is a weekly manga anthology published in Japan by Shueisha under the Jump line of magazines. The manga series within the magazine consist of many action scenes and a fair amount of comedy. Chapters of the series that run in Weekly Shōnen Jump are collected and published in volumes under the Jump Comics imprint every two to three months. It is one of the longest-running manga magazines, with the first issue being released on July 11, 1968.
The magazine has sold over 7.5billion copies since 1968, making it the best-selling comic/manga magazine, ahead of competitors such as Weekly Shōnen Magazine and Weekly Shōnen Sunday. The mid-1980s to the mid-1990s represents the era when the magazine's circulation was at its highest, 6.53million copies per week, with a total readership of people in Japan. Throughout 2021, it had an average circulation of over copies per week. Many of the best-selling manga series—including One Piece, Dragon Ball, Naruto, Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, Slam Dunk, and KochiKame: Tokyo Beat Cops, all of which are among the top ten best-selling manga of all time—originate from Weekly Shōnen Jump.
Weekly Shōnen Jump has sister magazines such as Jump SQ, V Jump, Saikyō Jump, and digital counterpart Shōnen Jump+ which boasts its own exclusive titles. The magazine has also had several international counterparts, including the North American Weekly Shonen Jump. It also spawned a crossover media franchise including anime and video games (since Famicom Jump) which bring together various Shōnen Jump characters.
History
Origins (1960s–1970s) Weekly Shōnen Jump was launched by Shueisha on July 11, 1968, to compete with the already-successful Weekly Shōnen Magazine and Weekly Shōnen Sunday. Weekly Shōnen Jumps sister publication was a manga magazine called Shōnen Book, which was originally a male version of the short-lived shōjo manga anthology Shōjo Book. Prior to issue 20, Weekly Shōnen Jump was originally called simply Shōnen Jump as it was originally a bi-weekly magazine. In 1969, Shōnen Book ceased publication at which time Shōnen Jump became a weekly magazine and a new monthly magazine called Bessatsu Shōnen Jump was made to take Shōnen Books place. This magazine was later rebranded as Monthly Shōnen Jump before eventually being discontinued and replaced by Jump SQ.
Golden age (1980s–1990s) Hiroki Goto was appointed chief editor in 1986 and remained in the position until 1993. His tenure saw significant increases in circulation, and the serialization of numerous popular series. When asked about the period, Goto stated: "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."http://aiskills.tech/former-head-of-the-weekly-shonen-jump-hiroki-goto-delivers-the-secrets-of-the-legendary-manga-magazine/ Famicom Jump: Hero Retsuden, released in 1988 for the Family Computer was produced to commemorate the magazine's 20th anniversary. It was followed by a sequel: Famicom Jump II: Saikyō no Shichinin in 1991, also for the Family Computer. Shōnen Jump's circulation continued to increase year on year, peaking at 6.53 million copies with the New Year's issue of 1995. By 1998, circulation had dropped to 4.15 million copies, a decline in part ascribed to the conclusion of popular manga series Dragon Ball and Slam Dunk. The magazine peaked with a total readership of people in Japan during the early 1990s.
Declining circulation (2000–2013) Circulation for the magazine continued to decline through the early 2000s, before reaching some stability around 2005, well below its earlier peak. In 2000, two more games were created for the purpose of commemorating the magazine's anniversaries. A crossover fighting game titled Jump Super Stars was released for the Nintendo DS in 2005. It was followed by Jump Ultimate Stars in 2006. Due to the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, the shipment of the 15th issue of 2011 was delayed in some areas of Japan. In response, Shueisha published the series included in that issue for free on its website from March 23 to April 27.
On July 11, 2013, the Namco Bandai Group opened an amusement park themed around Weekly Shōnen Jump series. Titled J-World Tokyo, it is located on the third floor of the Sunshine City World Import Mart Building in Ikebukuro and is 1.52 acres. In celebration of the magazine's 45th anniversary in 2013, Shueisha began a contest where anyone can submit manga in three different languages, Japanese, English and Chinese. Judged by the magazine's editorial department, four awards will be given, a grand prize and one for each language, each including 500,000 yen (about US$4,900) and guaranteed publication in either Jump, its special editions, North American edition, China's OK! Comic, or Taiwan's Formosa Youth.
Transition to digital (2013–present)
A mobile phone app titled "Jump Live" was launched in August 2013, it features exclusive content from the artists whose series run in Weekly Shōnen Jump. On September 22, 2014, the free mobile app and website was launched in Japan. It sells digital versions of the Weekly Shōnen Jump magazine, simultaneous with its print release, and volumes of individual Jump series past and present. However, it also has large samples of the manga that can be read for free. There are also series that are serialized exclusively on the app, such as Marvel × Shōnen Jump+ Super Collaboration; unlike those in Weekly Shōnen Jump, these series may be aimed at adult men or women. These exclusive series are later published in print volumes under the Jump Comics+ imprint. In 2019, the Shōnen Jump+ website and app had about 2.4 million active users. As of January 2020, the app had been downloaded more than 13 million times.
As the magazine shifted towards digital provision, print circulation once again began to decline. By 2017, print circulation was down to under two million, less than a third of its peak during the golden age. This decline follows similar trends seen by other magazines in the sector.
A new crossover game, J-Stars Victory Vs., was released in 2014 for the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita to commemorate Jump's 45 anniversary. In June 2018, a limited 50th Anniversary Shōnen Jump Edition of the Famicom Mini (NES Classic Edition) game console was released in Japan. It sold 110,000 units in two days.
On January 28, 2019, Shueisha launched the global English-language version of Shōnen Jump+, titled Manga Plus. It is freely available in every country except China and South Korea, which have their own separate services. A Spanish-language version was launched in February 2019, and has a different library of content. Like the Japanese app, it has large samples of manga that can be read for free including all the current titles of Weekly Shōnen Jump, a sizeable number of titles from Shōnen Jump+ and some titles from Jump Square. However, unlike the Japanese version, the latest chapters of current Weekly Shōnen Jump manga are made available free for a limited-time and it does not sell content.
Newcomer Awards
Weekly Shōnen Jump, in association with parent company Shueisha, holds annual competitions for new or up and coming manga artists to create one-shot stories. The best are put to a panel of judges (including manga artists past and present) where the best are given a special award for the best of these new series. The Tezuka Award, named for manga pioneer Osamu Tezuka, is given for all different styles of stories. The Akatsuka Award, named for gag manga pioneer Fujio Akatsuka, is a similar competition for comedy and gag manga. Many Weekly Shōnen Jump manga artists have gotten their start either winning or being acknowledged by these competitions.
Associated items WSJ is also the center of the Shueisha's branding of its main manga products due to the popularity and recognition of the series and characters published in it. Although the manga are published both in the main magazine as well as in the Jump Comics imprint line of , they also are republished in various other editions such as and "Remixes" of the original work, usually publishing series older or previously established series. The Jump brand is also used on the released of their manga series, related drama CDs, and at "Jump Festa", a festival showing off the people and products behind the Weekly Shōnen Jump manga titles.
Circulation and demographic Weekly Shōnen Jump is the bestselling manga magazine in Japan. In 1982, Weekly Shōnen Jump had a circulation of 2.55 million. By 1995, circulation numbers swelled to 6.53 million. The magazine's former editor-in-chief Masahiko Ibaraki (2003–2008) stated this was due to the magazine including "hit titles such as Dragon Ball, Slam Dunk, and others." After hitting this peak, the circulation numbers continued to drop. 1998's New Year's issue was the first time in 24 years that Weekly Shōnen Jump lost as the highest selling manga magazine (4.15 million copies sold), ceding to Weekly Shōnen Magazine (4.45 million). It was not until 2007 that the magazine saw its first increase in 11 years, from 2.75 million to 2.78 million, an increase that Ibaraki credited to One Piece.
By publishing manga, the magazine is targeted to young teenage males. However, Index Digital reported in 2005 that the favorite non- magazine of elementary and middle school-aged female readers is Weekly Shōnen Jump at 61.9%. Strengthening it, Oricon conducted a poll among 2,933 female Japanese readers on their favorite manga magazines in 2007. Weekly Shōnen Jump was the number one answer, with One Piece, Death Note, and The Prince of Tennis cited as the reasons. In 2009, it was reported that 62.9% of the magazine's readers were under the age of fourteen. However, in 2019 Shueisha revealed that its largest demographic of 27.4% was aged 25 or older.
Features Series
There are currently 22 manga titles present in Weekly Shōnen Jump. Out of them, Burn the Witchs continuation is yet to be scheduled and Hunter × Hunter is published irregularly. Series title Author(s) Premiered Yuki Suenaga, Takamasa Moue Robinson Haruhara, Taishi Tsutsui Burn the Witch Tite Kubo Reiya Machida Hideaki Sorachi Natsuki Hokami Hal Formula Kento Terasaka Hunter × Hunter Yoshihiro Togashi Osamu Nishi, Shiro Usazaki Takeru Hokazono Shuhei Miyazaki Kōta Kawae One Piece Eiichiro Oda Atsushi Nakamura Masaoki Shindo Sakamoto Days Yuto Suzuki Ippon Takegushi, Santa Mitarashi Ei Yamano Shōichi Usui Under Doctor Kyō Tanimoto Shun Numa, Yūshin Kuroki Kenta Shinohara
Related titles Jump Giga is a special seasonal offshoot of Weekly Shōnen Jump launched on July 20, 2016. Its original predecessor started in 1969 as a regular special issue of the bi-weekly Shōnen Jump. When Shōnen Jump became a weekly publication and was renamed Weekly Shōnen Jump in October of that same year, the special issue changed to a quarterly release and kept the shorter name. In the mid-1980s, the magazine took on the Weekly Shōnen Jump name with each issue subtitled the Spring, Summer, Autumn, or Winter Special.
Beginning in 1996, it was published three times a year for Golden Week, Obon and New Years under the name until April 30, 2010, when it was renamed . Jump Next! has had several other past special versions: was a single issue of Akamaru Jump. One-shots that were featured in Aomaru Jump were Dead/Undead, Shōgai Oyaji Michi!, The Dream, Mieruhito, Yūtō ☆ Hōshi, and Fuku wa Jutsu. was a special edition of Akamaru Jump that was published in two issues in November 2005 and 2006. Jump the Revolution! contained one-shots of upcoming Weekly Shōnen Jump series and soon to be Jump SQ series.