Weekly Shōnen Jump

• 1. Introduction

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  Weekly Shōnen Jump, a Japanese manga magazine published by Shueisha, once sold 6.53 million copies in a single week. Over its lifetime it has sold more than 7.5 billion copies, which makes it the best-selling comic or manga magazine anywhere. That total leaves rivals such as Weekly Shōnen Magazine and Weekly Shōnen Sunday behind. Yet the magazine began as the newcomer in a field that already had successful competitors. This documentary asks how a latecomer built that audience, and why the weekly numbers later fell so far. It also asks who actually reads the magazine, how it finds its artists, and what a paper weekly becomes when readers move to their phones.

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• 2. Late Challenger

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  On the 11th of July 1968, Shueisha launched Shōnen Jump to compete with the already successful Weekly Shōnen Magazine and Weekly Shōnen Sunday. It did not start as a weekly. Before issue 20 it was called simply Shōnen Jump, because it came out every two weeks.

  A sister title called Shōnen Book ran alongside it. Shōnen Book was originally the boys' counterpart to a short-lived girls' anthology named Shōjo Book. In 1969 Shōnen Book ceased publication. At that point the main magazine became a weekly, and a new monthly called Bessatsu Shōnen Jump took the sister title's place.

  That monthly was later rebranded as Monthly Shōnen Jump. It was eventually discontinued and replaced by Jump SQ. The weekly format arrived in 1969, and in 1986 an editor named Hiroki Goto would take charge of it.

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• 3. Peak And Slump

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  Hiroki Goto became chief editor in 1986 and held the post until 1993. Circulation stood at 2.55 million in 1982, and it kept climbing year after year until 1995. Goto later described his philosophy plainly. He said: "We only tried to create manga that everybody can enjoy. There were no specific rules. Idol and tabloid magazines dominated in the Media & Entertainment industry at that time and we aimed to stand out from the crowd by using only manga as our weapon." In the early 1990s the magazine reached a total readership of 18 million people in Japan.

  The fall was swift. By 1998 circulation had dropped to 4.15 million, a decline partly blamed on the endings of Dragon Ball and Slam Dunk. The New Year's issue of 1998 was the first time in 24 years that Weekly Shōnen Jump lost the top spot among shōnen magazines. Weekly Shōnen Magazine sold 4.45 million that issue.

  Masahiko Ibaraki, editor-in-chief from 2003 to 2008, credited the earlier boom to hit titles such as Dragon Ball and Slam Dunk. Circulation kept sliding through the early 2000s and found some stability around 2005, far below the old peak. In 2007 it rose from 2.75 million to 2.78 million. That was the first increase in 11 years, and Ibaraki credited One Piece.

  A different kind of disruption came in 2011, after the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. Shipments of the 15th issue of that year were delayed in some areas of Japan. Shueisha responded by publishing that issue's series for free on its website from the 23rd of March to the 27th of April. Offering pages online for free was an idea the magazine would return to with its apps.

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• 4. Hit Factory

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  KochiKame: Tokyo Beat Cops ran in the magazine from issue 42 of 1976 to issue 42 of 2016, a span of 1,960 issues. Other long runs fill the record. One Piece began in issue 34 of 1997 and was still running, past a thousand issues. Naruto ran about 700 issues from 1999 to 2014, and Dragon Ball ran 519 issues between 1984 and 1995. Slam Dunk was shorter, with 276 issues from 1990 to 1996. The magazine's usual formula is plenty of action scenes mixed with a fair amount of comedy. One Piece, Dragon Ball, Naruto, Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, Slam Dunk and KochiKame all rank among the ten best-selling manga of all time.

  Only three of the biggest runners began after the golden age ended in the late 1990s. They are Bleach, Gintama and Black Clover. Black Clover started in 2015 and ran 368 issues.

  The brand also spread well beyond the page. Chapters are gathered into tankōbon volumes under the Jump Comics imprint every two to three months. In 1988 the Family Computer game Famicom Jump: Hero Retsuden marked the magazine's 20th anniversary, and a sequel followed in 1991. Crossover fighting games followed, with Jump Super Stars on the Nintendo DS in 2005 and Jump Ultimate Stars in 2006. In June 2018 a limited 50th Anniversary edition of the Famicom Mini console sold 110,000 units in two days. On the 11th of July 2013, Namco Bandai opened J-World Tokyo, a 1.52-acre amusement park on the third floor of a building in Ikebukuro's Sunshine City.

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• 5. Who Reads It

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  Shōnen manga is aimed at young teenage boys, yet in 2005 Index Digital reported that 61.9 percent of elementary and middle school girls named Weekly Shōnen Jump as their favorite non-shōjo magazine. In 2007 Oricon polled 2,933 female readers about favorite manga magazines. Weekly Shōnen Jump was the top answer, and respondents pointed to One Piece, Death Note and The Prince of Tennis.

  In 2009 it was reported that 62.9 percent of readers were under the age of fourteen. By 2019 the picture had changed. Shueisha revealed that its largest single group, at 27.4 percent, was aged 25 or older.

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• 6. Talent And Spin-offs

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  The Tezuka Award is named for manga pioneer Osamu Tezuka and welcomes stories in every style. Its sibling, the Akatsuka Award, honors gag manga pioneer Fujio Akatsuka and focuses on comedy. Each year new artists submit one-shot stories, and the best go before a panel of judges that includes manga artists past and present. Many of the magazine's artists got their start by winning, or by being noticed in, these competitions.

  Jump Giga launched on the 20th of July 2016 as a seasonal offshoot. Its roots go back to 1969, when a special issue of the bi-weekly Shōnen Jump was introduced. It features one-shots by amateur artists and by professionals promoting upcoming series. It has also printed the last chapters of cancelled series such as Enigma and Magico. Epilogues of The Disastrous Life of Saiki K. and Food Wars! Shokugeki no Soma appeared there, while Gintama and Black Clover were moved to it so they could finish. Death Note and Naruto have had yonkoma strips there, and Bleach had its pilot chapter printed.

  Other offshoots grew into independent magazines. V Jump began as special issues from 1992 to 1993 and became its own anthology in 1993, covering video and card games. Super Jump ran as a special issue from 1968 to 1988 before becoming a separate seinen anthology. Jump VS appeared on the 22nd of March 2013, focused on battle manga, and held 12 one-shots.

  For the magazine's 45th anniversary in 2013, Shueisha opened a contest for manga in Japanese, English and Chinese. It offered four awards, a grand prize plus one per language, each worth 500,000 yen, about US$4,900. Winners were guaranteed publication in Jump, its special editions, the North American edition, China's OK! Comic, or Taiwan's Formosa Youth.

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• 7. Digital Shift

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  A mobile app called Jump Live arrived in August 2013, carrying exclusive material from the artists behind the magazine's series. On the 22nd of September 2014, a free app and website launched in Japan. It sells digital editions of the weekly magazine on the day of the print release, along with volumes of past and present series. It also offers large free samples.

  Some series appear only on the app, including Marvel × Shōnen Jump+ Super Collaboration. Unlike titles in the weekly, these may be aimed at adult men or women. Once finished, they are collected in print under the Jump Comics+ imprint. In 2019, Shōnen Jump+ had about 2.4 million active users. By January 2020 the app had been downloaded more than 13 million times.

  As the magazine moved toward digital, print circulation fell again. By 2017 it was under two million, less than a third of its golden-age peak. Similar declines have hit other magazines in the sector.

  On the 28th of January 2019, Shueisha launched Manga Plus, the global English-language version of Shōnen Jump+. It is free in every country except China and South Korea, which have their own services. It offers samples of every current Weekly Shōnen Jump title, with the newest chapters free for a limited time. Unlike the Japanese app, it does not sell anything. A Spanish-language version followed in February 2019, with a different library of titles.

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• 8. Across Borders

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  In November 2002, Viz Media launched Shonen Jump in North America, with a January 2003 cover date. It was monthly rather than weekly, carried seven serialized series, and added articles on Japanese language and culture. Shueisha bought an equity interest in Viz to fund it, and Cartoon Network, Suncoast and Diamond Distributors became promotional partners. The first issue needed three printings and sold over 300,000 copies. It won the ICv2 Comic Product of the Year award in December 2002, and by 2008 its monthly circulation was 215,000. It was discontinued in April 2012.

  Its digital successor began on the 30th of January 2012 as Weekly Shonen Jump Alpha, with six titles. One aim was to fight the copyright violation of manga by scanlation services. Issues appeared online two weeks after Japan, and within a year it carried twelve ongoing series. On the 21st of January 2013 it was rebranded and began publishing simultaneously with Japan.

  Other countries tried their own editions. Carlsen Verlag published the German-language Banzai! from 2001 to December 2005, with a circulation of 140,000. A Swedish edition began in November 2004 and ended in November 2007 after 37 issues, at 30,000 copies. A Norwegian edition began in March 2005 and ended with an issue dated the 26th of February 2007, when the Swedish publisher lost its license.

  In Asia, Thailand had C-Kids and Boom, and Hong Kong had EX-am. Taiwan's Rèmén Shàonián Top, published by Da Ran, serialized Yu-Gi-Oh!, Hikaru no Go and One Piece before Da Ran went bankrupt in the 1990s. Its series moved to Formosa Youth, from a company founded by Fang Wan-Nan in 1977 that produced bootlegs until 1992. In Norway, the publisher also created a Dragon Ball Ekstra line, devoted to manga by Akira Toriyama.

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