The Current State of Shonen Jump 2022: A New Era of Manga and Anime

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the US the entire Studio Ghibli library is waiting for you on UK Netflix find out how you can get three months of expressvpn for free by visiting expressvpn.com forward slash eyepatchwolf or clicking the link in the description below hello welcome to the current state of Shonen Jump 2022 the video series where I spend a significant portion of my time and Life Energy dissecting and analyzing what is essentially a magazine made for children I do this for two reasons one understanding this magazine right now is a window into what anime and mango will be in the future did you want to know that Dr Stone promised Neverland or spy X family were going to be big well you could have just watched my video from five years ago I mean I I didn't I didn't see Demon Slayer coming but I mean a manga about swords how is that gonna work the second and honestly more important reason is that these videos are my way of exposing newer lesser-known titles to a potentially wider Global audience and in doing so ever so slightly increasing their chance of success so for example two years ago I talked about the early days of Chainsaw man with the frothing enthusiasm of an overly birthday caked child and now two years later chainsaw man's anime has become one of the most anticipated releases of the Year coincidence yeah yes that that that is a coincidence to think otherwise would be delusionally narcissistic even by my standards so in order to find out where we are we gotta look back at where we were 2020 was without doubt the most bizarre year in the history of manga and especially jump it was a year where we finally saw the immortal god king of Shonen one piece wrenched from its throne and thoroughly outsold by another series Demon Slayer only in a Twist of Shakespearean tragedy for Demon Slayer to vanish from existence leaving a power vacuum at jumps Peak and it is the war for that empty Throne that took place in 2021 that I want to talk about today and so in a video that is a little later than usual for reasons I can only summarize with this image We Begin our surgical dissection of jump and as ever start with the the most depressing part that's right it's our yearly pilgrimage to these Shonen Jump graveyard [Music] brutal reality of jump that On Any Given year around a third of its ongoing titles will be cut and 2021 was no exception beautiful idiot simulator gravity boys subnautical furry manga Hardball cup and dolphin and non-battle no actually battle manga build King all disappeared from jumps pages and while we can never really know why a series ends looking at their volume sales can at least give us some insight take gravity boys its first volume sold just under 10 000 units in its first four weeks 10 000 units is the rough Benchmark a new series needs to hit if it wants a decent chance of survival which this series just about did but the problem is that exponential growth is expected from there with the gravity boys sales immediately stagnating before dropping to just 6.5 000 units on its seventh volume at which point it was pulled from Jump's Pages Dolphins suffered a similar fate after a switch to a more battle-focused story failed to pull it out of its sales tailspin as did build King which to me is always going to be a great premise immaculately fumbled however one series and I did not see coming was Phantom Seer this was a beautifully drawn Supernatural battle manga that blew past the 10K Benchmark and from there sales growing volume over volume only for it to hit a sudden baffling end and I really can't figure out what happened here on paper this was the exact kind of series to jump loves well executed with some good art and great horror and with strong sales backing it up the problem that was likely something more complicated and unknowable interpersonal drama author health issues maybe jumps editor-in-chief just didn't believe in the series we just don't know but whatever it was Phantom Series 30 short chapters are a reminder of how opaque and Cutthroat the world of jump can be the most brutal Cuts however are these series that do not even make it out of their first year a fate suffered by Sports Title Nine Dragons ball parade which wins my award for my favorite name of a new series but also the lowest opening weekly sales I have ever seen and while everything about this title feels like a perfectly functional team building Sports Shonen I think the issue may be that it's a little too inside baseball [Applause] so utterly unfamiliar with baseball that I am mildly convinced it does not exist balls parade assumes a basic level of knowledge that left me lost in exchanges like that fastball ain't gonna work on me his confidence is the key he leans in anticipating an outside pitch just like his first at-bat he's he's a lefty sidearmer we've had all righties up till now so kanchira will be giving different signs uh okay I'm aware that the Japanese children this magazine is aimed at are likely going to be more familiar with baseball than I am but requiring that level of knowledge is going to eat into any potential audience in a way that other better Sports titles just don't and I think it's because of the balls parade crashed out of jumps Pages at just 20 chapters faring not much better was I tell c a story about a a story about a female detective whose past kidnapping has traumatized her into a state where she falls in love with her criminal targets before yandere stalking them into confessing their crimes well there's a lot to unpack there none of which I am going to I actually do think there was something to this title the first chapter was really cleverly constructed and the story had the odd really touching moments but this was an uncomfortable read in 2022 and at just 5 000 sales and a brief 21 chapter run I think the bigger issue was that this was just way too weird for Jump's audience which is the exact opposite problem of neru way of the martial artist this manga has fantastic artwork if you would like to know was there anything else remotely interesting about it listen to my voice look at this editing does it sound like I found even one other compelling talking points here exactly actually you know I just watched that bit back and I think that might be too mean the the artwork really is very good it's just the rest of it is yeah I don't think I would have needed sales figures to know that any of these series weren't going to last before things get a little less predictable were with the two new battle titles that jump introduced both of which made a big impact with an impressive first chapter both of which were dust by Year's End candy flurry grabs your attention with wild surreal imagery the image of Tokyo destroyed by a gigantic meteor reign of lollipops is just so insane and beautiful and such an exciting introduction to this world where people battle by manifesting giant items of confectionery but unfortunately once that initial impact wears off you start to see candy flurry for what it really is because the wild tone of its visuals never carries through to its characters or writing you could replace the giant candy weapons with psychic powers samurai swords or Pokemon and it wouldn't make any difference to story this would still be the same generic cookie cutter shown in battler because all candy flurry ends up being is a very standard story draped in a cool aesthetic and at just 5K volume sold in its first month it opened week and things did not get better from there the biggest shock for me personally however was the fairy tale battle manga Hunter's Guild Red Hood if you had just shown me the first chapter my response would have been oh wow cool this could totally end up being one of Jim's top 10 manga a Darkly original story inspired by the worlds of Brothers Grimm depicted through some gosh darn beautiful artwork each page layered with texture and care that makes it feel like some beautiful forgotten page from some ancient story Tome there was a lot to like here um which is why it was kind of painful to watch that potential bleed away as red hood shows the difference between creating a a single impactful chapter and maintaining an ongoing weekly series I imagine that gorgeous detailed artwork must have been a nightmarish standard to keep up and as the art quality begins to fall other problems begin to raise their heads the characters doing little to evolve past their initial Shonen archetype as the story's Pace grinds to a tedious crawl squandering that first chapter's momentum in a way I don't think this series ever recovered from selling Just 4 000 units on its first volume red Hood's face was clear and I think you can actually see the author struggle with that looming cancellation as its later chapters grow weirdly meta its characters exclaiming a story that doesn't entertain is abandoned once abandoned our world will disappear ultimately what I think Red Hood ends up being is Series where the crushing realities of what it is to maintain an ongoing weekly Shonen are pulled sharply into Focus this is as ever the harsh reality of jump failing titles disappear so that potentially much bigger titles can take their place and 2021 was a year where jump really needed those bigger hits which arguably it did not find in 2020 with a group of titles that despite their quality were not the breakout successes the jump needed putting a lot of pressure on 2021's newest series the first of which is the manga uh the the first of which is is the manga [Music] okay okay I don't want a bunch of [ __ ] people in the comments telling me I'm pronouncing it wrong sometimes the author just picks a bad title okay sometimes it's just a bad title why is there an X there why is there an X there if you don't say it and you know while we're on the subject I say JoJo's a shorthand because it's not called JoJo Bizarre Adventure you [ __ ] idiots and you have the goal to come into my house and tell me I'm wrong follows the story of seven siblings nearly all of whom are genius pianists bar one our main character who is so mediocre at piano that his parents got divorced well that's that's really unfortunate this is the new title from jump that I would say I enjoyed the least but thought about the most it has some of the worst page design I have ever seen from a published manga with a page flow that actually drags your attention in two separate directions some of the layouts being so cluttered I found it difficult to decipher what is even happening and [ __ ] like this is usually a death nil for me and manga but I'd be lying if I said I didn't think there wasn't something here this is a strange music-based non-bottle manga built around our main character's ability to drag people into different memories and realities through his music in a story about how our capacity to convey emotion through ART is more important than technical proficiency which for this title is appropriate and honestly while I would have initially predicted this series Dead on Arrival its first volume sold a respectable 12 000 units suggesting a potentially bright future for this unusual but compelling series on the total opposite end of the spectrum is Doran duranon [ __ ] Jesus opposite because this manga feels like it was test tube constructed in a sanitized laboratory by white-coated Shonen scientists the story of a boy fighting demons with a magical sword uh no not not that one not that one either still not that one oh come on it's definitely not that one there we go that is kind of the problem here despite the fact that I think Duran is actually pretty well executed it's hard to get excited about given how its entire story feels popped out of some generic Shonen templates it's one unique selling point being its mascot character dorlon whose body can morph into basically anything leading to some honestly pretty fun battle scenarios and potentially huge merchandise which cynically kind of makes me wonder is is that why this series exists at the time of writing I only had access to a single week of sales which 4K isn't bad but it's also the weakest selling of Jump's newest ongoing series which could make it a likely candidate for the Sean and jump Guillotine another new title whose chances of survival I would give a shaky hand-wavy sign of I don't know bro is the comedy title protect me sugarmaru a story of the wealthy heiress of a massive fortune and her eccentric 10 year old bodyguard whose enthusiasm to often lands her in more danger than the threats themselves that is the joke it is a reasonably good one but the reason I have my doubts about the future of this series is that it's currently one of five other ongoing comedy manga and while I like it and Adam slice better than roboco and maguchan it is a far cry from the stupifying action comedy of Marshall or just the Mind destroying hilarity of high school family kazaku all of which at this point are known quantities so not super confident we're going to be talking about this one in a year a title that seems a little more Bound for Glory is which watch a comedy about a teenage ogre who becomes the familiar slash bodyguard to a high school witch and I will say that aside from the one scene where Nico transforms herself into a piece of paper and gets stucked in the side of a building which is just I mean it's just objectively great I didn't actually get a whole lot out of this one but then again what do I know about comedy I mean did you see how happy I was about that baseball joke earlier that was the because this manga is actually selling really well likely because of its broad swath of action comedy and romance letting it appeal to a much wider audience than most titles that brought appeal translating into 31 000 units on its first volume outpacing the initial sales of every new title from last year meaning we could be looking at a new Shonen Jump Mainstay whether that's also true of new Legacy title ayashimon is a little more nebulous there was a lot of hype surrounding this one as it's from the creator of Hell's Paradise a breakout hit from 2018 which told the story of an unkillable Ninja Assassin who must journey to a Forbidden Island along with a group of other criminals and their Samurai captors and then Battle Royale their way to obtaining the elixir of Life all while attempting to survive the horrific creatures that inhabit the islands hell's Paradise was one of those incredibly fun binge manga with a weirdly perfect first chapter that both got you invested in its characters while also dragging you further into its story with its ominous tantalizing Mysteries and unfortunately right now I don't know that ayashimon is hitting that same standard don't get me wrong there's a ton to like here and this is rooted firmly as my third favorite new series it's shown in protagonist Maru growing up obsessed with Shonen protagonists who learns to fight for manga in order to protect himself from his physically abusive father until he became so strong that he no longer really fits in in regular human society only for him to be recruited by the heiress of a demon underworld Yakuza Clan seeking to regain her throne after her father's murder the underworld of demon mob bosses feels alive and fascinating with some really cool World building touches like how Demon's bodies explode into Showers of money when they're defeated money which the Victor can then use to build their own Yakuza Empire and this is when I think ayashimon is at its strongest when it's leading into the culture and dynamics of Warring Yakuza factions which is why it's kind of a bummer that so much of the series is spent in straightforward one-on-one battles in fights that are fun but I'd argue nowhere near the standard of job's top 5 current series all of which are battle manga and compounding that problem is how this is currently one of four different bodyguard titles running in Jump meaning that while ayashimon is enjoyable it currently feels like it's struggling to Define itself among bigger better titles but at 18 000 units sold it's not likely to be caught anytime soon and to reach that next level which is something I'm really rooting for it to do I think it's gonna need to focus on what it can do differently to those other titles as opposed to what it does the same case in points elusive Samurai Hojo is a young feudal Lord whose family is murdered and their land seized as he is hunted down forcing him to rely on his one strength his ability to evade danger there is so much to like about this series but it's real Ace in the Hole can actually be found in the author's previous title assassination classroom the Shonen Jump Mega hit where a class full of children must learn a hyper-specific set of rules in order to kill their monstrous teacher korosensei and what I [ __ ] love about elusive Samurai is how it fuses assassination classrooms hyper-specific scenario driven combat onto a more ambitious story with each feudal Lord that Hojo targets being their own individual chorusensei with their own set of strengths and weaknesses vulnerabilities that Hojo cannot exploit himself due to his own physical weakness meaning he must build up a roster of retainers and utilize those allies in hyper-specific ways in order to take down his bigger stronger opponents in battles that explode with all the tension and excitement of a high-level game of Monster Hunter and oh with these videos I generally aim to read at least one full volume of any new series I talk about but it loses Samurai dragged me into its chapters double digits and I really don't seem to be alone in that as 91 000 sales on its first volume per context that's more than the sales of every new series from last year combined elusive Samurai is a staggering success a potential future member of jumps 3 pillars and about as close to a guaranteed hit as you can get which is what I would say if another new series had somehow not completely surpassed it so a long time ago I was in in Dublin's Natural History Museum I was there drawing for a college class and I look up and this girl is just standing there looking at me I think sometimes people find my face a little intimidating I think something about the way I look makes me seem more more like serious or stern than I actually am but this girl she didn't seem intimidated at all she just stared at me with these these giant curious eyes and she starts speaking and I don't even remember what we talked about but what I do remember is over the course of this conversation looking up at her and having this lightning bold feeling in my chest of just like oh no I I think I really like this person moments like that are what blue box is built on and I use that story because there is a tenderness and sincerity to this manga that I just don't think you're going to get from a wikipedia-esque plot summary it uses a lot of the tropes and structure from Sports manga but rather than the focus being on these Sports themselves here the sports are used to frame each individual character becoming Windows into them through which we and the other characters the story can see who they really are leading to these really sincere feeling moments of just oh God I I think I love this person the care and level of illustration through which these moments are rendered making them hit with all the force of some runaway romantic dump truck to the point that even if you do not care about romance manga you really owe it to yourself to check this manga out the One-Shot prototype chapter is available for free on shonenjump's website and it's worth experiencing not only because this might get just [ __ ] rules but because it will give you an insight into how blue box has become a once every couple of years Mega hit the first volume selling 65 000 units which is already kind of incredible but from there exploding further surpassing even elusive Samurai now consistently selling 100 000 units meaning this romance manga is currently a front runner to become one of jumps three pillars that is the last new series it is now time for the most exciting part of our journey through jump that's right it's Hunter by Hunter watch [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] so before we begin our top 10 I want to do a brief update on Sakamoto days this was my favorite new series from jump last year but also the one whose future I was most worried about the story of a former assassin now working as a convenience store clerk trying to live a normal family life while also not giving in to his murderous Tendencies was beautiful it was funny it was touching it was action-packed and thankfully it was also successful after a mediocre start its sales have grown volume to volume now selling 75 000 units on its most recent which for a series that is so outside the genre of little boy tries hard this is the best possible scenario and God damn I am so happy to see it doing well there's also these titles which are which are still ongoing and they're they're fine uh they don't don't really have any hot takes here which which I know isn't isn't isn't very exciting uh so I should I should probably should probably just should probably just start the next section instead of just kind of um just kind of just kind of rambling on here where where now kind of I've gotten to the stage where like I'm just not saying anything you know these are these are these are just these are just worlds words coming out this is this is a camera Point like you know when you point a camera at a television that's recording itself and it's just this infinite hallway of nothingness that's that's that's what you're experiencing right now and I imagine a lot of people have clicked off the video because this is this is this is just really boring um you should probably try and try and up the energy here so uh we now enter the arena of Destiny the ultimate Battleground for jumps top 10 biggest series with these caveats at number 10 is a new entry in action comedy Marshall which is like if one punch man showed up in Hogwarts and beat the [ __ ] out of Voldemort it's always awesome to see a series enter the top 10 for the first time but with Marshall this is especially well deserved and I'm really excited to see how the series does from here at number nine is veteran series Black Clover which has haunted the lower spaces of jumps top 10 for as long as I've been doing these videos sales are reasonably consistent yet again and while I've been skeptical about this title's future in the past at this point I'm kind of just impressed that it's managed to stick around as long as it has jumps landscape is brutal and survival is never guaranteed and so you gotta respect any series that's able to last this long at number eight this one I gotta say hit me a bit I actually talked about Dr Stone as a new title in my very first very bad current state of Shonen jump video and now five years later it's the last of those new titles that survived it's a series I really grew to love over the years it didn't have the strongest start but it won my respect and its willingness to reorientate itself around a new main character and in doing so commit to its strengths becoming one of the most unique and wildly Innovative new titles in Jump for decades which is why I've always considered it a title that got less success than it deserved until this year nearly quadrupling its sales since last year but unfortunately just a little too late as Dr Stone released its final chapter on March 6th of this year and while it sucks that it's gone it's awesome to see so many people waking up to what a great Series this was as to me Dr Stone is always going to be a testament to how much territory there is still left to explore in Shonen storytelling number seven it's the first zombie on our list and I say zombie because this Series has actually been dead for more than a year and yet somehow the promised Neverland still sold 3.5 million units but if the fact that it's still selling in the millions in its zombified state doesn't signal to you that it's a series worth checking out then buddy I don't know what will at number six oh my God it's it's another zombie it's the shambling corpse of haikyuu with 4.3 million sales I really thought that last year would be the final times we talk about the beautiful boys doing things well volleyball manga but those enthusiasts little idiots sure showed me haikyuu enjoying a well-deserved after party at number five it's it's another [ __ ] ing but this time it is the most beautiful zombie imaginable my absolute favorite modern manga it's chainsaw man I have talked a lot about chainsaw man in these videos and I won't have anything more to say until I have more to say the announcement of an anime with a phenomenal trailer spiking itself further to an insane 5.5 million and considering how weird and unpredictable this series initially seemed in Jump I kind of feel we are living in chainsaw man's best possible timeline at number four this one is [ __ ] weird it's one piece uh yeah somehow one piece the manga that defines Shonen Jump for a quarter of a century has for the first time in the recorded history of manga sales fail to enter its top three dropping about 700 000 units in sales from last year now there is definitely a big caveat here one piece is still selling the most if we measure sales per volume meaning you are still looking at the technically most popular manga in the world but that abyss-like Gap that used to exist between one piece and other titles is now gone with certain volumes of the manga in our number one slot even outselling volumes of one piece and maybe even more shockingly while one piece is number four in Jump it's number six overall being outsold by both Attack on Titan and Tokyo Avengers so what is happening well from the volume sales the problem doesn't look like one piece's current fans aren't enjoying it the problem is that it's not really acquiring new fans which we can tell by how little back issues it's selling in relation to other series and I think the reason for that is that at this point one piece is like a video game whose meta has evolved and evolved and evolved to the point that conveying what is happening right now or why it's cool requires a massive amount of supplemental information and knowledge of past story events in other words two of the things that have kept one piece so strong for so long it's gigantic dense world and its meticulous long-term storytelling are now arguably perceived as detriments to new readers I Tried reading some one piece and then uh I actually got overwhelmed by how long that series is like I just I looked at like okay I'll dive into this and then yeah as a completionist kind of person I just couldn't according to the one piece one piece there are 1364 named characters in the story at this point which is a massive amount of new information for new readers to take on as well as the fact that if you read one piece for 30 minutes every single day it would take you an entire year to catch up on its story in that same time frame you could read all of Demon Slayer Dr Stone my hero Academia Jiu Jitsu Kaizen and Chainsaw man and so no matter how worthwhile one piece might seem on the other ends to new readers that is a hell of an opportunity cost I do think one piece can expect an upturn in sales from next year with the release of the shanks movie but even with all these caveats taken into account it's hard to look at one piece outside of jumpstop 3 and not see it as anything other than the dominant era of this title being well and truly over her at number three for the first time in three years it's my hero Academia outselling one piece by just 20 000 units well hero Academia has never had the explosive growth of other titles it's a manga that seems to keep its core fan base consistently happy and with three movies in four years as well as a seasonal high quality anime it also has a strong pull with a more casual audience which is why I think you're seeing such consistent steady growth horegoshi have stated that the manga is going to end soon but he's gotten me with this before and now I refuse to believe his lies at number two it's it is yet another zombie manga it's Demon Slayer at a batshit insane 29 million sales despite being dead for more than a year the most meteoric rise of any manga ever continues Demon Slayer now a Phenom of the industry The Impossible Benchmark that all future titles will be measured against the only thing more shocking than that being that it's not even number one a 31 million sales Jiu Jitsu kaisen is for the first time the number one Shonen Jump series an extremely strong second season of anime saw Jiu Jitsu kaisen's sales quintuple since last year with a feature film that released at the tail end of that year which absolutely [ __ ] ruled meaning that those sales are not likely to slow anytime soon cementing Jiu Jitsu kaisen as the newest of jumps 3 pillars and right now the biggest manga in the entire world and hell I think it deserves it Jiu Jitsu kaisen for me is the middle ground of what I think will be popular versus what I think should be popular embodying a lot of what's great about traditional battle manga but defining itself through its dark Supernatural aesthetic incredible Supporting Cast and batshit insane action how long it's going to be able to maintain its Throne Atop The World of manga remains to be but right now no ongoing series even comes close to jiu jitsu kaisen so if we take a top-down view of jump it's in a really strange situation in some ways it's in a lot more of a stable position than last year with the maturing of newer series like Sakamoto days and Marshall combined with high potential new series like elusive Samurai and blue box as well as Jiu Jitsu kaisen now one of the Magazine's three pillars but right now a full half of Jump's top 10 selling titles are zombies most of which have been out for more than a year meaning we can likely expect a sharp sales drop in each soon leaving jump in a situation where it still has a ways to go in bolstering a new catalog of titles if it wants to stay dominant especially in a landscape of manga that's changing rapidly and dramatically the biggest shock we witnessed in last year's video was undoubtedly the total dominance of Demon Slayer a perfect storm that led to an impossible outcome but in the shadow of that storm there was another upset and one that could potentially have much greater long-term ramifications on the industry the rise of Jump Plus a free to read online magazine from the same publisher as jump which shockingly saw two of its newest titles spy X family and Kaiju number eight dramatically outsell the newer series of jump regular however in 2021 we watched as jump regular hit back hard with both elusive Samurai and blue box meaning that same upset couldn't happen again except it totally did and yes another twist in the war for the future of the industry Jump Plus has done the impossible again and introduced two new titles both of which dramatically outsold the newer efforts of jump regular I know that was very dramatic but I like getting excited and now we're going to talk about them most manga tend to specialize in one thing action comedy horror romance but then you have dandadan telling the story of momo a high school girl who believes in ghosts as well as Ken a high school boy who believes in Aliens and unfortunately for them they are both correct dandadan is [ __ ] wild it's filled with a kind of strange humor that makes its Pages feel like some weird fan translated meme edits but punctuating that levity with moments of intense visual horror as momoland Canon encounter bizarre supernatural creatures in Pounding action scenes that flow with a level of Ingenuity and layout that I genuinely wouldn't expect from a manga like this like in this page how the gesture of Ken's body guides your eye through each of the layouts focal points making for action act flow like liquid but then explode in these bombastic double page spreads and somehow amidst all that dandedan actually pulls off a pretty compelling will they won't they romance making it feel like some bizarre X-Files battle manga fever dream which really should not work but my God does it and what's interesting is that I'd imagine dandadan's um Wilder tone would make it a poor fit for jump regular but in the more experimental online landscape of Jump Plus dandedan has thrived going massively viral collecting 106 million views leading to danda Dan breaking a hundred thousand units on its first volume with sales steadily climbing from there and then oh boy it's takapi's original sin takapi is a cute alien octopus from the happy Planet who descends to Earth with a single Mission make someone smile but unfortunately for takapi the someone he chooses is shizuka a little girl whose father has left suffers abusive neglects at home and vicious bullying at school to the point that her her dog is killed oh oh dear and and just when it seems like things can't get any Bleaker takapi follows shizuka home only to find her you know what I I don't feel like getting demonetized today so I'm I'm not going to tuckope's original sin is the kind of dark that makes you text your friend at 2AM being like dude what the [ __ ] and that's what makes it such an impossible fit for jump regular but also likely what made it go so massively viral online with 76 million views across just a handful of chapters and from there leading to a bewildering 198 000 units on its first volume that is more than elusive Samurai and blue box combined but possibly the strangest thing about takapi is that it's already over takapi's original sin ended after just 16 chapters but that feels very much by Design original sins original premise never could have maintained a longer running story but with exposure like this it doesn't need to it's already outselling many of Jump's ongoing titles but given its gigantic online audience the potential for anime adaptation and merchandise is huge meaning we could be looking at an entirely new business model for manga shorter more experimental shocking and mature series designed to go viral on platforms like Jump Plus which then end make further profit through anime and merch their author now free to create newer titles that could potentially do the same in other words the exact opposite of how traditional long-running Shonen work and I think there's a lot of advantage to that I think this could potentially be a healthier more sustainable business model for the people who create manga while simultaneously breathing new life into Shonen with more varied experimental stories whether original sin is an anomaly or an actually sustainable new kind of manga remains to be seen but still it's a tantalizing glimpse into what could be a big part of shonen's future with all this in mind let's line up Jump's top 5 series and compare it to jump Plus's top four we can see the jump traditional dominates in terms of combined volume sales but there's a really important factor to take into account all of jump Plus's titles have been going for way less time than any of jump regulars meaning they haven't at the same time to build up sales through a loyal following but also for the period we're measuring here none of Jump Plus titles have an anime adaptation while nearly all of jumps traditional has and with chainsaw man pulling a heel turn-esque faction switch jumping to Jump Plus in the coming months it's hard for me to look at these two lineups side by side and not say that I don't think Jump Plus has the more exciting series which means I do think that double negative and what's more if Spike's family is currently airing anime adaptation gives the manga even a fraction section of the growth we've seen from adaptations like Jiu Jitsu Kaizen and Demon Slayer there is a possibility that next year we could be seeing a free to read online series outsell one piece and man if that doesn't signal to you what a weird and New Era of manga we are now in I genuinely don't know what will and you know it makes you think I was talking to a friend of mine recently who told me of a conversation she'd had with a younger co-worker about Demon Slayer which her co-worker had been watching on Netflix and when my friend compared it to bleach her co-worker said something that oh God just just just chilled me to my core and made me feel so old he said what's bleach and it made me realize that in the seven years I've been making these videos there's an entire era of anime and manga that has come and gone and with it a whole new generation of anime fans who don't know or potentially even care about what came before people who didn't find out about anime through VHS ripped copies of Akira or late night Toonami but through Netflix through mind gaps through online fandoms and if you've been watching anime for a while I think it's really easy to be dismissive of those new fans but I don't think we should a because gatekeeping [ __ ] sucks but B I think what you're gonna start seeing more and more from here is the industry responding to that new type of online fan and that shaping the manga landscape moving forward and that's exactly what we're seeing with Publications like Jump Plus and sure it's hard not to get nostalgic for the way things were I think I spend a good 60 of this channel doing just that but Everything Changes you know and I think that's what keeps this stuff exciting I think that's why I keep making these friends thank you for joining me today I want to thank Joe zoo on Twitter for helping with the insane amount of research it takes to put these videos together they have a really cool manga blog you should check out if you care about this kind of stuff that I will link below if you like what I do here and would like to see me keep doing it you can do so over at patreon.com forward slash super eyepatch wolf for just a single dollar a special thank you this week too Alton Skinner Callum Noble Cassis art Gizmo of Shaolin Julia tayano I'm sorry if I mispronounced that Julia lunatic prophet and Leon Kennedy as ever you can find me hosting the let's fight a Boss video game podcast the Jeff Jeff's Bizarre Adventure anime podcast at twitch.tv forward slash super eyepatch wolf or on Twitter at eye patchwolf friends take care of yourselves and I'll see you next time

Channel: Super Eyepatch Wolf

Views: 778,660

Keywords: Shonen Jump, One Piece, Jujutsu Kaisen, My Hero Academia, Anime, Manga, Demon Slayer, Kimetsu no Yaiba

Id: kNptk8Q70QQ

Length: 49min 6sec (2946 seconds)

Published: Sat May 07 2022

Reddit Comments

[u/mosenpai]

I'm really happy with Jump+. Very accessible way of reading manga. It helps that it's free, but if they released chapters for new works like Oshi no Ko with little delay, I'd have no problem with subscribing to it.

[u/Torque-A]

Keep in mind that while Super Eyepatch’s video is a good way to dip your feet into Jump discourse, it’s definitely not the be-all-end-all for ranking of the subject - volume sales are not the sole driver behind a series’ success, after all. I should know this because I posted this exact video in r/manga and got downvoted on the topic.

Also, should be obvious by now, but there isn’t a “Big Three” at all anymore. You could go over what series you think are the highest selling until the cows come home, but the “Big Three” was a very specific position in the early 2000s where anyone who got into anime/manga did so through one of those series. And hell, you can still be a best-selling and iconic series without running for 30+ volumes on end, as Demon Slayer demonstrated.

[u/[deleted]]

The signs of One Piece's popularity decline were there all along lmao

[u/Illuminastrid]

It really is interesting how much prestige and hype that the Shueisha company has to the point that their very own products and lineups, especially Shonen Jump are being monitored and discussed, and Shueisha's other magazines, Young Jump (seinen) and Shonen Jump+ are recently starting to make waves too and has its own following.

All of this do made me wish other shonen magazines from other companies like Kodansha's Weekly Shonen Magazine and Square Enix's Gangan Joker (Vanitas, Kakegurui) would also get this much attention and prestige as Shueisha's Shonen Jump has.

[u/Soluxy]

The worrying trend is that there isn't a new breakout series, Ayashimon was looking to be the newest big thing, but it's future is uncertain as it doesn't seem to be growing an audience, might not survive before it gets it's anime adaptation. Undead Unluck desperatly needs an anime adaptation to boost it's popularity, but it will be hit or miss. Finally, Mashle has the potential to be extremely big with Western Audiences if they give care for the anime adaptation, don't know if it will be as big as Demon Slayer or Jujutsu or Tokyo Revengers, but it has a chance to be at the same level as My Hero.

Otherwise, Jump is in a precarious situation yet again, with more than half its top 10 being series that had already concluded.

Of course, Jump could probably milk Demon Slayer for a few more years as the new seasons give some boost to sales. Though, in my opinion, Swordsmith Arc and the Hashira Training Arc are noticibly weaker arcs in comparison to season 2.

Jump can't keep profiting off of dead carcasses forever though, it needs fresh new things.

[u/TheBlessedBoy99]

I've been waiting for this video for a while. I always love his yearly round up of Shounen Jump.

[u/ReinhardLoen]

Keeping up with Weekly Shonen Jump in the manga sub has been pretty interesting. He didn't cover it in this video, but two series have been recently announced to be entering into their final arcs. Aside from that, there's probably going to be a cancellation coming up soon for another series or two. The whole publication seems to be in an interesting situation, where so many series are either ending, planning to end soon, or they're just starting up.

WSJ is definitely going to be interesting moving forward. And as was mentioned in this video, I only see Jump+ getting more and more popular with what's being put out—especially with the inevitably of many adaptations coming soon.

[u/Lesserd]

This video contains primarily poorly-informed analysis that is frequently lacking important context and relevant factors. It is an acceptable level of quality for a random newbie on the internet, but it is really not a good look for a major anituber like SEW to still be making such misleading videos after several years as an observer of WSJ. Just to use the most glaring example ToC placements have not been discussed at all even though Shueisha makes more than 5x as much money from magazine sales vs. volume sales, and ToC placements are better predictors of the axe than sales (not to say that sales don't matter, you should definitely look at both plus other factors for a full picture).

[u/-el-chapo]

Can I watch this without getting spoiled for some anime's/ manga