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    Weekly Shonen Jump » 2737 issues

    Volume » Published by Shueisha. Started in 1968.

    Short summary describing this volume.

    Weekly Shonen Jump last edited by deactivated-61a385b672ea5 on 02/12/21 05:38PM View full history

    Proper Japanese Title: 週刊少年ジャンプ

    Weekly Shonen Jump launched in 1968 as Shonen Jump (少年ジャンプ), only becoming weekly and extending its name in 1969, and quickly established itself as one of the dominant magazines in the industry. Though it became the highest-circulating weekly shonen magazine in the early 70's, it became the best-known manga magazine in Japan's history due mostly to its explosive growth from 1983-1995. It was many of these titles from the 80's and on that became not just classic manga but classic anime as well.

    Peak Circulation
    Peak Circulation

    Jump peaked at a circulation of 6.5 million copies in 1995 before Dragon Ball ended, with Slam Dunk following a year later, and the magazine's circulation dropped by two million with a gradual decrease continuing through the end of the 90's. This fall in circulation was great enough that Jump briefly fell from its position of the number one magazine to number two (after Weekly Shonen Magazine), only regaining its position when Weekly Shonen Magazine suffered its own dramatic collapse a few years later. Perhaps as an indication of the general trend away from mainstream manga magazines, even when Jump regained its top spot in the early 00's with the popularity of new megahits like One Piece and Naruto, it was only able to sustain its readership rather than grow. And with the rise of digital in the mid-10's, the physical circulation has begun to drop steadily again. Whether the magazine is growing or keeping readers through its digital version (launched in 2014) is not fully known. Jump still retains a physical circulation of more than a million copies, something Magazine no longer had as of 2016 (with it currently having half that). Jump's circulation is larger than the combined circulation of the other three currently active weekly shonen magazines (Magazine, Sunday and Champion).

    Jump was predated by plenty of other already-established shonen manga magazines (including Magazine and Sunday) and from Shueisha itself, it became a replacement for the decade old Shonen Book. But Jump set itself apart with a network of creators that got their start in the magazine and upon leaving either went to the many other Jump spin-off magazines or even the other weekly shonen magazines. Examples of the reverse are quite uncommon outside of Jump's earliest years.

    Jump Mascot
    Jump Mascot

    While many of the best-selling manga of all time come from this magazine, the biggest series' tend to get huge boosts in popularity and growth from their frequent anime adaptations with some titles that weren't doing too well in the magazine (like Kuroko no Basuke or Kimetsu no Yaiba), ending up among the best-selling manga of the decade after the anime boost. Anime popularity tends to result in much more promotion within the magazine itself but on the other hand Jump will do far less promotion of a formerly major series if its anime is over. One of the things that makes the magazine so interesting to fans is that for the most part, the series within are ranked by internal popularity polls each week and placement in the magazine can often directly tie to how well received recent chapters have been. The actual internal poll rankings are rarely revealed so they become a major subject for fan speculation.

    In a magazine that has run for nearly fifty years, there are bound to be many exceptions but one of the magazine's key characteristics is its high turnover rate with new series. Generally a few series are launched in the magazine every few months and have been since its inception, and at the same time, a few series end to make room. As the long-running series are often established and already performing well, it tends to be the last batch of new titles that is cancelled to make way for the next one with spots in the magazine really only opening up when an established series is finally cut or the author abruptly ends it. It is rare for a series to end while still one of the most popular in the magazine but this has happened a number of times with varying levels of conflict between editorial and the authors.

    Format of the Magazine

    Chapters Were Two Pages Each
    Chapters Were Two Pages Each

    In the first years of the magazine, very few series lasted more than a few issues including works by high-profile authors. Not much lasted even a year and there were quite a few serializations that were only three chapters (this practice has survived somewhat in the modern era with Takuma Yokota, Shun Numa and Shuhei Miyazaki all having three-issue serializations before their major debut series). There were also an assortment of really short gag features that are inconsistently counted as serializations by different sources that may not be seen as such in the modern magazine (as they were only one to four pages an issue). But generally most serializations range from 15-30 pages an issue. As the magazine began to cultivate a number of strong titles in the 70's, the constant cancellation of the old to make way for the new bred a system of high competition for any new series and popular series' were expected to last years. Almost every new serial essentially had to prove itself within three or four months as being more popular than a decent chunk of other titles in the magazine and if it failed, it would be cancelled to make way for another new series.

    Because of this system, Shonen Jump has published many of the best-selling manga of all time including One Piece, Dragon Ball, Kochikame, Naruto, Slam Dunk, Jojo, Hokuto no Ken, Kimetsu no Yaiba and Bleach which are the majority of shonen manga in history to have sales over one hundred million. Yet the vast majority of titles Jump serialized don't last more than two or three volumes and in the case of titles before the 80's, were often never collected by Shueisha, if at all.

    Although in the early 70's many series never got a color page at all and certainly didn't for their first chapter, since the 80's virtually every new series is given the same initial promotion with every serial getting collected and most new series getting the cover and the lead color page in the magazine for their first chapter (and then a second color page within their first couple chapters). Beyond this, there are quite a few examples of major creators being given more color pages and covers from the start based off past popularity but how much promotion is based off editorial decisions and how much off reader survey results or volume sales is not clear. Rare examples of manga that did not get the cover for their first chapter (and in some cases did not even get a color page) include some of Jump's most famous from their era: Otoko Ippiki Gaki-Daisho and Harenchi Gakuen (1968), Dokonjo Gaeru and Toilet Hakase (1970), Astro Kyudan (1972), Circuit no Okami and Doberman Deka (1975), Kochikame (1976), Ring ni Kakero (1977), Cobra (1978), Dr. Slump (1980), Captain Tsubasa (1981), Wing-Man (1983), Pyu to Fuku! Jaguar (2000), To Love-Ru (2006) and Boruto (2016).

    Hirohiko Araki's First Serial
    Hirohiko Araki's First Serial

    Jump's constant cancellations of new series can be seen as harsh but creators of failed series are often given new chances with many of the major successes of the magazine starting out as early cancellations. Hirohiko Araki debuted with Mashōnen B.T. which was cancelled after ten chapters, his second series Baoh suffered a similar fate but only a few years later he returned with JoJo no Kimyō na Bōken which lasted for over five hundred chapters. Similar examples include Tetsuo Hara, Kohei Horikoshi, Masami Kurumada, Takehiko Inoue, Takeshi Obata, Yoshihiro Togashi, Haruto Umezawa, Takeshi Konomi, Ryu Fujisaki, Haruichi Furudate, Daisuke Ashihara and Hiroyuki Takei.

    On the other hand major creators can have their works axed quite quickly if they are not popular with the magazine's audience, though at times they are simply moved to another magazine (Steel Ball Run, Sekiryuo and Beshari Gurashi). Chagecha being cut after eight chapters despite the author having previously done Bobobōbo Bōbobo which lasted for over three hundred is one of the most extreme examples but others include Black Knight Bat (1985), Bakudan (1994), Gakkyu Hotei (2015), Jumbor (2007), Sakura Tetsu Taiwahen (2002), Silent Knight Sho (1992), Shadow Lady (1995), Sword Breaker (2002) and Kirara (1986). Upfront major promotion on some titles because of their author's past success can delay a cancellation even if it's still ultimately cut short like Samurai 8.

    As a general rule, the series on the cover is given one or more fully-colored pages of the chapter along with a color spread at the beginning of the magazine. A few other series are then given a color cover page each issue (often to promote something, like their newest collection, their boost in popularity, an anniversary or an anime adaptation). However, sometimes the cover is taken by a series that doesn't even get a color page or can even be at the very back of the magazine. Pyu to Fuku! Jaguar debuted at the back of the magazine in 2000 (getting color pages but not the cover) and proceeded to be one of the only serials to remain in the magazine through the entire decade.

    Historically Common Color Scheme (Obora Ichidai, 1974) vs. Fully-Colored Page (Tenchi wo Kurau, 1983)
    Historically Common Color Scheme (Obora Ichidai, 1974) vs. Fully-Colored Page (Tenchi wo Kurau, 1983)

    The actual amount and type of color pages differs by era. In the first issue of Jump and many early issues, only the first series in the issue got color pages but how many color pages varied. Full-color chapters were not uncommon. In some early issues from this era, no series got a color page at all. These early color pages are noticeably different from modern ones as in collections there is no indication the chapters were ever colored (whereas modern color pages are grayscaled when collected) and the paper quality was not as good as modern color pages so the colors could potentially end up more faded. In the early 70's Jump then introduced a type of color page common in other manga magazines which used less colors in the ink. These were grayscaled in collections but in the magazine they were the most commonly used color-type when publishing fully-colored chapters. Some issues of the magazine would have four series fully-colored in this style though the lead color was now usually colored like the higher-quality color pages of the modern magazine.

    Sometimes a chapter would change coloring halfway, either from the ink with more colors to the one with less or from the ink with less colors to no colors at all. Dr. Slump's final chapter is a notable example of the latter. The 80's saw the introduction of chapters being once again fully-colored (but now with much higher quality paper and colors) and Tenchi wo Kurau's first chapter became one of the only manga to receive this treatment before it had become one of the most popular titles in the magazines. Other manga would receive fully-colored chapters, generally at the height of their popularity, like Slam Dunk but into the 90's the bulk of color pages remained the type with less ink and chapters were less likely to have all pages colored. Up until this era, most chapters with color pages were at the front of the magazine, this reflected a change in ink-quality and paper quality that would normally happen in the middle section of the magazine (works in the middle of the magazine could be much worse ink quality and color than those in the back).

    In the late 90's color pages made their final major shift to become their modern version. Color pages were now spread out through the magazine rather than all bunched up at the front, most series only got a colored cover page and not the pages of the chapter itself colored and the lower-quality color pages with less ink were mostly phased out. This change happened gradually with Takeshi (1997-33) and One Piece (1997-34) getting half-colored first chapter, Meiryotei's first chapter receiving no extra color pages (1997-52), Grow receiving a couple extra ones (1998-01), Rookies (1998-10) and Hunter × Hunter (1998-14) being half-colored and Shaman King (1998-31) receiving no extra color pages. By the 00's color pages were of the modern style barring rare exceptions like Jaguar and while fully-colored chapters were still published from time to time with really popular series (like Tennis no Oji-sama, Kuroko no Basuke or Bleach), they were much rarer.

    Most popular series generally drop off in popularity partway through their run and by the time they end, they are no longer significantly promoted in the magazine and historically many classic manga in fact ended quite unceremoniously in the back of the magazine. It was during the shift in how color pages were formatted in the late 90's that the practice of giving a color page to the final chapter of a series in the middle of the magazine really took hold, early examples included Dragon Quest: Dai no Daiboken (1996), Rokudenashi Blues (1997), Jigoku Sensei Nube (1999), Rurouni Kenshin (1999), I"s (2000) and Hoshin Engi (2000). Final chapters of a series are generally only given a color page if they were quite popular at some point in their run, but one of the rarest honors given to a series is a fully-colored final chapter.

    Full-Color Kochikame
    Full-Color Kochikame

    This honor is reserved for the final chapter of some of the magazine's biggest series that often helped the magazine rise in popularity, in several cases, their end has led to the magazine having a steep drop off in readership. To date, only six have gotten the honor: Ring ni Kakero (1977-1981), Dragon Ball (1984-1995), Slam Dunk (1990-1996), Pyu to Fuku! Jaguar (2000-2010), Naruto (1999-2014) and Kochikame (1976-2016). Notably, the issue featuring the end of Kochikame was the first time the magazine ever reprinted an issue and rather than coloring the final chapter itself, it included a full-color reprint of the first chapter of the series instead. For comparison, Naruto and Kochikame were the only examples of these six to fully-color their chapters with the modern coloring and both of them actually included an uncolored chapter earlier in the magazine that had the lead color page and cover spread. Ring ni Kakero, Dragon Ball and Slam Dunk all used the color pages with less inks for most pages but were given the lead color. Jaguar used the latter-style of color pages for all of its chapter and appeared at the back of the magazine. An even rarer honor is receiving the cover for a final chapter but there is nothing in common with the three examples of it and the first two were possibly unintentional: Yamazaki Ginjiro (1980-1981) received the cover but no color page; Slam Dunk (1990-1996) received the cover, lead color and a fully-colored chapter but it was not advertised as a final chapter and the chapter itself only said it was the end of Part 1; and Kochikame (1976-2016) received the cover, a fully-colored chapter and the issue itself dedicated to it with easter eggs to celebrate ending on its 40th anniversary with its 200th tankobon being released.

    Indexing Serializations

    For the purposes of indexing it is important to note that for many highly popular series (particularly from the beginning of the magazine into the 80's), what were considered chapters then are not necessarily what have been established as chapters now. It is quite common for these older series to bundle multiple chapters together, to edit out chapters or pages or even reorder chapters in a collection (particularly with gag manga where chronology isn't as important).

    Dokonjo Gaeru (Chapters Reordered); Cobra (Chapters Combined)
    Dokonjo Gaeru (Chapters Reordered); Cobra (Chapters Combined)

    This is partly due to the fact that at the time, many serializations didn't officially number their chapters and would have episodic chapters amidst an ongoing storyline. So while it is much easier to reference a particular chapter of a long-running modern series where each chapter flows into the next, with a series like Kochikame the title is referenced instead or in the case of other classics like Ring ni Kakero or Cobra, the chapters have not been preserved at all in their original form. For example, the first tankobon of Cobra only listed one chapter over a hundred and fifty pages long but in the magazine, chapters were twenty to thirty pages.

    In some cases the author has just chosen to streamline the work to make it flow better as an uninterrupted story as opposed to a serialization and in the editing, original chapters can be lost. For this reason, many sites will claim a series has far less chapters than it actually did have. Most sources will claim the original Saint Seiya had only 110 chapters, which would have meant it lasted only a little over two years in the actual magazine, but in reality, nearly two years before the series had even ended it was already celebrating 150 chapters (see: #1038).

    Other notable series like Dr. Slump and Kinnikuman have been given fan-made chapter numbers that are accepted by most English-language sources as fact despite not being in any way official, not in publication order or multiple chapters bundled together.

    Though most major series can be approximated and series after the 90's generally avoid these problems, if you are looking for a specific chapter, there are some things to note.

    Ring ni Kakero (Chapter Covers Removed); City Hunter (Chapter Covers Swapped Around)
    Ring ni Kakero (Chapter Covers Removed); City Hunter (Chapter Covers Swapped Around)

    Reordered or Omitted Chapters: In gag manga, reordering was fairly common with this happening in plenty of early classics like Toilet Hakase, Kochikame or Dr. Slump. Due to the episodic nature of these manga, they are also more likely to simply omit chapters from their collections, usually controversial ones but not always. Kochikame and Moeru!! Onii-san are examples of chapters being omitted to avoid controversy.

    Combined Chapters: In many story manga, the serialized chapters would end on cliffhangers that didn't necessarily work as cliffhangers when in collected form and it was common for series to bundle together chapters that flow directly into one another. This is why gag manga tended to actually keep most of their chapters with some rearranging while story manga would require more streamlining. Examples of this include Obora Ichidai, the works of Masami Kurumada, Astro Kyudan, Koya no Shonen Isamu, Cobra, Captain Tsubasa, City Hunter (episodic chapters were often kept separate but larger arcs combined).

    Chapter Covers Removed or Swapped Around: As part of this general streamlining process, one of the biggest things that was often lost from story manga and even many gag were chapter covers. As a general rule, each chapter of every series had its own unique cover. But in most collections of many classic manga, those covers are missing or have been repurposed (like using color pages from the magazine as tankobon covers for the collection). While sometimes covers are removed because two chapters are being combined together, even in a manga that does keep all their chapters labeled there can be a significant removal of chapter covers to avoid interrupting major story arcs (Rokudenashi Blues is a rare 90's example of this). Even when some covers were kept as in popular series like City Hunter or Hokuto no Ken, they could have their placement completely rearranged so a cover corresponds with two completely different chapters between the magazine and the tankobon. Or, what were originally covers become bonus extras in the volumes (series like Saint Seiya or Dai no Daiboken using chapter covers to show character profiles). Masakazu Katsura began a stylistic trend with his manga to remove chapter covers and instead have blank pages with the title on them in the collections and then a curated selection of the magazine chapter covers would appear in the back (such as in Denei Shojo or I"s). Other authors in the 90's would also include galleries of chapter covers that had been removed from their original placement for streamlining purposes (like Masaya Tokuhiro and Yoichi Takahashi).

    Rokudenashi Blues (Chapter Numbers Removed from Titles); Jojo no Kimyo na Boken (Ads Removed)
    Rokudenashi Blues (Chapter Numbers Removed from Titles); Jojo no Kimyo na Boken (Ads Removed)

    Chapter Titles Changed: Though generally any chapter titles that are used in the collections did originally appear in the magazine version (even if they applied to a smaller section), there are popular manga like Jojo no Kimyo na Boken or Bleach that made significant changes to chapter titles from the magazine to the volume. Another similar change that occurred with manga was the removal of chapter numbers. In the magazine, Rokudenashi Blues and Dai no Daiboken chapters were numbered but they were not in the collections. Because it combined numerous chapters in its later years, Tar-chan had a much higher official chapter number for its last chapter when it ended in the magazine than it did in its collections.

    Censorship/Alterations/Ads: Part of the work authors put into their collections is to fix errors that were caught in the serialized version or to improve things. This is often as simple as altering the text in a chapter slightly or fixing something that was drawn wrong but it can be much more dramatic including censorship of particularly controversial panels. Some chapters when published in the magazine form are very rough sketches for certain pages that are then completed in the collections and some things are deliberately censored in the magazine that are then added in for the tanks. Since the late 90's it is usually the censoring of nipples which previously had been fairly common in Jump. Major series to fall under these categories include Hunter × Hunter, To Love-Ru, Bastard!!, World Trigger, Yuragi-So no Yuna-san and Boku no Hero Academia. Another example of necessary alterations that only affect manga from the 90's and earlier was that ads used to appear directly on a varying amount of manga chapter pages in each magazine issue. These ads could be for various things but the way different authors dealt with them in their collections was not uniform. Some authors simply leave these spaces as massive blank sections of the page, some insert messages from the author and others just insert filler panels that were not originally in the chapter.

    Crossovers: Because many Jump manga referenced one another over the decades, characters associated with one series may appear in a series other than their own. Examples: Appule in Kochikame, Higegojira in Chichi no Tamashii, Gatchan in Yamazaki Ginjiro, Delorinman in Harenchi Gakuen, etc.

    Unique Elements of Jump

    Arnold and Taro Yamada
    Arnold and Taro Yamada

    Jump is unique in a number of ways from its primary competitors and contemporaries, with one of the notable aspects of its decades-long run being the covers. Many manga magazines since the 80's and 90's have used photo covers (primarily of gravure idols) to entice a secondary audience to the magazine but Shonen Jump is extremely rare for its length and demographic for almost exclusively using illustrated covers featuring the actual manga contained within. Even more specifically, the very rare exceptions have not been idols but people like Ayrton Senna, Arnold Schwarzenegger or the authors of the manga themselves. Also, despite launching when alternative manga was becoming mainstream, Jump did not have a period of using alternative covers like Magazine and Sunday were doing in the late 60's and early 70's.

    Jump is also fairly unique in that it features most of its new series on the cover for their first chapter, at least since the 80's, though there have been a number of very notable exceptions to this. Most magazines wait for series' to get popular before giving them the cover if their manga are even given the cover in the first place.

    Serials run in Weekly Shonen Jump are not strictly bound to any set genre or style parameters, though the magazine has a tendency to directly inspire its future creators (many of whom were assistants to Jump mangaka before debuting with their own serials). Perhaps due to its competitive nature in trying to remain popular, many of the pillars of Jump have very similar tropes and themes. This usually works with one series becoming popular and later or contemporary series adopting aspects of it into their own manga. This can range from references and cameos, to explicit tributes or many other stylistic things that are often seen as part of the formula of a successful shonen manga.

    The most all-encompassing genres generally published in Jump are sports manga, battle manga and gag manga; though these limits are regularly pushed to include non-traditional sports, new battle systems or more bizarre gags. However, one of the biggest things that makes Jump manga easily identifiable is the self-referential nature of many series. It is very common for a series to at some point feature somebody reading or talking about Jump with a number of them going a step further and having it be a plot point in an otherwise serious story (gag manga are especially prone to referencing Jump and breaking the fourth wall). While for each individual series this is generally a minor detail, for readers of the magazine it is an easter egg which becomes infinitely more obscure when collected, as the reference can be to a decades-old contemporary that never became popular or that readers may not even realize ran in the magazine at the same time.

    Cover of WSJ #1135
    Cover of WSJ #1135

    References range from every serial in an issue featuring a cameo of Kankichi Ryotsu or Luffy's straw hat, to a series directly about making a Jump manga (Bakuman.), mangaka and their editors appearing in the serials themselves (Dr. Mashirito, Shimabu, Hideaki Amachi, Masakazu Katsura), two serials crossing over (Sket Dance × Gintama or Toriko × One Piece or Toilet Hakase × Onna Darake), chapter covers being special tributes to beloved serials that ended in that specific issue (One Piece chapter covers for the final chapters of Naruto, Kochikame, Toriko) to a vast variety of major characters reading the magazine; sometimes in very dramatic ways such as Maeda Taison surviving being stabbed in the gut because he had a recently published issue in his jacket to Jotaro Kujo introducing Star Platinum and the concept of Stands by having it get him the latest Jump while he was stuck in a jail cell.

    There are also many reader-submitted elements of the Jump magazine that can massively impact a series such as fan-submitted character or creature designs (Kinnikuman, Bobobobo, Toriko) which are adapted by the author to varying degrees to fit into their story. There are also popularity polls that can directly impact the direction of a series based on which characters the author learns are most popular with readers. The magazine also has more direct references between the creators of the manga themselves with author comments being included in the table of contents for each issue. These comments can include messages of support for the debut of their assistants, tributes to authors that have ended their series/passed away or even authors taking jabs at each other over drama between their series (as happened between the authors of Makuhari and Kusagiki).

    Controversies

    While Jump has experienced general controversy in its long lifetime like most popular media, it is generally not significant and revolves around questions of content being age-appropriate or influencing kids negatively. There have also been cases of people getting arrested for posting early spoilers of the magazine online. However, in a select few cases, controversy has directly influenced a series and even more rarely, resulted in cancellation regardless of how popular the series is.

    • Harenchi Gakuen: As one of Jump's very first hits, Harenchi Gakuen was designed to be controversial and used this controversy to help boost public awareness of the magazine. One of the first ecchi manga, it was scandalous for its time but tame by modern standards (and much less explicit in comparison to later Jump serials). As it was a gag manga, the provocative situations were treated very light-heartedly but proved influential to young boys who would emulate the perverted actions of the characters (such as lifting up girl's skirts in schools). The series caused a lot of public outrage in Japan but the magazine notably was proud to publish it and defended the work. Though it did end once in a dramatic fashion, it returned a few months later and was ultimately serialized non-continously for four years.
    • Shiritsu Kiwamemichi Kōkō: The debut serial of Akira Miyashita (who would go on to be one of the defining creators of Jump's Golden Age). Though the series was popular, backlash came when an offhand claim by a character that he violently conquered several schools displayed five actual school names and information without their permission (snuck in by an assistant) and all the schools protested this slip-up. The series was quickly cancelled and never properly preserved or collected so that it was never even reprinted for over thirty years (despite the author becoming a huge success just a few years later). When it was finally collected in full, scans of the magazine issues themselves had to be used and the controversial panels were censored.
    • Moeru! Oniisan: A popular gag manga, one chapter proved controversial due to its unflattering depiction of a school janitor and the offending chapter was not collected. In the magazine the series then changed its name to Moeru! Oniisan 2 (but this was not replicated in the volumes).
    • Makuhari: A controversial first series by an author who would become famous for being controversial, this was a major early example of a Jump gag manga that heavily referenced its own contemporaries and real-life celebrities and wasn't always well-received. One chapter featuring a real-life celebrity making a joke at the start was censored in collections to remove this part though most of the series' craziness was left intact.
    • Seikimatsu Leader-den Takeshi!: A popular gag/battle manga that began in 1997, it was very popular for a time but after five years and while in the middle of the battle between the final boss, the author (Shimabakuro) was arrested for paying a sixteen-year-old for sex and the series was abruptly cancelled, the final chapters not collected and the original collections went out of print. A couple years later, the final chapters were published in Super Jump and larger editions of the series were published that collected everything. In 2008, Shimabu was able to return to Shonen Jump with Toriko (which ran for eight years). If he had not been arrested, Toriko likely would have started in 2003 as it's original pilot appeared in Jump in 2002, when Takeshi was heading toward its natural conclusion.
    • Kuroko no Basuke: While not cancelled, Kuroko no Basuke was the subject of a significant controversy when its anime started and the series became highly popular in the dōjinshi scene (particularly with yaoi dōjinshi) which meant that a mostly female audience had latched on to the male cast of characters and began writing and sharing their own fan works featuring male cast members as a romantic couple. Historically, this had been a large part of Jump's audience since the 1980's with a Captain Tsubasa dōjinshi being reworked to create Zetsuai 1989, one of the most important early yaoi manga. However, various places connected to Kuroko including the author, the station that broadcast the anime and places that sold the dōjinshi and other items related to the series were sent threatening letters containing a suspicious powder or liquid and this led to a ban of any Kuroko material to be sold at various dōjinshi events. The 36-year old suspect was caught and arrested on December 15, 2013. On March 29, 2015 a special dōjinshi event dedicated to Kuroko was held in response to the previous ban. Kuroko never missed an issue during its run and remained popular to the end, even getting the cover the issue before its final chapter in 2014.
    • Act-Age: A manga that had started slowly and begun to build momentum over its first years, it was on the verge of receiving multiple adaptations and already receiving an abundance of cross-promotional material when its writer was arrested for groping a teenage girl on the street. It was abruptly cancelled in the middle of an arc and disowned by the artist who has since appeared in Jump again. Due to this happening in the digital era, not only were its physical collections discontinued (causing a spike in sales) but its digital volumes were also removed from online stores.

    Jump Mangaka

    No. 9, 1970 (Magazine, Champion, Sunday, King and Jump)
    No. 9, 1970 (Magazine, Champion, Sunday, King and Jump)

    In the era when Jump launched, it was actually the fourth major Weekly Shonen (as King existed), and when Champion followed a year later it was part of a large network of five magazines which often fought for dominance and it was never completely definitive which was the most popular of this period. As part of the trend of this time, it was extremely common for mangaka to appear in multiple weekly shonen magazines and several appeared in all five (sometimes simultaneously). As such, Jump's earliest years are filled with creators who came from or are most associated with other weekly shonen magazines but often had a much more minor role in Jump. Below are the most significant examples (including all the creators from the first issue minus the reprinted comic strip and the one complete unknown creator who is not known to have done anything else).

    • Go Nagai (Jump Debut: No. 1, 1968): Creator of one of Jump's first major hits, Harenchi Gakuen, it appeared in one-shot form in the magazine's first issue but only debuted as a serial a few months later. It was an instant hit for its boundary-pushing controversy and made Nagai into a household name. Though it was his debut serial and ran for a few years (with breaks in between), Nagai quickly became too big for just Jump and migrated to many other magazines. While Harenchi Gakuen remained one of his longest continuous serials, the ones that spawned the largest franchises were in other shonen magazines and hits published simultaneously with his Jump work appeared in Magazine, Sunday, Champion and others. His second and last Jump serial was Mazinger Z which ended up leaving Jump for other magazines before its end as Nagai was already at the peak of his popularity. Notably, he did still publish for Monthly Shonen Jump after leaving Weekly.
    • Hiroshi Kaizuka (Jump Debut: No. 1, 1968): Creator of Chichi no Tamashii, which was the longest serial to debut in Jump's first issue, he had previously had serials in King, Sunday and other magazines. He also had one of the few serials to debut in the first issue of Champion (while he was working on Chichi). However, despite his series lasting until the end of 1971, he never returned to Weekly Shonen Jump and left to draw an even longer work at Sunday (written by Ikki Kajiwara). Though he did serialize a final arc to Chichi in Monthly Shonen Jump, his longest-lasting legacy in Weekly was having the protagonist of one of Jump's longest-running early series, Dokonjō Gaeru, named after him (as its creator had been his assistant).
    • Sachio Umemoto (Jump Debut: No. 1, 1968): Creator of the series that received half of the first issue's cover, Kujira Daigo, he did several very short serials for Jump in the beginning but many were uncollected and he left to do longer works in magazines like Sunday, Champion and King.
    • Fujio Akatsuka (Jump Debut: No. 1, 1968): One of the biggest gag manga creators of all-time, his major serials like Tensai Bakabon and Osomatsu-kun primarily ran in Magazine and Sunday, where he had been working since the early 60's and his primary Jump serial was only the very brief Ore wa Gebatetsu!. Jump's publisher, Shueisha, were the creators of the Akatsuka Award to honor new creators in comedy manga and Akatsuka's asssistant Kazuyoshi Torii created one of the most popular Jump manga of the 70's with Toilet Hakase.
    • Mikiya Mochizuki (Jump Debut: No. 1, 1968): While he published a few very short serials in Shonen Jump in the 70's such as Totsugeki Ramen, Japasshu and The Kicker; in King he was simultaneously publishing Wild 7 which ran from 1969-1979 and is one of the biggest series' in its publisher's history. He had been a regular in King since its start in 1963 and remained there into the mid-80's while simultaneously producing work in many other magazines. In Jump, his assistant Ko Inoue drew the popular baseball manga, Samurai Giants.
    • Kazuo Umezu (Jump Debut: No. 1, 1968): While he appeared in Jump's first issue, he never had a serial for them and instead is most associated with Sunday (Orochi, Again, Hyōryū Kyōshitsu, Makoto-chan) and later seinen horror manga.
    • Keiji Nakazawa (Jump Debut: No. 2, 1968): Important creator of autobiographical manga who was one of the first to have his translated work published in English. He had previously had serials in magazines like King and while Jump was one of the primary magazines that helped publish his career-defining work, including debuting his best-known serial (Hadashi no Gen), it didn't prove to be the best home for his style and Hadashi no Gen had to be completed with other publishers.
    • Toshio Shoji (Jump Debut: No. 3, 1968): He wrote one of Jump's first collected serials, the short Ore wa Kamikaze, but had already established himself with long-running series for other shonen publishers like Yūyake Banchō and quickly left Jump to do other work, including a 37-volume series for King (Cycle Yarō).
    • Ryoichi Ikegami (Jump Debut: No. 5, 1968): Still establishing himself in the mainstream at the time, Ikegami produced a few one-shots for Jump as well as the short Kasane serial. His first series had been in King and much of his early one-shots were in the alternative Monthly Manga Garo but before his move to seinen in later decades he found his biggest success in shonen with Weekly Shonen Sunday.
    • Noboru Kawasaki (Jump Debut: No. 6, 1968): The artist of Magazine's Kyojin no Hoshi which was one of the most popular shonen manga of the time and started serializing in 1966. He was the artist for several short Jump serials with the only long-running one being Kōya no Shōnen Isamu which ran for several years in the early 70's and was one of the big Jump series of that era. Though highly popular with Jump itself, his later long-running serials were once again for other magazines like Musashi in Sunday.
    • Ikki Kajiwara (Jump Debut: No. 10, 1968): The writer of Magazine's Kyojin no Hoshi (see Noboru) and simultaneously the Magazine serial, Ashita no Joe (which started serializing in 1967 in the same magazine). He was already writing two of the biggest manga hits of the era and in Jump debuted with a very short-story drawn by Noboru (Otoko no Jōken). His only long-running serial in Jump was writing Samurai Giants (which launched alongside Noboru's Isamu and ran for a few months more), though it has been historically overshadowed by his mega-hits with Magazine and the many other magazines he was published in.
    • Shotaro Ishimori (Jump Debut: No. 11, 1968): One of the most active mangaka of all-time, he appeared all over manga for decades in shojo, shonen and seinen but his only appearance in Jump was a single one-shot. He had multiple serials in all of the other four weekly shonen magazines.
    • George Akiyama (Jump Debut: No. 6, 1969): One of those creators who immediately went for exposure at as many magazines as possible, he had serials in all five of the weekly shonen publications. While he had several short serials in Jump from 1969-1974 such as Bara no Sakamichi, Kurohige Tanteichō or Hai ni Naru Shōnen (with a final one for a few weeks in 1984), his longest or most controversial were often running simultaneously in Magazine or Sunday and after this hugely productive but brief period of shonen serials, he moved to seinen manga. His Haguregumo series, started in 1973 and ended in 2017 with 112 volumes, remains one of the longest continuous manga of all time.
    • Hiroshi Asuna (Jump Debut: No. 7, 1969): A regular author in shonen and shojo manga, he didn't typically produce very long works but had a handful of short serials and one-shots in Jump. His most enduring shonen series ran in Weekly Shonen Champion.
    • Leiji Matsumoto (Jump Debut: No. 9, 1969): A creator who was already really active in shonen (primarily through Magazine) and seinen manga, he later became well-known for his science fiction works. While he had a short serial in Jump, it was really building off a story he had started earlier in Shonen Book. He briefly returned a decade later (when he was one of the major authors in King) to submit two one-shots in the annual competition where readers voted for which creators they wanted to see a one-shot from the most (these one-shots tied into his then-established science fiction universe).
    • Shintaro Miyawaki (Jump Debut: No. 14, 1969): His only contribution to Jump was a three-part serial about Che Guevara but he later went on to draw the infamous and long-running seinen manga The Rapeman.
    • Fujiko Fujio (Jump Debut: No. 15, 1969): At the time a jointly-credited major pen-name in manga that later split their works into who did what when they dissolved their partnership. Only one of them appeared in Jump but he did five one-shots, as a duo they appeared nearly everywhere and Abiko in particular (who appeared in Jump) had major success in King, Champion, Magazine and Sunday.
    • Tetsuya Chiba (Jump Debut: No. 20, 1969): Artist of Magazine's Ashita no Joe (see Ikki Kajiwara) and Harris no Kaze before that, he was already a well-established major figure in shojo and shonen manga but for Jump his only serial was the eleven-chapter Mosa (he continued producing many-long works for Magazine and other magazines). His younger brother and former assistant Akio Chiba made his major break-through with Bessatsu Shonen Jump (later known as Monthly Shonen Jump) and created the very popular Play Ball manga for Weekly Shonen Jump in the mid-70's.
    • Shinji Mizushima (Jump Debut: No. 2-3, 1970): One of the most prolific mangaka of all time, he had serializations in all five weekly shonen magazines within a few months of each other. He would go on to have several serials in all the other four magazines (often simultaneously) including highly popular series that lasted for years in Champion, Sunday and Magazine. But his only Jump serial was Geppare! Ōta-Tōshu which lasted for ten issues and was never even collected and is debatably even his work (advertised as his on covers but within the issue itself also crediting his assistants whose work it more closely resembles). He was unable to enter the annual one-shot contest despite being voted for by readers.
    • Shigeru Mizuki (Jump Debut: No. 14, 1970): Creator of the highly beloved GeGeGe no Kitarō series, which actually had its origins in underground manga but had been picked up by Magazine in 1965, his only Jump work was the short, Sennen Ōkoku, and he is much better remembered for many other works though Sennen is usually re-released as a subtitle for one part of his Akuma-kun series. He appeared in many of the shonen and seinen magazines of his time.
    • Takumi Nagayasu (Jump Debut: No. 44, 1970): Nagayasu had one short series for Jump in 1971 that was never collected but he also worked in Champion and Sunday with his biggest shonen series running in Magazine. He later had a successful career in seinen manga, particularly for Weekly Young Magazine.
    • Shiro Kasama (Jump Debut: No. 47, 1970): A popular early erotic manga artist, he was more associated with early seinen magazines like Manga Action but drew an uncollected serial for Jump in late 1970.
    • Toru Shinohara (Jump Debut: No. 48, 1970): More famous for his seinen manga (like Wani Bunsho and Sasori), which he was actively working on at the time of his Jump serials, he had two short works published in Jump but they never have been collected.
    • Osamu Tezuka (Jump Debut: No. 13, 1971): One of the most revered and prolific manga creators of all time, he appeared in virtually every major (and many minor) manga magazine of his lifetime. He had multiple serials in Magazine, Sunday, King and most notably Champion (where he serialized Black Jack, one of his longest continuous works as well as various other works beginning with its very first issue). Yet his only serial in Jump (Lion Books) was not actually a serial at all but a monthly series of one-shots. The longest one was published in four parts and collected as a single tankobon (Hyaku Monogatari), one chapter has never been collected. Jump's publisher, Shueisha, were the creators of the Tezuka Award to honor new creators in story manga. Tezuka also had two assistants contribute regularly to Jump, the first (Kotaro Komuro) very much resembled his art-style and was active in Jump through the 70's, the second was Buichi Terasawa who produced the popular Cobra series.
    • Baron Yoshimoto (Jump Debut: No. 21, 1971): Another mangaka normally associated more with early seinen manga magazines like Manga Action, he produced two short series for Weekly Shonen Jump which were first collected in the 70's but not by Shueisha.

    Besides Shinji Mizushima who may not have truly appeared but almost did, there were a number of other notable absences of authors who were active in all the other magazines or almost appeared in Jump like Mitsuru Adachi (who was nominated to appear in the annual readers one-shot contest), Sanpei Shirato (whose assistant did appear), Takao Saito (a major contributor to Magazine, Champion and Sunday), Kazuo Koike (who wrote for most shonen and seinen magazines of the time), Mitsuteru Yokoyama (who had popular series in all the other four) and Monkey Punch (who had a very similar but mysterious look-alike in Bancho Kano who created a very Lupin-esque series called Nusutto that was popular enough at the time to get the author on the cover of Jump but not collected and the author became an obscurity).

    Mankichi Togawa
    Mankichi Togawa

    Of all these highly notable mangaka to appear in Jump's early era (which had little indication of what the magazine became), the first and primary creator to generally stick with Jump and help define the magazine was Hiroshi Motomiya who debuted in No. 4, 1968 and began his first Jump serial (Otoko Ippiki Gaki-Daishō) in No. 11 of the same year. The series proved to be such a massive hit that Motomiya was actually forced to extend it beyond his intended ending.

    The series ended in a fashion three different times, the first major ending in 1971-13 was the author's intended ending and the one that he preserved in later collections when he had more sway in the industry. The series got the cover of this issue but editorial advertised the series as returning a few issues later and it did so in 1971-17. The second major ending was in 1971-51, again the series received the cover but the opening pages of the magazine (which would normally be a lead color) was a celebration of Motomiya's marriage to shojo mangaka Jun Morita and included photos of major Jump authors in attendance. This time the series advertised his return for the following year with his second series, Musashi. But while Musashi was still ongoing, Otoko Ippiki released three bangaihen chapters and these became the focus of Motomiya's presence in the magazine and Musashi was ended early a few months later. Otoko then returned for one final stretch before it ended its run permanently in early 1973 and Motomiya began regularly returning with new shorter series instead through the 70's and 80's. A two-part epilogue to Otoko Ippiki was also published in Jump in 1983 and it regularly returned to the cover for anniversary celebrations.

    While this tactic of editorial meddling forcefully extending a series against its author's wishes is highly questionable, the series did influence and inspire many young mangaka who would come to work for Jump and Motomiya was ultimately able to serialize many other shorter works in the magazine's history (appearing in over 630 of the magazine's first 950 issues) and only left in 1987 to focus on seinen manga. Motomiya kept his association with Shueisha where he has become one of the publisher's most published authors by a significant margin with his 90's hit Salaryman Kintaro being his longest and best-selling series. While he did use his success at Jump to appear in many other magazines through the 70's and 80's including the other major weekly shonen magazines, unlike the authors listed above, he did not leave Jump during this time and remained a fixture of the magazine.

    Hiroshi Motomiya in Jump's offices as depicted in Shinji Hiramatsu's Gedoh-Man
    Hiroshi Motomiya in Jump's offices as depicted in Shinji Hiramatsu's Gedoh-Man

    While working in Weekly Shonen Jump he had one of the first major series of the spin-off Monthly Shonen Jump, his works were among the first published in many new Shueisha collection formats/brands (Playboy Comics in 1977, Jump Super Comics in 1976, Young Jump Comics in 1980) and he was among the most prominent creators in the first issue of several seinen magazines (Weekly Young Jump, Big Comic Spirits, Morning, Manga Allman and Grand Jump). Otoko Ippiki not only launched the Jump Comics brand in 1969 but reprint editions helped launch the Shueisha Manga Bunko brand in 1976 and the Shueisha Bunko brand in 1995.

    It is the protagonist of Otoko (Mankichi Togawa) that represents the first true major Jump hero and it is the creators inspired by it and who worked as assistants for Motomiya that became the first generation of Jump-defined creators, kicking off the modern Jump lineage. It is in this period that Jump began to fully define itself in the 70's and that it created the system of talent for which it is generally known for, with the majority of its creators after this being rookies who made their debut with Jump and often people who worked as assistants on Jump manga before debuting with their own.

    Motomiya himself had many major assistants and at least two legendary authors serialized tributes to Otoko Ippiki in Jump after they became successful (though neither of these manga lasted). Several of Jump's biggest creators were originally assistants for other major creators before them and even creators who were never assistants have talked about how they were inspired or influenced by their predecessors and contemporaries in Jump (example: Masashi Kishimoto being influenced by Ninku but not working as a Jump assistant). Or on the other end of the spectrum, some mangaka who were not assistants have had their assistants attempt Jump serials, and there are many examples of short serials in Jump's history by creators who were Jump assistants (example: Osamu Akimoto was not an assistant of a Jump author but his assistants Hiroshi Aro and Masatoshi Usune had Jump serials).

    Though a complete and exhaustive list would become excessive, these are the authors in Jump with more than 300 appearances (listed in order of most appearances) and a listing of who they were an assistant for or who was their assistant that also appeared in Jump:

    Final Mangaka Cover, 1997-05-06
    Final Mangaka Cover, 1997-05-06

    In the past, the authors of Jump would annually appear together in a group shot on the cover of the magazine (often dressed in themed costume), but as mangaka became more private about their personal appearance this trend totally stopped after the 90's with many successful mangaka in later Jump history being virtual unknowns as individuals. Traditionally mangaka included pictures of themselves in their own collections as was common internationally with authors of books as well but these too became less common in the 90's and were replaced by drawings. As a result fans often speculate on the identities of more popular private authors, such as debating whether they are male or female or even if they are actually secretively other published mangaka using a new pen-name. There are also several major examples of authors becoming close friends who debut in the magazine around the same time like Toriyama and Katsura, Shimabukuro and Oda, Kobayashi and Akimoto or Morohoshi and Hoshino. These annual events where authors meet one another have been mentioned as nerve-wracking or inspiring by young creators and occasionally have been depicted in manga.

    Historically Jump has been quite strict with authors putting out a new chapter each issue, creating an intense work schedule that has burned out many but they began greatly loosening up on this in the late 90's with some established authors being given more room to have absences. Many of Jump's most legendary authors are never able to make weekly series again with a few notable exceptions. Some of these authors are granted more leeway in Jump itself to return with short works or take many breaks (examples: Cowa! or Hunter x Hunter) but many move to other slower-paced magazines like biweeklies, monthlies or quarterlies while some stick to weeklies but don't actually put out material at a consistent weekly pace anymore (example: Real).

    One-Shots and Pilot Chapters

    Pilot Chapter of Video Girl, Published in the Seasonal Special
    Pilot Chapter of Video Girl, Published in the Seasonal Special

    Apart from its earliest days before it had a proper stable of ongoing titles, Shonen Jump usually publishes less one-shots than other magazines and in many cases (either at the time or retroactively), these one-shots are done by creators who also worked on serials in the magazine. Often one-shots are either used to fill in an unexpected absence of a serial (in which case the one-shot tends to be by an unknown creator) or more often, the magazine features a series of one-shots as part of some event. These events usually range from five to ten one-shots. In a rare few cases, one-shots are even given the cover of the magazine.

    In earlier years, these events (Aidoku Shashō) featured creators who were already popular doing one-shots (all while still producing their main serial) but since 2004, the one-shots are usually part of the Gold Future Cup, an event wherein the winner can theoretically create a serial based off their one-shot (though there's really no set protocol to this, see that page for more details).

    With the majority of Jump serials having started as a one-shot that was reworked for the serial, most creators start off doing one-shots; though the majority of these are not published in the main Shonen Jump magazine but in its various spin-offs over the years. Weekly Shonen Jump has had many spin-offs over the years (with most of the "Jump" magazines being descended from it in some way or another), but its most direct spin-off has gone under many different incarnations.

    Beginning in 1969 as extra issues of the magazine, where creators like Akira Toriyama, Tsukasa Hojo, Hirohiko Araki or Tetsuo Hara would publish their earliest one-shots, in 1985 it became an official seasonal spin-off (see here), which would continue to publish one-shots by creators that would later make it big. It went through numerous name changes in later years including Akamaru Jump, Jump Next!, Jump Giga and Jump ×. The longest-running independent magazine that came out of Weekly Shonen was its monthly counterpart, originally known as Bessatsu Shonen Jump, it then lasted for decades as Monthly Shonen Jump and is now known as Jump SQ.

    Apart from many one-off issues or short-lived magazines, major Jump magazines have included:

    • 1970 Bessatsu Shonen Jump (one-shots, reprints and a few serials)
    • 1974 Monthly Shonen Jump (renaming of Bessatsu Shonen Jump with more serials rather than reprints)
    • 1979 Weekly Young Jump (seinen magazine that has featured many authors that first came from Weekly Shonen Jump)
    • 1982 Fresh Jump (had many one-shots of new authors but also its own series)
    • 1982 Business Jump (spin-off of Weekly Young Jump with its own series)
    • 1983 Hobby's Jump (prototype at a video-game oriented Jump magazine with one-shots and some limited series)
    • 1985 Weekly Shonen Jump Seasonal Special (mostly one-shots of new authors but always sold off the brand of bigger name authors from Jump who would also appear with one-shots, short serials or bonus material like posters)
    • 1985 Jump Original (spin-off of Monthly Shonen Jump with one-shots and its own limited series)
    • 1986 Super Jump (seinen spin-off of Weekly Shonen Jump that took on many of its authors to create new series)
    • 1990 V Jump (mixed-media magazine with a focus on magazines, it originally had very limited manga but has since expanded its manga content)
    • 1995 Ultra Jump (spin-off of Weekly Young Jump that features a number of its own series, they tend to be more niche than the other magazines)
    • 1997 Akamaru Jump (renaming of Seasonal Special)
    • 2007 Jump SQ (renaming of Monthly Shonen Jump)
    • 2010 Jump Next! (renaming of Akamaru Jump)
    • 2011 Grand Jump (a merging of seinen magazines Super Jump and Business Jump into a single magazine)
    • 2011 Saikyo Jump (joint spin-off of V Jump and Weekly Shonen Jump, it tends to feature franchises from these magazines aimed at an even younger audience)
    • 2011 Jump X (a spin-off of Weekly Young Jump with its own series)
    • 2016 Jump Giga (renaming of Jump Next!)

    Sequels and Spin-Offs

    All these spin-off magazines are often separated from Weekly Shonen Jump by one major factor; while WSJ rarely runs sequel series even to its most successful franchises, many of these other magazines' longest-running series are sequels and specifically sequels to series from WSJ. Within Weekly Shonen Jump some series have ties to each other such as shared characters (like Hareluya and BØY) or universe (like Dr. Slump and Dragon Ball) but the only major sequels in the magazine's history were primarily renamed serials that never really ended with one flowing right into the next (though there were a few exceptions).

    Gokutora Ikka featuring the protagonists of Kiwamemechi Koko
    Gokutora Ikka featuring the protagonists of Kiwamemechi Koko

    The only major sequels to run in WSJ are:

    On the other hand, many Shueisha manga magazines (and even some magazines from other publishers) are in part held up by sequels or spin-offs from this magazine. Examples include:

    Ultra Jump No. 5, 2007: Ninku Second Stage - Etonin Hen
    Ultra Jump No. 5, 2007: Ninku Second Stage - Etonin Hen
    Weekly Comic Bunch No. 36-37, 2010: Soten no Ken and Angel Heart
    Weekly Comic Bunch No. 36-37, 2010: Soten no Ken and Angel Heart

    International Popularity

    Formosa Youth Translating Dragon Ball Super from V Jump
    Formosa Youth Translating Dragon Ball Super from V Jump

    As part of being the most popular manga magazine in Japan, Weekly Shonen Jump (and specifically its most popular series) are very popular around the world. Though internationally Jump is most popular in Europe and East Asia, it also has a growing market in the United States (possibly slowed down in the 00's by frequent censorship of highly popular series) and Latin America. The most popular Jump serials will often be published in a number of languages (generally while they are still ongoing in Japan) and several regions have even published their own equivalent to Weekly Shonen Jump such as Comic Champ (Korean) and Formosa Youth (Chinese) and the digital only Weekly Shonen Jump (English).

    It is worth noting that none of these magazines translate the entirety of Jump and when using Shonen Jump covers that show the mascot character of every series in the magazine, the international editions will edit out the series' that they don't translate. In the case of Comic Champ, original Korean material is heavily featured and in the case of all three magazines, while Weekly Shonen Jump is the most popular source drawn from, material from other Jump magazines like Jump SQ and V Jump is also included. The magazines are used to translate particularly popular material (such as One Piece) while it's still new in Japan but other series that aren't translated in magazine form are still translated and published in collected form.

    Though Shueisha's English-language publishing partner Viz had increased its effort of simulpubbed new series in its digital version of the magazine over the years, it frequently skipped over series that became successful which it then had to catch up on (such as Kimetsu no Yaiba or Jujutsu Kaisen). But in 2019 it increased its efforts and ended its digital magazine to instead provide an overall service that included much of their Jump back-catalog and began to simulpub all new series in the Japanese magazine.

    Shueisha quickly followed up with the launch of even more expansive simulpubbing service, Mangaplus, which picked up all the ongoing series Viz had skipped over the years (like Hinomaru Zumo or Jimoto ga Japan) and also began translating more of the Shonen Jump+ library and rereleasing older classics in new editions. Besides being accessible as a service to more countries, Mangaplus also offered other languages with its Spanish service even translating new Jump works the English service skipped over. The magazine is still not fully translated as one-shots are often ignored but even some of these are picked up if the author is high profile enough. With the end of Yuragi-So no Yuna-san in mid-2020 which could not be simulpubbed due to already being licensed to Seven Seas (after Viz passed it over), all the series in the magazine are now officially available internationally on the same day as the Japanese version.

    Collected Serials

    Generally, collections of manga from this magazine (as well as a few of its more direct spin-off magazines) are published under the Jump Comics banner. In the earliest decades of the magazine, Jump Comics was reserved for popular ongoing series while Jump Super Comics was usually used to collect short miniseries that had already ended and in some cases, Jump Comics Deluxe was also used. Eventually, even short series that had ended were published under Jump Comics and these latter two banners were shifted over with the launch of Super Jump in the 80's.

    Below is listed all serials from the magazine's history that have been collected. Despite the fact that the majority of one-shots have been collected, these are not listed (though many of them are contained within the linked volumes). Series that have never been collected (and thus do not have their own page) are not listed but all material exclusive to the magazine is listed within individual issue pages. Note that links are always to the first printed collection of the series, which in the case of very early serials, can often be decades after the fact or was not by Shueisha. It is also worth noting that collected versions of series can include extra material that was never published in the magazine, particularly in relation to series that ended abruptly in the magazine but were given a more complete epilogue in their respective collections.

    1968-1970

    Notable Rookie Debuts: Satoshi Ikezawa, Norihiro Nakajima, Kimio Yanagisawa, Kazuyoshi Torii, Yasumi Yoshizawa

    Notable New Serials: Otoko Ippiki Gaki-Daisho, Harenchi Gakuen, Dokonjo Gaeru, Toilet Hakase, Delorinman, Otoko no Joken

    Otoko no Joken; Chichi no Tamashii; Otoko Ippiki Gaki-Daisho; Harenchi Gakuen
    Otoko no Joken; Chichi no Tamashii; Otoko Ippiki Gaki-Daisho; Harenchi Gakuen

    This earliest era of Jump featured a lot of one-shots and appearances from creators more famous for their work in other magazines. Though a surprising amount of these serializations have been collected, a lot of them were done so long after the 60's and/or not by Shueisha. Jump's first issue in 1968 launched two series, Kujira Daigo and Chichi no Tamashii. Daigo ended in the final 1968 issue and was collected by Wakagi Shobo, Chichi no Tamashii lasted until late 1971 and was one of the first three series collected under the Jump Comics brand along with Harenchi Gakuen and Otoko Ippiki Gaki-Daisho (the two bigger hits that both started in the final 1968 issue). Issue covers from this era were often unrelated to the manga contents and represented a general sports theme or they were group covers with an assortment of manga represented. The earliest artist to regularly get prominent covers was Noboru Kawasaki of Kyojin no Hoshi fame who received the largest portion of a cover for his one-shot in the 7th issue and his first series in the magazine, Otoko no Joken, was the first to get the full magazine cover for its launch when it debuted in the 10th issue (it went on to receive several more covers and prominent promotion on shared covers despite being a limited series). But in mid-1969 it was Harenchi Gakuen, Chichi no Tamashii and Otoko Ippiki Gaki-Daisho that all received special issues of Jump that collected earlier chapters for new readers to catch up and Otoko Ippiki had become the face of the magazine. The magazine also split its focus between gag manga and story manga with gag manga often sharing status as a group. Two of Jump's biggest early gag manga started in 1970 (Toilet Hakase and Dokonjo Gaeru) but did not get much attention on the covers yet while the new gag/ecchi Arashi! Sanpiki did.

    1971-1975

    Notable Rookie Debuts: Shinji Hiramatsu, Yoshihiro Takahashi, Yukinobu Hoshino, Masami Kurumada, Kontaro, Motoka Murakami, Saburo Ishikawa, Yoshinori Kobayashi, Mio Murao, Tsubame Kamogawa, Yasuyuki Kunitomo

    Notable New Serials: Astro Kyudan, Koya no Shonen Isamu, Play Ball, Hadashi no Gen, Mazinger Z, Yokai Hunter, Lion Books, Doberman Deka, Circuit no Okami, Hochonin Ajihei

    Otoko Ippiki Gaki Daisho; Nagai, Motomiya and Kaizuka
    Otoko Ippiki Gaki Daisho; Nagai, Motomiya and Kaizuka

    This era of Jump has the most significant uncollected material as trends moved to serials becoming longer but it was still normal for them to never get reprinted. As such there are a number of series that lasted months created by famous authors that have only appeared in these issues including some by Toru Shinohara, George Akiyama, Takumi Nagayasu, Kotaro Komuro, Yoshinori Takayama, Jiro Gyu, and Motoka Murakami. One of the chapters of Lion Books from this era is a rare example of a Tezuka work that has never been reprinted. The magazine was truly dominated by a handful of hits at this time with the promotion of authors on the covers being very impacted by their already established reputations.

    Otoko Ippiki remained the major face of the magazine at the start of 1971 with an assortment of gag manga (such as the popular Dokonjo Gaeru) also getting covers but Motomiya tried to end Otoko conclusively early in the year, only to come back a few issues later due to editorial pressure and continue to get many covers including a photo cover of himself and another of him punching Nagai with Kaizuka acting as a referee. But with the 34th issue of 1971, Jump for the first time began giving the cover to multiple new series in a row (some of the new series in this batch did not get the cover but 34, 35, 36 and 38's covers were all of the series starting in those issues). The biggest of these was the last, Koya no Shonen Isamu, the first and only long-running series Noboru Kawasaki drew for Jump and just as his Otoko no Joken was the first series to get the full cover for its first chapter, Isamu was the first series to get the full cover for its first two chapters and got several more in the year including one of Kawasaki himself and Otoko Ippiki was then able to "end" in the 51st issue of the year.

    Koya no Shonen Isamu; Musashi; Otoko Ippiki Bangaihen; Mazinger Z
    Koya no Shonen Isamu; Musashi; Otoko Ippiki Bangaihen; Mazinger Z

    Isamu became the face of the magazine and special issues of Jump were released collecting chapters of Isamu for readers to catch up but Jump also tried reviving its original hits which created some early examples of the tension between authors who produced hits for the magazine and the editors. Harenchi Gakuen returned after having "ended" nearly a full-year earlier and Motomiya returned with his second series Musashi which also received the cover for its first two chapters. But he was pushed to bring back Otoko Ippiki and released three bangaihen chapters of Otoko in issues where Musashi was still ongoing with Ippiki's one-shots getting the magazine covers while Musashi quickly lost prominence and was cancelled.

    Otoko Ippiki then returned one final time in mid-'72 and remained prominent until its ultimate end in early 1973. Musashi was then collected by Asahi Sonorama with Jump not able to publish its version for several years and Motomiya refused to have the later chapters of Otoko Ippiki reprinted in some collections of the series and only made them available digitally through his company with the series' 50th anniversary. The digital version sold by Shueisha continues to not include them. Meanwhile, Harenchi Gakuen ended its final time in late 1972 with the very next issue starting Nagai's new series Mazinger Z (another rare early example of a series getting the cover for its first issue) but Go Nagai left Jump after a year of Mazinger and later works in the franchise were published in many other magazines where he had already established himself. He never made another series in Weekly Shonen Jump.

    1973 Aidoku Shasho Results; Mid-1973's Five New Series; Obora Ichidai; Toilet Hakase
    1973 Aidoku Shasho Results; Mid-1973's Five New Series; Obora Ichidai; Toilet Hakase

    At the start of 1973, Jump had its first annual contest where readers voted for their ten favorite authors to each create a one-shot and then vote on those one-shots so the winning author could receive a prize. Multiple years these contests included popular authors that did not actually appear in Jump but the first year included Nagai (Mazinger Z), Tezuka (Lion Books), Kawasaki (Isamu), Yoshizawa (Dokonjo Gaeru), Mochizuki (who was no longer serializing in Jump but had the popular Wild 7 in Weekly Shonen King), Iimori (Boku no Dobutsuen Nikki), Ikezawa (Arashi! Sanpiki), Torii (Toilet Hakase), Yoshimori (he had only appeared in a few issues of Jump before but had been active in other magazines for years and would start a long-running series in Weekly Shonen Champion this same year) and Motomiya (Otoko Ippiki). Each year a special issue of Jump was released to collect all the one-shots and order them by their voted ranking.

    In mid-'73, Jump once again attempted to give a batch of new series the covers for their first issues (24-25-26-27-28) but while all five covers prominently promoted all five series, only the last two (both by established authors from other magazines) actually gave the full cover to their new series. The first of these was Play Ball which was a sequel of sorts to Captain (the first hit from Jump's companion magazine Bessatsu Shonen Jump/Monthly Shonen Jump), special issues of Jump were released before and after the start of Play Ball that collected chapters of Captain for new readers. The second was Hochonin Ajihei, an early successful cooking manga by a writer/artist duo that had previously worked together in Weekly Shonen Magazine. Though the other three series from this batch were not ultimately successful, two involved authors who would return with big hits in 1975 and the other was one of the first manga to be published in English, Hadashi no Gen. The author had been a kid who survived Hiroshima and the manga was a dramatized telling of this experience.

    Motomiya then returned with a new series Obora Ichidai, and the gag manga Toilet Hakase which had been quietly running in the magazine for three years began frequently receiving cover pages and color pages due to switching out its titular protagonist for Sunami. Toilet Hakase was one of the best-selling manga in early Jump history and when it ended in 1977 it was also the longest, with over three-hundred chapters and its Jump Comics tankobon collection reaching 30 volumes (an achievement passed a few years later by Kochikame which ultimately lasted 200 volumes and nearly 2000 chapters). Jump also began to promote its baseball manga, which while often long-running rarely got covers or color pages before this. Covers from Play Ball, Samurai Giants and Astro Kyudan increased (including covers where the three of them appeared together for a general baseball theme) and a much more balanced rotation of popular series of different varieties was finally achieved. Jump had become the weekly shonen magazine with the highest circulation.

    Play Ball with Honoo no Giants and Astro Kyudan; Circuit no Okami; Hana Mo Arashi Mo; Doberman Deka
    Play Ball with Honoo no Giants and Astro Kyudan; Circuit no Okami; Hana Mo Arashi Mo; Doberman Deka

    For the second one-shot contest in 1974, Jump actually gave each of the ten one-shots the cover of their issue, pictures of the authors were included on the covers for the 1973 and 1974 contests. Though most of the ten authors were the same as the previous year, new faces included Kimio Yanagisawa (Onna-Darake), Norihiro Nakajima (Astro Kyudan), Akio Chiba (Play Ball) and Fujio Akatsuka (the legendary gag manga author who had rarely appeared in Jump but the now very popular Toilet Hakase debuted in 1969 as part of a series of one-shots made by his assistants). Honoo no Giants was launched in late 1974 with many color pages in its early months (being tied to the popular real-life baseball team the Yomiuri Giants) and Circuit no Okami started in the first issue of 1975 with a manga about circuit racing that became one of the most popular and longest-running Jump manga of the late 70's. Kawasaki returned to Jump with one final short series in early 1975, Hana Mo Arashi Mo, which received the cover for each of its first three chapters. The third one-shot contest only brought in one new author, Saburo Ishikawa, who had barely appeared in Jump at this point but would go on to have a year-long series in the magazine a few years later.

    Motomiya's Obora Ichidai ended in dramatic fashion (with the protagonist blowing his own brains out with a gun) and he returned a few months later with Zero no Hakutaka about a class of young kamikaze pilots and their unfortunate fate, this was a shorter series and the first of a common trend for the legendary author who would remain a fixture in the magazine for another decade but frequently cut his own series short or made them about unconventional things while he also branched out into writing popular works in many other magazines including seinen and shonen. His presence was largely felt in the magazine through his influence on many of the other young authors including a few who had been his assistants. One of his former assistants became a major manga writer (Buronson) and began Doberman Deka in mid-'75 which became his first hit series, it was the first series of the artist Shinji Hiramatsu who had been published in Jump while he was still in high school several years earlier. He would go on to produce a manga for Grand Jump decades later that dramatically depicted his career in Weekly Shonen Jump and featured appearances from notable authors of that time.

    1976-1980

    Notable Rookie Debuts: Buichi Terasawa, Osamu Akimoto, Hisashi Eguchi, Akira Miyashita, Akira Toriyama, Tomoo Kimura, Tatsuo Kanai, Kenichi Kotani, Yudetamago, Motoki Monma, Koji Koseki, Motoei Shinzawa, Yoichi Takahashi, Tsukasa Hojo, Ryuji Tsugihara

    Notable New Serials: Kochikame, Ring ni Kakero, Kinnikuman, Cobra, Susume!! Pirates, Dr. Slump, Sawayaka Mantaro, Todai Icchokusen, Shiritsu Kiwamemichi Koko, Geki!! Gokutora Ikka, Sannen Kimengumi, Yamazaki Ginjiro

    Akutare Giants; Kochikame
    Akutare Giants; Kochikame

    With Jump's foundations laid, this era brought in or significantly increased the profile of many creators who would come to define the 80's for Jump when the magazine reached a new height of popularity and influence. The 1976 reader one-shot contest continued to feature many of the same creators as previous years but Kontaro was added as a new face shortly after the beginning of his new gag manga 1•2 no Ahho!! in the previous year and Hiramatsu wrote and drew his own one-shot for the contest (though his popular new series Doberman Deka was written by Buronson). The trio of long-running baseball manga was maintained after the end of Honoo no Giants with the start of Akutare Giants which also had ties to the real-life baseball team. It is likely due to these ties that both series have long been out-of-print despite the fact Akutare ended up lasting more than twenty volumes and its author became a major contributor to Jump for the next decade.

    It was still not the norm for new series to get the cover in their first issue but some did get it like Beranme Holmes (Yoshizawa's series after Dokonjo Gaeru) or Condor no Tsubasa (Nakajima's series after Astro Kyudan). Both ended within a few months. At this point authors that stuck around in the magazine would often end a series and be back with a new one months later as both Yoshizawa and Nakajima returned yet again with a new series in early 1977. Many covers this year were group covers but Circuit no Okami, Doberman Deka and Play Ball remained popular. Towards the end of the year (1976-42), the rookie Tatsuhiko Yamadome began Kochikame but it did not get a cover until 51 after which it began to receive much more prominence in the magazine due to its early popularity. It went on to last forty years. Tatsuhiko himself (who later had to change his pen-name and became Osamu Akimoto) was one of the new faces in the 1977 one-shot contest. Yoshihiro Takahashi (of Akutare Giants) also made his first appearance. Toilet Hakase became one of the rare manga before the late 90's to get promoted on the cover of its final chapter (though it was at the back of the magazine and did not get a color page).

    Ring ni Kakero; Sawayaka Mantaro; Susume!! Pirates; Cobra
    Ring ni Kakero; Sawayaka Mantaro; Susume!! Pirates; Cobra

    Much like Kochikame, another hugely significant manga started in early 1977 which also did not get the cover (with Kochikame getting the cover instead), this was Kurumada's Ring ni Kakero which became one of the biggest hits in the magazine and massively elevated Kurumada's legacy. He had a short series in Jump years before but that was lumped in with the gag manga of its time while this became an influential battle manga; applying the over-the-top training, drama and art-style of a mid-70's Jump hit Astro Kyudan to boxing. Another Motomiya assistant, Tatsuo Kanai, debuted his golf series Hole-in-One which ran for a couple years. This was the only year from 1968-1987 where Motomiya himself did not have any serialization active at some point in the year (his previous series Zero had ended in mid-1976) but he did appear for two one-shots, the first as part of the annual one-shot contest and the second was Sawayaka Mantaro which received the cover and came back the following year as his next series. Though the magazine now varied its covers more often so they weren't necessarily the series that got the lead color page that issue, Sawayaka got the lead color for its first five chapters in a row and received a color page for more than 30 issues in 1978.

    Many other series from these years were still not getting covers and a fair amount never got collected. Quite a few popular authors of the early 70's left Weekly Shonen Jump for other magazines and publishers (Torii, Yoshizawa, Iimori, Gyu, Biggu, Akio, Yanagisawa) or those that had not been too popular went elsewhere to become much more famous like Keiji Nakazawa, Yukinobu Hoshino or Daijiro Morohoshi. This left room for a number of rookies to emerge in the late 70's and early 80's that would define the magazine into the early 90's. The 1978 one-shot contest was the first appearance of Masami Kurumada (Ring ni Kakero), Tatsuo Kanai (Hole-in-One) and Hisashi Eguchi (his gag manga Susume!! Pirates regularly received color pages around this period). Another significant debut came at the end of the year with the start of Cobra, a James Bond meets Star Wars action manga that was serialized in sections over the years rather than at a consistent weekly pace, the cover of its first issue was instead taken by Ring ni Kakero but in turn Cobra's first cover a few months later was the first published appearance of Akira Toriyama.

    Shiritsu Kiwamemechi Koko; Kinnikuman; Dr. Slump; Yamazaki Ginjiro
    Shiritsu Kiwamemechi Koko; Kinnikuman; Dr. Slump; Yamazaki Ginjiro

    The 1979 one-shot contest had only one first appearance which was surprisingly Leiji Matsumoto (he had briefly appeared in Jump a decade earlier but was much more famous for his works in many other shonen and seinen magazines through the 70's). Jump again tried giving a batch of new manga each their own cover for the first chapter (18-19-20-21-22), three of these were rookie debuts. The last two were quite rough at the beginning of their series but refined themselves and quickly became two of the major artists for the 80's. The first was Akira Miyashita whose battle manga about a yakuza-training school (Shiritsu Kiwamemechi Koko) went completely over-the-top with its comedic situations and ultimately got cancelled after a year due to an assistant slipping in some controversial real-world drama into the backgrounds (see: Controversy). The second was Yudetamago's Kinnikuman which started as a gag manga but eventually became a highly popular battle manga about professional wrestling which was one of Jump's longest series yet when it ended in 1987.

    The first batch of new series in 1980 brought back three creators that had recently ended popular series (Shinji Hiramatsu, Tatsuo Kanai, Satoshi Ikezawa) but the final series was Dr. Slump by Akira Toriyama which became one of Jump's biggest series of the early 80's. The 1980 one-shot contest surprisingly featured a return from Leiji Matsumoto but also the first appearance from Akira Miyashita (his popular debut manga was abruptly ended in the same issue his one-shot appeared), Kenichi Kotani (artist of the recent new sports series, Tennis Boy) and Yudetamago (Kinnikuman). Motomiya's Sawayaka had ended in late '79 and he had followed it up with the very short and subdued Mannenyuki no Mieru Ie which was quite unlike his previous Jump manga and collected under the rare Home Comics brand rather than Jump Comics. But in 1980 he returned with another major series in Yamazaki Ginjiro, this was actually a sequel to his successful series Koha Ginjiro which had been one of Monthly Shonen Jump's first hits when it ran from 1975-1978. Yamazaki received the lead color for five of its first six chapters and several covers but like many of his 80's Jump works, it did not seem intended to last for years and concluded in 1981 (getting the cover for its final chapter). Miyashita also managed to quickly return after his unfortunate cancellation with his second series, Geki!! Gokutora Ikka which took place in the same universe as his first series but focused on a new protagonist who would end up encountering and being inspired by the characters from the first series. This manga ultimately went even more over-the-top than Shiritsu had.

    1981-1985

    Notable Rookie Debuts: Hirohiko Araki, Tetsuo Hara, Masakazu Katsura, Masaya Tokuhiro, Tetsuya Saruwatari, Hiromi Morishita, Izumi Matsumoto, Hiroshi Aro, Masatoshi Usune

    Notable New Serials: Hokuto no Ken, Dragon Ball, Cat's Eye, Captain Tsubasa, Stop!! Hibari-kun, City Hunter, Kimagure Orange Road, Sakigake!! Otokojuku, Ginga: Nagareboshi Gin, Wing-Man, Black Angels, Tenchi wo Kurau, Shape Up Ran, Fuma no Kojiro

    9th Aidoku Shasho Results; Captain Tsubasa; Black Angels; Stop!! Hibari-kun
    9th Aidoku Shasho Results; Captain Tsubasa; Black Angels; Stop!! Hibari-kun

    In early 1981, Jump held its 9th annual one-shot contest with new faces including Takeshi Miya (who had recently started his second Jump series Bun no Seishun!) and Akira Toriyama (a year into its run, Dr. Slump had already become one of the most popular series in the magazine). Near the end of the contest, the new series Captain Tsubasa started but did not receive the cover. The series would go on to be one of the biggest sports manga of all-time and the original series lasted for nearly forty volumes. At this point there were still a fair amount of new series not getting the cover and never getting collected, though towards the end of this timeframe was when this mostly changed to the modern status quo of nearly everything getting the cover for the first chapter and later getting collected.

    Near the end of 1981 the still very popular Ring ni Kakero ended and was given the lead color for its final chapter, an honor only a rare few series would get in later decades. But this timeframe also saw the launch of several major new series for Jump by several veterans and a rookie. Hiramatsu, the artist of the 70's hit Doberman Deka had ended his first solo series about pro-wrestling (Rikki Typhoon) and now began Black Angels which was a dark and violent manga that ultimately became the universe many other later Hiramatsu works were set in. Eguchi's follow-up to his popular Susume!! Pirates had been the short-lived Hinomaru Gekijo but now he began what became his most popular work, Stop!! Hibari-kun. This manga was an early example of a popular author struggling to maintain a weekly pace and getting into conflict with his editors that ultimately resulted in the manga ending after only four volumes despite being one of the most popular series of this era. The popularity of series' like this and Dr. Slump were massively impacted by their anime, a trend that would only become more significant for serials in the magazine in later decades.

    Cat's Eye; Fuma no Kojiro
    Cat's Eye; Fuma no Kojiro

    The major rookie to debut their first series at this time was Tsukasa Hojo with his Lupin-esque romance manga Cat's Eye which followed a trio of sisters who worked as major art thieves while the middle sister dated the easily-deceived cop who was trying to catch them. After Kakero ended, Kurumada was not gone for long and returned just a few months later with his next series Fuma no Kojiro. Though it did not get the cover until its third chapter, it did receive a special prologue chapter in a bonus issue of Jump as well as the lead color for all of its first three chapters. Now that Kurumada was one of the biggest authors in the magazine, his new series was featured regularly on the cover through its first year as one of the big titles in the magazine but it did not prove to be as successful as Kakero and was ended after only two years.

    The 1982 one-shot contest brought the first appearance of Yoichi Takahashi (Captain Tsubasa) and Tsukasa Hojo (Cat's Eye). Two major 70's authors who got their start in Jump (Satoshi Ikezawa and Norihiro Nakajima) finished their last series for the magazine at this time, after repeated attempts to produce another success. Hiroshi Motomiya returned with a unique manga where he himself was the main character and getting involved in politics, the manga featured real-life politicians but was another major change of pace from his earlier big hits and it ended after half a year, near the end of its run he published a two-part epilogue to Otoko Ippiki Gaki-Daisho.

    Many series from this era were by authors who would later become popular, either in Jump or elsewhere, or they were unsuccessful new series by authors that had already been popular but at the time they were mostly overshadowed. One significant debut at the start of 1983 was Wing-Man, the first series of Masakazu Katsura which introduced much of the romance and sci-fi elements that were present in his later bigger hits but with a more kid-friendly setting. The 1983 one-shot contest had the first appearance by Taku Chiba (whose romcom soccer manga Kick-Off had started a year earlier) and Motoei Shinzawa (his gag manga Sannen Kimengumi had begun in 1980 but changed its name in 1982 to Highschool! Kimengumi which is the name under which it became a big hit). This was the last of the annual contests and with most of the participants debuting or first becoming popular in the 80's, this was the first year where none of the participants had been serialized in Jump when the contest first started. This was the only year where Hiroshi Motomiya did not participate.

    Tenchi wo Kurau; Shape Up Ran; Hokuto no Ken; Nagareboshi Gin
    Tenchi wo Kurau; Shape Up Ran; Hokuto no Ken; Nagareboshi Gin

    A few months later Motomiya returned with the epic set in the Three Kingdoms period of China, Tenchi wo Kurau, which was given a fully-colored first chapter and seemingly planned to be a major return for him, with the lead color given for its first three chapters. But Motomiya ultimately decided to cut it short after only a year and the series mostly lived on through its adaptation as a video game. This was his last series in the magazine to receive major promotion. But as part of the same batch of new series came the debut of another major Jump creator, Masaya Tokuhiro, whose debut gag manga Shape Up Ran featured a bodybuilding female protagonist and a number of perverted side-characters that became part of Tokuhiro's distinct humor-style. This series popularized the "mokkori" gag which was later associated with City Hunter.

    Finally in late 1983 the magazine began serializing Hokuto no Ken, the first chapter proved to be the most popular in Jump and ultimately the series created a revival in battle manga for the magazine and helped solidify a beginning of exponential growth. The series had been created by the rookie Tetsuo Hara (who had a short manga in Jump a year earlier) but Buronson was brought on to write it and it became one of the best-selling manga of all-time despite a relatively short length that had actually been extended due to overwhelming popularity. Ginga: Nagareboshi Gin began a few months later and was the last major Jump series from Yoshihiro Takahashi who at the time was one of Jump's most frequently-published authors but hadn't had a long-running manga since his first, with Ginga being his fourth year in a row that he started a new series in Jump. He had one of the longest-running manga in Monthly Shonen Jump at the time (which was his first major series about a dog) but Ginga proved to be his career's biggest legacy with him producing over a hundred volumes of sequel manga decades later.

    Kimagure Orange Road; Dragon Ball; City Hunter; Sakigake!! Otokojuku
    Kimagure Orange Road; Dragon Ball; City Hunter; Sakigake!! Otokojuku

    Despite the fact Jump was publishing violent and heavily masculine battle manga like Hokuto no Ken at this time, they were still publishing plenty of romance and early 1984 began one of the most famous romance manga from the magazine's history (Kimagure Orange Road). Kurumada attempted a return with Otokozaka, a tribute to the manga that had inspired him in his youth (Otoko Ippiki Gaki-Daisho) but it was ended after less than a year and he would not be able to continue it until decades later. Dr. Slump ended in late 1984 as Toriyama had been struggling with keeping his gag manga going week-to-week but only a few months later he returned with the comedic adventure manga Dragon Ball. Originally featuring a kid protagonist like Dr. Slump, the series was popular and lasted a few years in this form before aging the characters, revealing a number of major characters had been aliens and beginning the series of battle arcs that made the anime a global phenomenon and the manga one of the best-selling of all time. At the time of its end it was one of the longest manga in Jump history and was a major influence on a number of significant creators who debuted in the late 90's.

    Tsukasa Hojo then ended his manga Cat's Eye and returned with City Hunter, which also became a comedic action/romance manga but started out with a much tougher and perverted male protagonist shaped by the changing landscape of the magazine. This was shortly followed by the major return of Akira Miyashita (after a few shorter series since Gokutora Ikka ended) with Sakigake!! Otokojuku, which started as a satiricial manga in a similar setting to his first series but quickly became one of the major battle manga of Jump's eighties decade. At this point Jump was in one of its most recognizable eras with most of the series in the magazine at the time remaining beloved franchises, many of them actively publishing new material decades later after this generation of authors had long since left Weekly Shonen Jump.

    1986-1990

    Notable Rookie Debuts: Masanori Morita, Yoshihiro Togashi, Kazushi Hagiwara, Makoto Niwano, Takeshi Obata, Takehiko Inoue, Makoto Isshiki, Tadashi Sato, Yutaka Takahashi, Takashi Kisaki, Teruto Aruga, Shinji Imaizumi, Daimuro Kishi, Koji Inada, Takeshi Okano, Haruto Umezawa, Yuko Asami

    Notable New Serials: Slam Dunk, Rokudenashi Blues, Jojo no Kimyo na Boken, Yu Yu Hakusho, Dragon Quest: Dai no Daiboken, Hana no Keiji, Saint Seiya, Denei Shojo, Magical Taruruto-kun, Bastard!!, Jungle Oja no Tar-chan, Moeru!! Onii-san, Chinyuki, Yamashita Taro-kun, Godsider, The Momotaroh, Kami-sama wa Southpaw

    Saint Seiya
    Saint Seiya

    By this point Jump's circulation was increasing by the millions and issues became longer, allowing for a few more series to run at once. There were a considerable amount of new series that ran for a while and have gone on to have sequels/spin-offs and decades-long legacies despite the fact they were somewhat overshadowed by the amount of top-tier competition in the magazine at the time. 1986 started off with a major debut in its first issue with the final successful return from Masami Kurumada (Saint Seiya). Seiya went on to be the longest single series of his Jump career (by a very small margin) and spawned many spin-offs by later artists but unlike Kakero, it did not end with a celebration but with an undelivered final arc remaining. Kurumada would later create a long sequel for Kakero in one of Shueisha's seinen Jump magazines but Saint Seiya spin-off material was published with Akita Shoten.

    A few months later, Hiroshi Motomiya began Sekiryuo for the magazine's 900th issue. Though it lasted for a year, the only cover and color page it got was for the first chapter and the final volumes were published outside of the magazine. He left Weekly Shonen Jump after this as the last creator still around from the 60's and focused more on multiple Jump seinen magazines. This was when Jump launched the new seinen magazine Super Jump (where some chapters of Sekiryuo were published after it left WSJ), which took on several Jump authors that had recently failed to return with new hits in Weekly Shonen Jump like Buichi Terasawa (serializing many Cobra sequels) and Shinji Hiramatsu (expanding the Black Angels universe with Murder License Kiba). Other significant Jump authors would also move to Super Jump in the 90's when Jump faced a generational shift including Akira Miyashita, Masaya Tokuhiro, Koji Maki, Kenichi Kotani, Masami Kurumada and Tatsuya Egawa.

    Jojo no Kimyo na Boken
    Jojo no Kimyo na Boken

    For the second year in a row, the series which ultimately had the largest cultural impact started in the first issue with Araki's Jojo no Kimyo na Boken. This was his third attempt at a series in Jump but his first to survive and officially lasted for more than a decade, making it the second-longest Jump series at the time of its end in 1999. This was mostly accomplished by the fact that the series changed its setting, time-period, mythology and power sources to varying degrees four different times. These are now generally separated into five parts (Phantom Blood, Battle Tendency, Stardust Crusaders, Diamond is Unbreakable, Golden Wind) but it was only with the sixth part in 2000 that the series would reset its volumes and officially change its title with each new part.

    While never as prominent as many of their contemporaries, mainstay authors that helped fill out the magazine in these years included Koji Koseki (the last example of a successful baseball manga author in Jump with Yamashita Taro-kun and Pennant Race), Shinji Imaizumi (author of the gymnastics manga Sora no Canvas and boxing manga Kami-sama wa Southpaw), Koji Maki (whose violent manga like Godsider were polarizing in Jump but found more of a home in seinen) and a number of others. Moeru! Onii-san and Jungle Oja no Tar-chan became popular gag manga while The Momotaroh and Bastard!! were fairly short-lived debut manga in Jump that began the careers of two major creators with Niwano (Momotaroh) remaining a mainstay in Jump through the 90's and Hagiwara (Bastard!!) being unable to keep up the weekly pace and becoming one of the faces of Jump's quarterly seasonal special. He briefly returned to Jump with Bastard in the late 90's after the seasonal special ended but still published at a much slower rate before ultimately moving to the seinen magazine Ultra Jump.

    By this point many of the major series of the 80's had ended (Kinnikuman, Hokuto no Ken, Captain Tsubasa, Ginga: Nagareboshi Gin, Kimagure Orange Road, Highschool! Kimengumi) and most of their authors were attempting to return with new hits that sometimes received major upfront promotion but often failed to survive a year. Yudetamago attempted several series in Jump after Kinnikuman but left for other publishers after the third try. Yoshihiro tried one more time after Gin but left for seinen magazines. Yoichi's first series after Tsubasa was very short-lived but he did return with more success in the 90's. Motoei came back after Kimengumi but had to quit just over a year in and mostly retired from manga. Matsumoto similarly mostly retired after Kimagure but did appear in some of Jump's seinen magazines. Buronson left Jump and concentrated more on his career writing seinen manga for other publishers.

    Rokudenashi Blues; Magical Taruruto-kun
    Rokudenashi Blues; Magical Taruruto-kun

    In mid-1988 Jump had its biggest first serialization by an author since the 70's (a status it continued to hold until One Piece arrived nine years later) with Masanori Morita's Rokudenashi Blues, one of the biggest titles of the delinquent boom that took over in the late 80's and lasted through the 90's. Although initially it wasn't very successful, after the first year it saw a huge boost in popularity to become one of the most popular titles in the magazine for a few years and despite never getting an anime series (which helped boost the popularity of many other Jump manga from this time), it was one of the few manga to last over four-hundred chapters when it finally ended in 1997. Late 1988 brought the arrival of one of the very rare "modern" cases of an author established in seinen manga coming to serialize in Weekly Shonen Jump with Tatsuya Egawa beginning Magical Taruruto-kun. Egawa had been a Hiroshi Motomiya assistant in the early 80's but when Motomiya showed off his assistant's work (that became Be Free!) to the editorial of the magazines he was publishing for, it got picked up by Morning where it was serialized. Taruruto ran for four years but when it ended Egawa moved to Super Jump and it remained his big shonen series in a career of mostly seinen work.

    Hara had his major return after Hokuto no Ken with Cyber Blue which was heavily promoted but ultimately ended after a few months. He then returned again a year later with his next major hit at Jump, Hana no Keiji, which was a drama based on the historical fiction novel written by the then recently-deceased Ryu Keiichiro. It was set in the Sengoku period and starred the legendary Keiji Maeda, a much more flamboyant and playful protagonist in comparison to Kenshiro. In later decades Hara's company would publish many spin-offs to Hokuto no Ken and Hana no Keiji (as well as some to Cyber Blue).

    Dai no Daiboken; Denei Shojo; Slam Dunk; Yu Yu Hakusho
    Dai no Daiboken; Denei Shojo; Slam Dunk; Yu Yu Hakusho

    1989 began a surprising amount of historically significant series, as several of them were the debut series by authors who came back to be some of the biggest names of the 90's (particularly Takeshi Obata, Yoshihiro Togashi, Takehiko Inoue and Takeshi Okano). The successful rookie series of the year was created as part of Jump's ties to the popular franchise Dragon Quest (the characters of that video game were created by Toriyama who was one of Jump's most popular authors) and featured an original story set in the Dragon Quest world. Dai no Daiboken was drawn by Koji Inada and remained popular through the 90's and ran for seven years. One of the best-selling manga based on a franchise from another medium, it is notable for being in Jump as Dragon Quest is owned by Enix who had their own manga publishing and serialized Dragon Quest manga themselves over the decades. The other major series of 1989 was Denei Shojo, the return of Masakazu Katsura. Up until this point only his debut series Wing-Man had been successful but this was his fourth series in Jump and though it retained the science fiction elements of his earlier works, it was much more focused on romantic drama and is likely his most famous Jump series despite wrapping up its story in just over one hundred chapters. Though it was popular, the series spent a lot of its time towards the back of the magazine which became a common trend for ecchi manga in Jump.

    In mid-1990, the gag manga Tar-chan shifted focus and became more of a battle manga with the chapter length doubling and the title adding slightly changing. This ended up being Tokuhiro's most successful Jump series and altogether lasted seven years. Finally this era ended with three major new series at the end of 1990. The first was Slam Dunk which started out as a delinquent manga similar to Rokudenashi Blues (which was theoretically supposed to be a boxing manga) but ultimately evolved into one of the most beloved basketball manga of all-time. It was the only series that truly contended with Dragon Ball at the height of Dragon Ball's popularity and remains one of the best-selling manga of all time despite its relatively shorter length. The second major series was Chinyuki which was the first series of the bizarre gag manga creator ManGataro. The series was supposed to be a retelling of Journey to the West but quickly devolved into random tangents and crazy side-characters with an over-the-top level of senseless violence. It only lasted a year but began the career of a major author who rarely did lengthy works and made things that weren't meant to be commercially appealing. The final major series was Yu Yu Hakusho which also began with a delinquent protagonist but later became a supernatural battle manga with a cast full of demons. Significantly popularized by its anime, the manga ended its last major arc somewhat abruptly and the series concluded in 1994. The author Togashi would return in the later 90's but never again with a weekly output.

    1991-1995

    Notable Rookie Debuts: Kazuki Takahashi, Ryu Fujisaki, Kyosuke Usuta, Tsunomaru, Takashi Noguchi, Keishu Ando, Koji Kiriyama, Hiroshi Gamo, Shinobu Kaitani, Nobuhiro Watsuki, Hajime Kazu, Shinichi Sakamoto, Ton Okawara, Yasuhiro Kano, Daisuke Higuchi

    Notable New Serials: Hareluya II Boy, Jigoku Sensei Nube, Rurouni Kenshin, Midori no Makibao, Ninku, Sexy Commando, Captain Tsubasa: World Youth, Bonbonzaka Koko Engekibu, Hentai Kamen, Monmonmon, Tottemo! Luckyman, Outer Zone, Majima-kun Suttobasu!!, Pennant Race, Level E

    Circulation Over 6 Million, 1991-03-04
    Circulation Over 6 Million, 1991-03-04

    While most of the big series of this time period actually began in earlier periods, this timeframe represented one of Jump's biggest shifts as it spent most of these five years selling better than it ever had until its circulation peaked in early 1995 and began to plummet. A handful of series from this time would continue on into the late 90's as well when the generational shift would more fully complete itself. A lot of the notable new authors to emerge in Jump at this time were actually overshadowed and only found success after the veterans left, when they went to new magazines or through relatively dedicated smaller followings they retained from their time here. Though Jump had female authors serialize in the magazine before (like Hiromi Morishita), this was when it first started to become more regular with rookies like Yuko Asami, Yuki Hidaka and Hajime Kazu. Asami and Kazu would return in the late 90's with longer-running series.

    The magazine was mostly dominated by ongoing franchises like Dragon Ball, Slam Dunk, Rokudenashi Blues, Dai no Daiboken, Yu Yu Hakusho, Jojo and Tar-chan. Series like Outer Zone ultimately lasted for a few years but initially it was ended after only a few chapters and then later brought back. Veteran Koji Koseki's Pennant Race was another moderately successful baseball series like his last one but ended just short of three years in. Other veterans continued popping in and out with new serials in the early 90's but none that lived up to their 80's hits including Makoto Niwano, Ryuji Tsugihara, Shinji Imaizumi, Tadashi Sato, Yoichi Takahashi and Masakazu Katsura. Takeshi Obata who had debuted in the 80's and would go on to be one of Jump's most legendary creators continued to come back with new writers but none of his three series that started in this time period managed to even outlast his short-lived debut series.

    Monmonmon; Bonbonzaka; Hareluya II Boy; Hentai Kamen
    Monmonmon; Bonbonzaka; Hareluya II Boy; Hentai Kamen

    New authors emerged like Kazuki Takahashi and Ryu Fujisaki but their first series failed and each of them only came back several years later with the series that became their most famous. The biggest new series of this time included the first of the gag manga author Tsunomaru (Monmonmon), the first long-running series of the gag manga author Yutaka Takahashi (Bonbonzaka) and the first long-running series of the author Haruto Umezawa whose Hareluya II BOY ran for more than six years and was one of Jump's longest delinquent manga. Unlike many of the other Jump manga featuring delinquent protagonists, BOY did not have a secondary objective that periodically became the focus like a sport or the supernatural and it remained a manga about fighting other delinquents until the end. The iconic cult classic Hentai Kamen also started at this time, it was relatively short-lived but has gone to have a significant legacy.

    With City Hunter, Sakigake!! Otokojuku and Saint Seiya each ending at the start of the 90's, their authors all joined the group of major 80's veterans trying to get a new hit. While Hojo and Miyashita continued trying with multiple short series, Kurumada only tried one more time with Silent Knight Sho. When it ended after a couple months he left the magazine, nearly two decades into his time as a regular there, and began working with other publishers including being the face of the newly-launched Monthly Shonen Ace (where Kinnikuman's author Yudetamago also went). Both Kurumada and Yudetamago would later return to Shueisha seinen magazines.

    Ninku; Jigoku Sensei Nube; Captain Tsubasa: World Youth; Rurouni Kenshin
    Ninku; Jigoku Sensei Nube; Captain Tsubasa: World Youth; Rurouni Kenshin

    Ninku began in 1993 as another notable yet relatively overshadowed series of the time, it was serialized in two parts with a months-long break in 1994 but would later get a sequel that was longer than the original series in the seinen magazine Ultra Jump. The gag manga Tottemo! Luckyman also started in mid-1993 and lasted for several years. But the biggest series of the year was Jigoku Sensei Nube which united Sho Makura and Takeshi Okano as a writer/artist duo after both had a short-lived debut series as solo creators in Jump years earlier. Nube went on to last six years and the duo stuck together, ultimately making many spin-offs and sequels to Nube in later decades. Masakazu Katsura attempted to follow-up Denei Shojo with DNA2 and later Shadow Lady but neither lasted a year. After Hana no Keiji ended, Hara also began trying new serials with his year-long Kagemusha being the most successful.

    Authors who would later become major in Jump's seinen magazines had their first series here including Shinobu Kaitani, Shinichi Sakamoto and Ton Okawara but none of them were successful. Yoichi Takahashi became the first (and essentially only) author to return and make a true sequel to one of their earlier hits with Captain Tsubasa: World Youth. Originally releasing a short interlude serial while his series Chibi was still ongoing in 1993, in 1994 he returned with a proper series and it lasted for several years. While not as significant as the original Tsubasa, it did begin a new phase of Takahashi's career which saw him creating Tsubasa sequels for more than three decades (though later sequels were done in Jump's seinen magazines). The issue after World Youth's start began Rurouni Kenshin (the first series of its author Nobuhiro Watsuki), Kenshin became one of the most popular series of the late 90's period and lasted until 1999 with Watsuki later producing spin-off and sequel material.

    Midori no Makibao; Majima-kun Suttobasu!!; Sexy Commando; Takeki Ryusei
    Midori no Makibao; Majima-kun Suttobasu!!; Sexy Commando; Takeki Ryusei

    Osama wa Robo by Kokichi Naniwa began the trend of having a short gag manga at the back of the magazine (notably followed up in later decades by Pyu to Fuku! Jaguar and Isobe Isobee). Monmonmon's author Tsunomaru then returned at the end of 1994 with Midori no Makibao which lasted over three years and became his most enduring work, with sequels he later did for Weekly Playboy running for a full decade. Early 1995 started what became the longest-running series of Makoto Niwano, Majima-kun, which also was later given an even longer sequel. The very last issue of the year also began one of the most enduring Jump gag manga, the strange Sexy Commando by new author Kyosuke Usuta. The manga ended less than two years in but achieved a classic status in Jump beyond what many longer gag manga have. Togashi also returned after the end of YYH with the new series Level E which was a rare example of a series never serialized weekly and instead releasing 16 chapters at a monthly rate before it ended. But overall, 1995 was a year of departures and of a magazine that had peaked beginning its market decline.

    Dragon Ball was by far the most significant manga ending of the year, as one of the biggest pillars of the magazine it was the first series since Ring ni Kakero in 1981 to get a fully-colored final chapter for its end. It ran for over ten years without missing an issue (some issues even having multiple chapters) and was the last major series by Akira Toriyama who would then only return to Jump periodically over the decades with short serials that were far less action-packed and more light-hearted with kid protagonists like his earlier manga. Other major authors from Jump's 80's that left this year after the end of their final Jump series included Akira Miyashita, Tsukasa Hojo, Ryuji Tsugihara and Tetsuo Hara. All of them moved to Shueisha's seinen magazines but Hojo, Tsugihara and Hara went on to co-found Coamix which then launched Weekly Comic Bunch in 2001 and began serializing spin-offs and sequels to their most famous Jump series' and brought in many other Jump veterans from their era. Bunch ended in 2010 but Coamix continued their publishing output with Monthly Comic Zenon. The last of these authors to end their series in 1995 was Hara with Takeki Ryusei, a short-lived tribute to Jump's first classic Otoko Ippiki Gaki-Daisho. Apart from Toriyama's occassional returns and Akimoto's Kochikame (which lasted two more decades), authors who had first appeared in Jump in the 70's had now officially moved on from the magazine.

    1996-2000

    Notable Rookie Debuts: Eiichiro Oda, Masashi Kishimoto, Tite Kubo, Mitsutoshi Shimabukuro, Takeshi Konomi, Hiroyuki Takei, Yusuke Murata, Kazumata Oguri, Nakaba Suzuki, Kentaro Yabuki, Namie Odama, Yoshio Sawai, Shinya Suzuki

    Notable New Serials: One Piece, Naruto, Hunter × Hunter, Tennis no Oji-sama, Hikaru no Go, Hoshin Engi, Yu-Gi-Oh, I"s, Rookies, Pyu to Fuku! Jaguar, Shaman King, Seikimatsu Leader-den Takeshi!, Black Cat, Whistle!, Hanasaka Tenshi Tenten-kun, Rising Impact, Stone Ocean, Makuhari, Wild Half, Meiryotei Goto Seijuro

    Wild Half; Makuhari; Hoshin Engi; Yu-Gi-Oh!
    Wild Half; Makuhari; Hoshin Engi; Yu-Gi-Oh!

    1996 continued Jump's massive loss in readership as the circulation of the magazine took its biggest hit this year with Slam Dunk now ending after Dragon Ball had the previous year. Nearly a third of the magazine's audience left and Jump stopped celebrating its circulation numbers with Weekly Shonen Magazine retaking the top spot in 1997 after decades of Jump dominance. With many veterans from Jump's top-selling years already gone, the magazine had to bring in a new generation of authors influenced by the past generation to help reestablish the magazine. Though Jump did not retake the top spot until the early 00's, these were the years where many of those massive new authors made their debut (or in some cases, had their first success after earlier failures). The first new series of this timeframe was Wild Half, the first series by a female author in Jump to last not only a year but nearly three. Another significant debut in early 1996 was the controversial gag manga Makuhari which referenced many Jump manga and celebrities and had a very polarizing author, it nearly ran for two years but the author moved to Kodansha where he remained controversial for a time before moving to seinen there.

    The issue after Slam Dunk's end was the first chapter of Hoshin Engi, the first major series by Ryu Fujisaki. Based on the old Chinese novel of the same name, it featured a different style of protagonist to many earlier hits and managed to last four years as one of the biggest series of this time period that did not start before Jump's descent or end after it regained its number one status. The last major new series of the year was Yu-Gi-Oh!, the first major series by Takahashi, which did not start out very popular but shifted focus a year in to becoming more focused on the card game that came to be known in the real world as Yu-Gi-Oh! The success of this card game made the franchise one of the most successful of the era, even though the manga itself went into other games as well and had major differences to the real-life card game. This was also Takahashi's last major manga when it ended in 2004 and later manga sequels to it were tied to the various anime spin-offs and ran in the mixed-media magazine V Jump. Kochikame celebrated its 1000th chapter and 20th anniversary at the end of the year, the first manga to even get close to that length in Jump at the time.

    In early 1997, Toriyama briefly returned with Tokimecha but it only ran for three chapters. After the end of the seasonal special spin-off magazine where many young authors first appeared with one-shots, Bastard!! briefly returned to Weekly Shonen Jump proper and began a new arc. Chapters were spaced out by months and more censored than they appeared in the volumes but by now the series had become much more adult and graphic than it originally had been, it continued to appear until 2000 when it was moved to the seinen magazine Ultra Jump where it continued irregular serialization. On the other end, Hanasaka Tenshi Tenten-kun started at the same time as one of Jump's more child-friendly gag manga and also ran until 2000 with the author later becoming a regular in Jump's elementary school boys' magazine Saikyo Jump.

    Hanasaka Tenshi Tenten-kun; I
    Hanasaka Tenshi Tenten-kun; I"s; Seikimatsu Leader-den Takeshi!; One Piece

    Two early 80's veterans returned in the next batch with Tokuhiro's Wrestling with Momoko lasting a few short months before he permanently moved to Jump's seinen magazine Super Jump. Katsura's I"s on the other hand turned out to be his third major series in the magazine after some minor ones following Denei Shojo and it removed a lot of the science fiction elements of his earlier work to focus more on the romantic drama. Nudity was less common by this time in the magazine and the ecchi was toned down for Jump, but the scenarios remained more serious than the shift Jump ecchi manga took in the next decade and aged the characters beyond high-school over the course of the series so the conflict became management of the idol agency interfering with the main couple's relationship. This was Katsura's last series in the magazine and after it ended in 2000 he ultimately moved to the seinen Weekly Young Jump. In mid-'97 Jump held a one-shot contest similar to the ones it held from 1973-1983 where the most popular authors in the magazine each made a one-shot and fans voted for their favorite. The contestants were Toriyama, Tsunomaru, Fujisaki, Usuta, Akimoto, Umezawa, Morita, Araki, Asami and Watsuki. Only Toriyama and Akimoto had appeared in earlier contests and as he had won some in the past, Toriyama also won this one. He was also the only author in the contest that hadn't serialized anything major in the magazine in over a year.

    After the contest finished, the next two issues began the first series by two new authors that had already become friends, Mitsutoshi Shimabukuro and Eiichiro Oda (the story of which was published in the magazine twenty years later). Shimabukuro's Seikimatsu Leader-den Takeshi! was a gag manga featuring a middle-aged looking elementary school student and originally revolved around resolving situations for classmates or other kids but later shifted into an intense battle manga that hinted more at his later work. It ran until 2002 when it was cancelled over a controversy (mentioned above in the Controversy section) but ultimately finished its run in Super Jump. Oda's One Piece was an adventure/battle manga in the vein of Dragon Ball that became famous for how many years (or decades) the series has taken to resolve early plot threads or finally reveal major parts of the world. Though it later became one the best-selling manga of all-time due in part to its massive length, for most of these years it still had not introduced much of the major cast or the Grand Line.

    Cowa!; Rookies; Whistle!; Hunter × Hunter
    Cowa!; Rookies; Whistle!; Hunter × Hunter

    Toriyama came back yet again at the end of the year and received the cover for the first two chapters of his new series Cowa! but the chapters were short, the series ended up fitting in a single volume and the series was not released weekly in Jump itself. This became the trend for Toriyama's occasional returns the few more times he came back. In early 1998, the author of the long-running Rokudenashi Blues returned a year after that series ended with Rookies. Though this manga also featured a cast of delinquents, the protagonist was now a troublesome young teacher trying to reform the delinquents and where Rokudenashi had been tangentially tied to boxing throughout its run, Rookies was explicitly tied with baseball as the delinquents were all part of the school's baseball team and expected to embrace the sport to reform themselves. While Rokudenashi had been consistently weekly, Rookies semi-regularly missed issues through its five-year run, something that became more common with series from returning veterans at this time.

    After the end of Tsubasa, Whistle! became Jump's newest soccer manga and ran for more than four years as a much more grounded series featuring a protagonist who wanted to get better at the sport by trying to learn from the truly talented players he encountered in minor school games whereas Tsubasa had been a prodigy elevating everyone around him into international superstars. Whistle! and Meiryotei Goto Seijuro which had started a few months earlier soon joined Wild Half as early Jump manga by female authors to run for multiple years. Yoshihiro Togashi then returned in 1998 with his first major series since Yu Yu Hakusho had ended in 1994, like other veterans he took many more breaks than before, chapters were shorter and the art was often quite rough but his new series Hunter × Hunter became a big hit and was mostly a regular feature of the magazine until 2006 when it began to take year-long hiatuses.

    Hiroyuki Takei returned in mid-1998 with his first hit, Shaman King, after a short series in 1997. Similarly to Hoshin Engi, while it was a battle manga, it featured a different sort of protagonist to many other Jump hits as he was not much of a driven character personally while those around him pushed him forward. The series ran for six years but wrapped up rather abruptly in 2004 when Takei refused to speed up the final arc for the final chapter and the series ended inconclusively in the middle of it. He was later able to finish the ending in a kanzenban re-release of the series but this created a tension with Shueisha that continued for later works and ultimately led to him being one of the few major living authors in Jump's history to not be involved in the 50th anniversary celebrations.

    Shaman King; Rising Impact; Hikaru no Go; Tennis no Oji-sama
    Shaman King; Rising Impact; Hikaru no Go; Tennis no Oji-sama

    The next issue Toriyama again returned for a single-volume series with Kajika and new author Nakaba Suzuki began his golf manga Rising Impact at the end of the year. Rising Impact is notable as one of few examples of a series that was initially ended quite quickly (after a couple months) but then brought back to become a long-running series. Though in the volumes the chapter numbers were ongoing, in the magazine they reset when the series returned in mid-1999. Rising Impact ended in 2002 and after one shorter follow-up series in Jump, Nakaba briefly moved to the seinen magazine Ultra Jump before having relatively successful serializations in Weekly Shonen Sunday, Weekly Shonen Champion and then becoming one of the biggest authors in shonen manga at Weekly Shonen Magazine. This made him a very rare example of an author to serialize in all four major weekly shonen magazines after the end of the five weekly shonen magazine era.

    Early 1999 was the first major hit of another creator who had actually debuted in Jump a decade earlier with Hikaru no Go being the manga that made Takeshi Obata into a legendary Jump artist. It was written by Yumi Hotta, she had been a relative unknown before this but was active in the industry in the mid-80's already like Obata. Hikaru no Go proved to be very popular but had a somewhat abrupt end in 2003 and Hotta's follow-up and final manga in Jump was a short-lived series about speed skating drawn by another artist while Obata returned many more times to varying degrees of success with different writers. Mid-1999 then brought the return of Takeshi Konomi who had a short debut series in 1997, his new sports series Tennis no Oji-sama was a major hit and ran for nearly a decade, becoming Jump's longest sports manga at the time of its end. The final major series of the year was Naruto, the first series by Masashi Kishimoto, it began in the same issue that Rurouni Kenshin ended making it an extremely rare example of an issue that features the beginning and the end of two legendary Jump manga.

    Naruto; Stone Ocean; Black Cat; Pyu to Fuku! Jaguar
    Naruto; Stone Ocean; Black Cat; Pyu to Fuku! Jaguar

    Most of the long-running manga that predated Jump's fall in circulation had now ended but a number of their authors attempted returns in the late 90's and early 00's. Most of these were unsuccessful and ultimately retired or moved to seinen magazines (Makoto Niwano, Tsunomaru, Sho Makura, Takeshi Okano, Hiroshi Gamo and Yoichi Takahashi) but a few stuck around for a few more years. Umezawa's follow-up to BOY was the manga Bremen which featured similar characters and themes and lasted almost two years before its end but his later Jump works were much shorter and he ultimately moved to Weekly Young Jump. Araki returned a few months after the end of his long-running Jojo series with Stone Ocean, which was the first to reset the numbering but launched as Part 6 in the Jojo franchise. Though it lasted three years, it spent most of its time at the back of the magazine apart from the rare cover, it was the first part to feature a female protagonist and ultimately ended the original Jojo universe.

    Toriyama returned again with a short series, Sand Land, which ended up being his last for more than a decade and Yabuki's second series Black Cat became his first success in Jump and ran for four years. Jump changed significantly over these five years to a solid line-up full of new faces with its final major new series of the timeframe being Pyu to Fuku! Jaguar. This manga carried on the torch of Osama wa Robo as a short gag manga intended for the back of the magazine. It was drawn by Usuta who had major success with his first series Sexy Commando and less success with a follow-up in 1999 and from the first chapter it appeared at the very back of the magazine. Though it missed plenty of issues over its run, the series ran for over four-hundred chapters and ended on its 10th anniversary with a colored final chapter. As this was the era where Jump exploded in international popularity, Jaguar was one of the only long-running series of the 00's era to not make it over.

    2001-2005

    Notable Rookie Debuts: Yusei Matsui, Katsura Hoshino, Hideaki Sorachi, Akira Amano, Yoshiyuki Nishi, Tsugumi Ohba, Riichiro Inagaki, Ryuhei Tamura, Toshiaki Iwashiro, Amon Dai, Koji Oishi, Yuki Nakashima

    Notable New Serials: Bleach, Death Note, Gintama, Eyeshield 21, Katekyo Hitman Reborn, Majin Tantei Nogami Neuro, D.Gray-man, Ichigo 100%, Bobobobo Bobobo, Muhyo to Roji, Mr. Fullswing, Buso Renkin, Steel Ball Run, Beshari Gurashi

    2001 Line-Up vs. 2004 Line-Up
    2001 Line-Up vs. 2004 Line-Up

    This time period brought two notable changes to Jump since its decline in the late 90's. The first was that with the slipping of Magazine and the ability Jump had to retain its now smaller audience it once again became the number one circulated manga magazine. But this also was the time during which Jump mostly finished switching over in generations from the previous authors who had experienced Jump's original reign of dominance into a new generation of authors that hadn't. It would not become obvious until the end of the decade and start of the next but the series' of this era would go on to shatter standards for what a long and successful Jump series was. Apart from Kochikame which was always an outlier and already over 100 volumes, from the 70's to the 90's a major successful Jump series' length tended to be between 30-42 volumes (with the magazine's most popular series up until that point ending at 42). The only other series to pass this ceiling previously was Jojo though it only reached 63 volumes by regularly switching out the protagonists, time period and location.

    But now, what was previously the ceiling for length became the range for relatively shorter series including Hitman Reborn (42), Eyeshield 21 (37), Yu-Gi-Oh! (38) and Tennis no Oji-sama (42) while the big hits from this period flew well past this precedent and into a range of 70 volumes or more (Naruto, Bleach, Gintama and One Piece). This sort of extreme length is unique to this era of Jump titles and was most noticeable in the following two time periods when all these series were still ongoing and dominating the magazine instead of being replaced by new faces.

    Most of the manga that became the face of the magazine at this time were from the late 90's period including One Piece, Tennis no Oji-sama, Hikaru no Go, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Shaman King and Naruto but the biggest two new series were Bleach and Eyeshield 21 which quickly established themselves as leading titles with Bobobobo and Mr. Fullswing becoming major new gag manga. The magazine experienced some turnover as series from the 90's came to an end (Rookies, Whistle!, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Takeshi) or authors left for others magazines after attempting a comeback (Oguri, Tsunomaru, Watsuki, Umezawa, Okano, Kazu, Fujisaki). Apart from Kochikame which had been ongoing since the 70's, two of the last remaining major authors from the 80's Jump era both made their last Jump series at the end of this time period with Hirohiko Araki's Steel Ball Run only lasting for a few months (including a hiatus already a few chapters in) before getting moved to the seinen magazine Ultra Jump and Masanori Morita's Beshari Gurashi only lasting a few months before getting ultimately moved to the seinen magazine Weekly Young Jump (where it was serialized irregularly for another decade).

    Death Note; Gintama; Reborn!; D.Gray-Man
    Death Note; Gintama; Reborn!; D.Gray-Man

    This time period was also Jump's biggest increase in serialized female authors with a serialization round in 2002 of three new series only including female authors (Namie Odama, Yuki Kobayashi and Mizuki Kawashita). Only Ichigo 100% of this round became a hit but in 2004 Katekyo Hitman Reborn and D.Gray-man (which both became major hits by female authors) were started in the same serialization round as well. 2004 was the biggest year of new hit series for Jump since the 90's with Gintama becoming a very lengthy and popular franchise and Death Note becoming a defining hit from the generation despite only running for two years and twelve volumes (with half that length actually being a polarizing second act with new antagonists after a timeskip). Though this was a follow-up to the very popular Hikaru no Go for the artist Obata, it was the debut of the mysterious writer Tsugumi Ohba who would continue his partnership with Obata after the success of Death Note.

    2004 ended with another relatively successful debuting author's series, Muhyo to Roji, and 2005 similarly began Nogami Neuro and Taizo Mote King Saga. These sorts of series were mostly overshadowed by the bigger successes of the time period but managed to have relative enduring popularity. Due to this time period being the major rise in international popularity for Jump and the Internet generally, many series from this time period that were relatively lower profile if not completely obscure had more reach than many of the biggest classics in Jump history from earlier decades.

    2006-2010

    Notable Rookie Debuts: Kohei Horikoshi, Shuichi Aso, Daisuke Ashihara, Tadatoshi Fujimaki, Haruichi Furudate, Akira Akatsuki, Kenta Shinohara, Hiroshi Shiibashi, Naoshi Komi, Yuto Tsukuda, Sho Aimoto

    Notable New Serials: Kuroko no Basuke, Toriko, Bakuman., Sket Dance, To Love-Ru, Beelzebub, Nurarihyon no Mago, Medaka Box, Psyren, Inumarudashii

    No. 37-38, 2009
    No. 37-38, 2009

    By this point Jump's circulation was very steady with some occasional small increases and it was primarily series from a few years to a decade earlier that continued to dominate the magazine. While new hits were able to emerge, the success of Naruto and One Piece shaped the magazine and a number of the longest-running new series from this period spent a large portion of their run in relative unpopularity compared to the older classics that were still ongoing.

    The new significantly increased lengths of an average Jump series seemed to distort perceptions on what a successful Jump run was. A series like Psyren ran for three years and sixteen volumes, longer than essential classics in the magazine's history, but the author wasn't even included in the 50th anniversary event a few years later. Similarly series like Kuroko no Basuke and Sket Dance each reached the thirty volumes milestone but only achieved significant promotion in the magazine deep into their run.

    The two new series from this timeframe to get the most attention on covers were both by veterans of the late 90's/early 00's with Bakuman. being Ohba and Obata's follow-up to Death Note (it was similarly never intended to be extremely long-running and ended after 20 volumes) and Toriko being the serialization of a pilot Mitsutoshi Shimabukuro had first published in Jump six years earlier when he was still serializing Takeshi.

    Other series like Medaka Box, Beelzebub, To Love-Ru or Nurarihyon no Mago ran for years and had varying levels of success in that time but were never able to receive the level of attention given to the megahits like One Piece, Naruto, Reborn, Bleach and Gintama. This meant they could often receive internal color pages in the magazine but rarely got the cover. Both Beelzebub and Nurarihyon were concluded in Jump Next! and To Love-Ru moved to Jump SQ for its sequel Darkness. The writer/artist duos behind Medaka Box and Bakuman. would also ultimately move to Jump SQ.

    Notably, a number of authors started out in these years that were later able to return and find success after the magazine's roster changed significantly. These included the first serializations of Kohei Horikoshi, Haruichi Furudate, Naoshi Komi, Daisuke Ashihara, Yuto Tsukuda and Shuichi Aso who all returned a few years later with much more success.

    2011-2015

    Notable Rookie Debuts: Yuki Tabata, Tadahiro Miura, Kawada, Ryo Nakama, Koyoharu Gotoge, Shun Numa, Gege Akutami, Hitsuji Gondaira

    Notable New Serials: Haikyu!!, Ansatsu Kyoshitsu, Boku no Hero Academia, Nisekoi, Shokugeki no Soma, World Trigger, Saiki Kusuo no Psi-nan, Black Clover, Hinomaru Zumo, Isobe Isobee, Sesuji wo Pin to!

    No. 4-5, 2014
    No. 4-5, 2014

    At the start of this period One Piece and Naruto continued their dominance of Jump and the manga industry as a whole. Series like Gintama, Bleach, Toriko and Bakuman. also retained a significant presence while series like Sket Dance or Kuroko no Basuke began to significantly increase in popularity. After multiple years of very few new series finding any success at all, a new generation of major series started in late 2011 with Nisekoi. This was followed-up in 2012 with Haikyū!!, Saiki Kusuo, Ansatsu Kyoshitsu and Shokugeki no Soma with World Trigger debuting in early 2013. All these titles came from authors who had worked in Jump before but were now able to significantly raise their own profile. Nisekoi became one of Jump's longest romance series and Haikyū!! one of its longest sports series. Ansatsu Kyoshitsu was a major hit that followed the precedent set by Ohba/Obata of aiming for an ending set-up from the start and refusing to continue once it was reached despite the popularity, ending after 21 volumes.

    In late 2013, three years after Jaguar had ended, Jump launched a new gag manga to appear at the back of the magazine (Isobe Isobee) which so far has been the last series to successfully maintain this position for multiple years, though attempts with other series have been made since it ended in 2017. Hinomaru Zumo began in mid-2014 and became a mainstay of the magazine despite never gaining a major foothold internationally or outside the magazine generally with its anime only airing near the end of its five-year run. Despite the lower profile overall, the authors of Hinomaru and Isobee were the longest-running series from this time by first-time authors. Boku no Hero Academia began a few months later and became a major international hit, being heavily inspired by the superhero comics of the United States. By this point popular and long-running series from earlier eras had mostly ended with Naruto and Kuroko both concluding in late 2014. This left room for younger series to raise their profile and allowed some 2015 series like Samon-kun and Sesuji wo Pin to! to survive a couple years without achieving a major breakthrough. The most successful series from 2015 was Black Clover, another series from an author that had an unsuccessful debut in Jump before.

    2016-2020

    Notable Rookie Debuts: Shiro Usazaki, Yoshifumi Tozuka, Hajime Komoto

    Notable New Serials: Kimetsu no Yaiba, Jujutsu Kaisen, Dr. Stone, Yakusoku no Neverland, Chainsaw Man, Act-Age, Yuragi-So no Yuna-san, Bokutachi wa Benkyou ga Dekinai, Undead Unluck, Mashle

    No. 2-3, 2018
    No. 2-3, 2018

    In 2016 Jump became drastically younger with Kochikame ending on its fortieth anniversary, after never missing a single issue during its run. Other long-running series like Bleach and Toriko also ended at this time, leaving the magazine mostly dominated by new series again. For perhaps the first time in the magazine's history, the longest-running series became the best-selling with One Piece celebrating its 20th anniversary in 2017 (and the magazine celebrating its 50th in 2018). With Kochikame gone, it was now the norm for the magazine to feature no authors from Jump's original era of dominance. Some late 90's veterans apart from Oda would return like Yabuki and Shimabukuro but there was only the rare contribution from an earlier generation (such as for the magazine's 50th anniversary).

    Jump experienced a surprise revitalization in 2020 with the massive popularity boost of Kimetsu no Yaiba, which rapidly became one of the best-selling manga of all-time despite the fact it was in the final arc of its short run and ended in the middle of that year. Other successes from this time period like Yakusoku no Neverland have also ended around the twenty-volumes range and the trends appear to be shifting away from decades-long serializations with only three active series in the magazine currently being more than five years old (One Piece, Boku no Hero Academia and Black Clover).

    Notably Uncollected

    In Jump's long history, there have been a number of relatively short series that were never collected but almost all of them were published before 1980, in an era when it was common for the biggest creators in the industry to produce work that wouldn't be reprinted in any form for decades (if ever). However, due to the fact that some of these works are by authors who have had some success, there's always potential for them to be collected in the future in oversized or completionist collections (as a few already have been).

    Authors from Jump's early years who simultaneously had some of the most important Jump works of the era that were collected and some that have never been collected include Norihiro Nakajima, Yasumi Yoshizawa, Satoshi Ikezawa, George Akiyama and Sachio Umemoto. However, because the 70's Jump didn't give the cover to every new series, many of the uncollected works never even appeared on Jump's cover and are more easily forgotten.

    Mr. Whitey (1984-14, L)/Beranme Holmes (1976-29, R)
    Mr. Whitey (1984-14, L)/Beranme Holmes (1976-29, R)

    One of the extremely rare examples of an uncollected serial that ran after Jump's massive growth began in the early 80's is Mr. Whitey (1984) which is even more notable for having been drawn by Tetsuya Saruwatari who already had his first Jump series collected and would go on to have over 180 new tankobons worth of material published by Shueisha. An example of a series that got the cover of a historically important issue of Jump despite never being collected was Beranmē Holmes (1976) which was Yasumi Yoshizawa's follow-up series to the Jump-defining gag manga Dokonjō Gaeru. It shared its debut issue (where it got the cover) with the original one-shot of Kochikame, which became the longest-running series in Jump history. Four decades later, Holmes has been made available digitally. The longest running series to never be collected was Manga Drifters (1970-1975), which was the follow up to Manga Konto 55-go, the chapters were only a few pages an issue but unlike other major examples of this in Jump's history, the material was never collected.

    The rise of digital manga and the ability to bring back old series that long went out of print has meant many obscure Jump works can now be bought again outside of used bookstores and Jump has digitally released many otherwise forgotten series in its Jumpbookstore as well as licensed its own editions of major series by authors who have since left the publisher or normally distribute digital manga through other companies. However, this process has created a new class of "lost" manga with a number of series notably not getting made available digitally despite all the other works from the author being made available.

    These include early works by major authors who have the rest of their works available digitally, presumambly due to the author themselves specifically not wanting these works made available again (Jun, Killer Boy, Hanattare Boogie, Sowaka, Tennenshoku Danji Buray, Onna-Darake, Kikai Senshi Girufa, Matte! Sailor Fuku Knight, Watari Kyoshi, Mortal Commando Guy, Hinomaru Gekijo, Studio Help); major authors who don't have any of their works available digitally or have been resistant to the format (Taku Chiba, Shiro Tozaki, Motoki Monma, Sachio Umemoto); works that have been rereleased physically in the digital era but not digitally (Tobu Kyoshitsu, Slam Dunk, Worst, Bara no Sakamichi, Dream Kamen) and some series which are presumambly unable to be reprinted without renegotiating licensing (Honoo no Giants, Akutare Giants). There's also an assortment of manga that may have been too obscure to make available though this is not clear given the many minor things that have been released.

    Digital Edition

    Jump Comics+
    Jump Comics+

    Weekly Shonen Jump also has its own application, Jump+, for digitally distributing original series (that are often announced, advertised or even receive special chapters in the physical magazine). It launched in September 2014 and on its first day, already began twenty-five serials, reaching one hundred series in two and a half years, they are usually collected in physical volumes under the Jump Comics+ banner.

    Jump+ was preceded by other attempts at digital distribution of original manga such as Jump Live but + has been the most successful by a significant margin. While it is a place for new authors to make their debut, it's also frequently used by creators who previously had serializations in the actual Shonen Jump magazine (including Akira Amano, Kenta Shinohara, Kyosuke Usuta, Man☆Gatarō, Retsu and Yasuhiro Kano).

    Below is a list of all original + series that have been collected in physical volumes, ordered by the first day they appeared on the Jump+ platform (the list does not include series that also were originally serialized in physical magazines and received special digital chapters, or that came from other digital platforms, or short works that were bundled into collections with other material):

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