Mar 7, 2026
It is with great trepidation and mixed feelings that I must declare— Jewel Joker is pretty good.
When I read the first chapter when it came out over a year ago, I was not impressed. It seemed the reset button had been hit for the characters; Amu was back to being disconnected from her peers and fawning over Tadase, despite character arcs in the original manga that resolved both issues. On top of that, she was being sent to a new school, away from her friends, with a new cat boy. It felt like we were primed to retread the same steps all over again, rendering
...
the original story's conclusions pointless.
However, while these are still definitely issues to me, Jewel Joker is not in fact doing the same thing over again. It has its own ideas, own characters, and own themes, and I'm honestly excited about all of them. The themes introduced in this first volume feel like they built organically off the ones introduced in the original story. Shugo Chara is about finding the person you want to be and what it means to be yourself. Jewel Joker is asking how that self fits into the expectations of others around you and larger society.
It's taking a premise I wrote off as stupid in the first chapter, a school for guardian character holders, and is making something incredibly interesting.
Overall, really good stuff, I'm so happy this isn't another Clear Card.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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