sides. The battle begins as the first blow is delivered, all as the crowd continues to commentate on just how some particular divine weapon is so mind-blowingly huge and impressive.
At some random point we'll see a bit of each opponent's backstory - maybe it'll be that time Thor smote a shitload of frost giants in Valhalla single-handed, maybe it'll be the story of Lu Bu being such an awesome warrior that he eventually got more powerful than literally every man in ancient China and let himself be hanged out of boredom. The details don't matter, as it only serves to reinforce how supposedly super-cool and amazing they are.
Then the other opponent launches into their attack and the cycle begins anew, maybe with a vague interjection about how interesting some tactic may be or some bit of scheming behind the scenes of the tournament itself.
So yeah, Record of Ragnarok is more than a little repetitive with the thrilling pace of the geologic timescale. Worse still, all that commentary adds up to nothing. It's clearly meant to evoke the energy and rancor of a professional wrestling match, but all the audience is are a bunch of ciphers with important names attached to them. I do have to give a special shout-out to Brunhilde's fellow valkryie Geir, who exists entirely to cry, shake like a nervous chihuahua, and nervously comment on her sister's actions. She was one of the few characters I could distinguish, but only because she was so annoying. It's basically a crowd of Speedwagons repeating every step of the fights for the audience but without any of the charm of the actual Speedwagon. This entire manga is naught but a lot of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
ART:
If I had to sum up the art of Record of Ragnarok in one word, it would be "extreme." The character designs are extreme, as most men are hulking, glowering piles of muscle and the few women that are present are mostly vehicles for boob delivery (while also glowering or slyly smiling). The paneling is extreme, be it extreme close-ups, extreme low and/or Dutch angles, or extremely chaotic in how the pages are assembled. The action is extreme, so much so that it's nigh incomprehensible thanks to the massive blasts of energy and sound effects that follow every attack along with the rampant screentone abuse. Of course, that only counts when action is actually happening, since half of this volume is nothing but talking heads. It's just an extremely ugly manga.
RATING:
This series is published by Viz. This series is ongoing in Japan with 16 volumes available. 4 volumes have been released and are currently in print.
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