Making the Jump

Chaos ‘-‘. If you were a member of Fusionfall Central (remember that) and perhaps FMHQ, then you might be familiar with AceofSpadesXD’s “Otaku Report” series. If you aren’t, basically it was a recap about certain manga/anime, fantasy matches between anime characters and stuff like that. It was something I really enjoyed back in the day and did things for a couple times. It was a chance for me to learn about new series, find out when something long standing ended, or learn more about series I do enjoy.
Well, I decided to take my own crack at it. Ladies and gentlemen, it’s time to:


This is going to have the spirit of the Otaku Report, but have some differences that I hope you can still find enjoyment in. Ultimately, my goal here is to introduce people to new series and be able to have conversations about said series while showing multiple sides to the anime/manga industry you might not have been aware of.

The key difference of Making the Jump is that my primary focus will be on Shuiesha’s Weekly Shonen Jump magazine (though that isn’t the only place I’ll look at for series). Not a lot of people may know this, but for the first time ever, the entirety of Weekly Shonen Jump’s current lineup is available FOR FREE in English and outside Japan legally. That’s right, you can follow every series in Jump weekly for free. All you need to do is either go to Viz Media’s website (if you live in the specified regions) or check out Mangaplus (if you are not). You can read the first three and three most recent chapters of any series without any subscription and show support for these mangaka as these are all official!

I’m mainly going to focus on the Japanese lineup of Weekly Shonen Jump. There are some series such as One-Punch Man that are/were marketed as part of the English Shonen Jump lineup, but they do not run in Weekly Shonen Jump.

Like I said earlier, I want to explore multiple sides to the anime/manga industry. One of these elements I want to talk about are manga sales. Fan reception is obviously an important facet to series living or a series getting cancelled, but it’s not everything. Another important aspect of it is sales, which for Jump in particular, is an interesting thing to explore and learn about. What might not seem to be doing well in the magazine, could actually be a major hit to people who buy the volumes or vice versa. You can see things like Kimetsu no Yaiba become a phenomenon in Japan, one so big that it was able to usurp One Piece’s grip in most sales of a manga series in a year in 2019 (and destroying basically every conceivable record you can think of this year so far, aside from lifetime sales). Don’t worry though, that isn’t something I plan to talk about every issue of Making the Jump. I understand not everyone likes numbers talk and I think the key factor to enjoying sales talk is to not overwhelm yourself.

I don’t like referring to myself as a reviewer. When I talk about series, it really boils to me saying I like series or I hate series for x reason. That’s why I don’t want to review chapters/anime per say. However, I do enjoy following news for anime. If there’s anything that week, I’ll talk about certain anime news (i.e, if an opening is revealed, if a manga in Jump gets an anime, a new trailer comes out, etc.).

I think that’s it for now, if you’re interested in reading this, I welcome you to join me on the ride! I have ways I want to encourage fan interaction so keep on the lookout! Oh, and feel free to talk about Weekly Shonen Jump (whether it be series or the magazine itself) here. Just be mindful of spoilers and I generally want to avoid things like talking about leaked chapters. If you find Jump news, I might cover it in Making the Jump if there’s enough info out there. I'll be back tomorrow with the first edition of Making the Jump. Hopefully I'll see you then!

Hello and welcome to the inaugural addition of Making the Jump! This week, we’re going to tackle Issue #30 of Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump that released June 26th, 2020!


The first thing to examine is this week’s Jump’s Table of Contents. As you know, a table of contents is a list of what to expect inside whatever literature you’re currently reading, and Jump’s no different. It gives us the order of how series appear in that week’s Jump issue, what series received a center color page (or CP for short), among other things. This isn’t an exact representation of a series standing in Shonen Jump, but it can give us a close look at how Shueisha views a series based on patterns and the like. That’s generally why people view the TOC as a ranking of sort.

A series “rank” is just where they appear in the magazine (for example, a series that ranked 4th that week means it’s the fourth series to appear in that week’s Jump, excluding CPs). It’s also the closest approximation we can get on a series’ popularity before its first volume is released. While readers in Japan can vote on their top 3 series of a week, ultimately it is up to the editors to decide the order of the TOC (though those viewer votes obviously have a huge factor in the editors’ decision making). New series aren’t “ranked” right away. We don’t know how far back TOC’s are made or how many weeks back they’re meant to reflect a series status, but it is a general rule of thumb that a new series doesn’t start “ranking” until its 8th chapter (or the first chapter where it does not receive a CP if chapter 8 receives one).

Here is the TOC for Issue #30 of Weekly Shonen Jump (released 6/26/2020) [NOTE: If there’s two names next to an author avatar, the top italicized name is the one who uses the avatar]:

*Will fix later*

There’s a lot to unpack here! First, We Never Learn is resting all the way in last place. This is not cause for concern; We Never Learn still sells great and is almost assuredly going to be allowed to run until its natural conclusion (most likely by the end of this year). However, this is the second time in three weeks that it was last place (with a CP in between said placements) which most likely means it is not just a fluke. So, if it still sells well, and isn’t in danger of getting cancelled, why would We Never Learn be in last place? Well, there’s a couple possible reasons as to why. First, precisely because it’s ending is why it would be so low. It sells great and isn’t going to get rushed, but it’s also not growing. What reason would Shueisha have to push We Never Learn higher on the TOC? It’s essentially a concluded series (you know why if you read the series yourself), and the potential growth is nowhere near as big as other higher ranked series. People who buy We Never Learn still will and anyone who didn’t probably won’t invest at this point. So all it really needs is the occasional CP as a bone to fans who buy the magazine specifically for We Never Learn. Looking at it another way, if a series consistently can’t beat We Never Learn in TOC rankings, that most likely means it’s not doing so hot.

The next thing that stands out here is that Moriking and Bone Collection, the two most recent series to be ranked, are both in the top 5 still. That’s obviously not a bad sign for any new series; you don’t want to start out at the bottom right away after all! However, we can’t say for sure if they are both major successes yet. An interesting fact about Jump right now is that it’s actually really wide open. Of the twenty-one (twenty-two as of next issue) currently running series, only eight(!) of them have been running for more than a year (with an additional two nearing their first anniversary). In other words, there is a great lack of established series running in Jump at the moment, so it’s much easier to get high rankings early on than usual. Maintaining these high rankings is important, but it’s possible that this is an instance where the editor-in-chief of Jump is trying to push these two new series. A greater indicator for popularity/success would be receiving CPs as it would show either the series is likely popular with readers or the editors have faith that it can grow into a very popular series (especially getting one early in its life). It’s also possible that both these series are indeed popular enough with readers that the editors think they belong in the top five. Time Paradox Ghostwriter begins ranking next week, so we’ll have a clearer picture on if Moriking and Bone Collection’s high rankings are a sign of popularity or just editor mind games.

The last thing of note for this issue’s TOC is that My Hero Academia is ranked first this week. This is interesting as for the past year or two, when One Piece was on break, the two usual series to get the number one spot were Kimetsu no Yaiba or The Promised Neverland. Both of them are concluded now though, so Shueisha needs a new series to have as a perennial number one/two. Dr. Stone had a CP this week, and that’s the usual other candidate to get one/two (whichever one One Piece doesn’t occupy if it’s there that week), but perhaps My Hero Academia is reclaiming its throne. It definitely warrants it. This should be something worth looking at over the next couple months.



And now let’s shine some light on the most recent chapter of some series currently featured in Weekly Shonen Jump. These aren’t my top five chapters of a week necessarily, but they are ones that I want to highlight and talk about a little.


A perfect manga doesn’t exist. A perfect anything doesn’t really. So what we should strive for instead is consistency. Be the best you can be and show that you’re as good now as you were back then. That’s something Act-age accomplishes week after week with every new chapter. I don’t think I could ever call Act-age the perfect manga, or really even close to one, but every chapter it strives to be what is was last week (an already amazing manga) and continue that streak.

In a way, Kei Yonagi challenges this idea as a whole. In this chapter, we see that she isn’t the perfect fit for a role and that she isn’t being respected enough for it. So what does she decide to do? She decides that she and (and her two fellow actresses) need to immerse themselves in the role and live like the role did to better understand it. She wants to be perfect, to express what the character would want to express instead of what she wants to express herself. She tries to improve herself every day, but Kei doesn’t want to settle for just being great, she wants to evolve and become the best. She doesn’t aim for consistency; she aims for the peak. It’s a nice reflection of what the manga is able to accomplish as it challenges the idea of consistency and accepting one’s place so that someone can become greater.

Did I mention that Yonagi is the most adorable dork you will ever meet in fiction? Combine that with a child actress and the former star actress of the director that Yonagi works with all the time and even the coldest of hearts will melt away.
 

Starting three weeks ago, four new series will debut in Japan. This is the second of these four and it might be the dark horse of the bunch. While Kentaro Yabuki and Ryuhei Tamura were hyped as returning artists and Me and Roboko was basically met with ire right away (though to be fair, the series isn’t out yet, so maybe that anger isn’t justified yet), Magu-chan: God of Destruction was the hardest one to get a grasp of initially, but ironic enough, of the three new series to debut so far, it seems to be the one that has the clearest idea about what it wants to be. The first chapter of this series didn’t knock it out of the park, but it was fine enough. This chapter on the other hand, showcases the potential Magu-chan has. Ruru’s friend, Ren, gets the spotlight here and the dynamic between Magu-chan and him is both hilarious and oddly touching. Even though Ren is trying his best to not befriend the God of Destruction and Magu-chan is just trying to get an underling, they surprisingly mesh well together. Above all though, this felt cozy. I think that’s the best way to describe this series in general. It’s a slice of life right now and probably won’t deter from that, but it doesn’t need to. The characters are endearing and enjoyable at the moment, which is the most important part for a comedy. My initial reaction to chapter 1 was that this was the kind of series that I would probably hate while its introducing characters and setting up the story but grow to like over time (if it survives), but this chapter completely turned things around. If other characters can play off Magu-chan as well as Ren, this can easily be a really good comfort manga to read.


This chapter is more of what makes Mashle stand out: a good blend of gag and battle manga. Mash continues to shine as a character and Lance is slowly starting to come to form as well. It’s still fun to read and I still got a couple laughs out of it. It continues the plot as well and presumably we’re going to get some development for either Lemon or the opposing dorm. The art also continues to be improved upon, especially compared to the earliest chapters.

This chapter also highlights some of my biggest problems with Mashle at the moment though. For as good of a character Mash is, he can’t be the only enjoyable or memorable character. I mention that Lance is slowly showing his greatness too, but he’s the only other one in my opinion. I find it hard to remember other characters names because no one aside from Mash (and sometimes Lance) are allowed to stand out. Mash gets to show how cool he is constantly and this is another one of those chapters where Mash does something unexpected and is meant to look cool for it, but it falls flat for me because we’ve seen that joke a lot already. I’m not going to be too harsh on Hajime Komoto, this is his first ever serialization as far as I know, and he’s already got a hit based on TOC rankings and sales numbers. I just feel like he’s also making similar mistakes as to other recent manga in Jump, the only difference is that Mashle wasn’t a flop. They aren’t major mistakes either, just the kind that would be ironed out and not exist for a second series he does. Aside from that though, this chapter is more of what makes Mashle what it is, whether that’s good or not is up to you. A lot of people like it, and I agree as well, I just think it can be better.


I’m sure you’ve heard it before: Patience is a virtue. You’re told this time and time again, but this applies above all in literature. Despite that though, in current day Jump, the common belief is that you can’t really be patient. If you can’t grab readers quickly, a series is essentially sunk and there’s no hope for a rebound. Time Paradox Ghostwriter is one of those series where you need to be patient. Everybody has a stance on plagiarism and how to address it. You might not agree with Teppei’s actions, that’s perfectly fine! What he’s doing is 100% controversial and he is not completely in the right at all. However, it is far too soon to write off that he’s getting away scot-free with his actions. As this chapter shows with its MASSIVE plot twist, writer Kenji Ichima is playing the long game with the series. Chapter 7 is the final chapter of what will be the series first volume and without a doubt the beginning was written so that it can be a hook to buy future volumes. This plot twist opens the floodgates and allows the story to branch out into countless different possibilities. The most important thing though, is that the plot twist is impactful. You feel like this is going to change everything about Teppei. It makes you rethink everything and brings up even more questions you want to see answered. So yeah, while Teppei isn’t the most morally right character at the moment, he’s not meant to be! This new element is meant to further push Teppei’s morale dilemma and force him to consider what’s right or wrong. It’s meant to help him grow as a person. That takes time though. You’re not going to get a satisfying conclusion to his character arc if you want the resolution in three chapters. This plot twist wouldn’t have been nearly as effective if it came sooner either. The story needed to go this way to be as effective as it currently. All we can do now is wait and see if the readers in Japan agree as next chapter will be the series first rank on the TOC.


There are a lot of series that people describe as the next “Katekyo Hitman Reborn!” There’s at least four in this lineup alone that people claim is the successor to it. While I don’t necessarily agree that there is one at the moment, without a doubt Mission: Yozakura Family comes the closest to filling that gap and following in Reborn’s footsteps in Jump. This chapter demonstrates my belief in that. It’s another chapter that focuses on loser spy Sosuke Michibata (that’s the third time he’s appeared in five chapters!) and it felt right out of the Reborn! playbook. It was a silly beginning that turned serious and ends with Taiyo resolving the issue by going all out. The important thing this chapter accomplishes, aside from giving my dude more shine, is that it demonstrates a growing bond between him and Taiyo. We’re slowly gathering a cast of characters that Taiyo can work with and while it does have the bonus of letting him play the “cool spy” in comparison to Sosuke’s loser mentality, it also opens up the possibilities of Taiyo helping Sosuke grow as a spy and create dynamics within Taiyo’s growing inner circle. I fully expect Yozakura Family to transition to a battle manga at some point before its conclusion, but chapters like these show that even if it does, it won’t ever lose its foundation as a comedy and can blend the two perfectly fine, similar to Reborn!.


Weekly Shonen Jump isn’t the only publication that Shueisha has under its belt. It publishes a myriad of other magazines and has various online platforms not including Jump where it publishes original manga. This section is meant to be a generally minimal spoilerish look at series from said areas and maybe introduce people to hidden gems.

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This week, I’m going to look at Jump+’s monarchal gag comedy: ‘Tis Time For “Torture” Princess. The story is fairly simple: a princess that hails from the Human Realm and her sword Ex are being held prisoner by the Demon King in the Demon Realm. They are subjugated to “torture” every day, usually administered by executioner Tortura Torture in attempts to pry secrets of the Human Realm from the Princess. Of course, since this is a gag manga and not a horror novel, the torture normally consists of menial things such as forcing the Princess to smell delicious food until she caves in or forcing her to watch the torturer play with animals. While the main setting is the Princess’ cell, sometimes they do venture forth to the outside world for a (usually successful) torture session. The structure of the story is simple, but there is a magic here that makes it appealing and hilarious.

The cast of characters is without a doubt the strongest part of the series. The Princess is a lovable idiot of course, but she’s also noble and just so sweet. Just because she’s human doesn’t mean she hates her supposed enemies, and she plays off all the demons very well. Ex, a talking sword, is the perfect straight man. He clearly questions things, but he does so in a way that doesn’t come off as annoying. Tortura while not being the standout character or anything, is fairly complex and she also adds a dynamic to the torture that makes the gags still feel fresh even after 50 or so chapters. Other demons also make their own tortures stand out and make them feel unique even if themes are repeated. There’s a sense of growing bonds between the Princess and the demons, like a family.

Unarguably, the character that steals the show is the Demon King himself. One look at the guy and you would assume that he’s the definition of evil and twisted. That’s the furthest thing from the truth though. The Demon King is the biggest teddy bear you’ll ever meet and he’s actually an amazing leader. He honestly makes the gags funnier; he nails the punchline every time. Without him, the series would lose so much of its charm and depth.

This series isn’t just gags though. You can find depth and food for thought here if you look for it. One of my favorite aspects to think about is the backstory of the world. Based on everything we’ve seen, the demons are actually the good guys and the bad side seems to be humans (excluding the Princess), but is that actually the case? Does the Princess actually enjoy imprisonment? Does she secretly hate humanity? There’s a lot you can think about here, even if in all likelihood most of these questions won’t be answered.

So while each chapter might not be long, and it can sometimes feel repetitive, I think its an enjoyable read every Monday. You can find it in English for free and legally on Mangaplus. Every chapter is available to read, so please, check it out!  




There isn’t much to report on in the Jump anime news front. Haikyu!! Season 4 isn’t airing in the summer anymore, The Promised Neverland season 2 is delayed to 2021, Kimetsu no Yaiba’s movie is still scheduled for October but we haven’t seen much since the last trailer, and Jujutsu Kaisen is still on deck for October as well. All that’s of note is that some Jump series are coming back after being on hiatus for a while: namely Shokugeki no Soma: The Fifth Plate, Black Clover, and BORUTO: NEXT GENERATIONS.


Normally, this section is for a preview of an upcoming series to Jump or me talking about a series that concluded in that week’s issue, but this time I want to talk about something different. Mission: Yozakura Family is approaching its First Anniversary (it started August 25, 2019) and to celebrate this, Shueisha and the mangaka Gondaira-sensei decided to host a contest! Design a spy and it may appear in the manga. Submissions are due July 17th.

This is honestly fantastic news in my opinion as this does a few things. First, they’re celebrating Yozakura’s first anniversary, which implies obviously that it’s not going to conclude before then. As its my favorite series currently running in Jump, it makes me happy to see that the ride isn’t over yet. It’s also been a long time since we got a series that lasted that long. The last series that even made it to a year is Chainsawman, and the only other series that got close was Samurai 8. So for the entirety of 2019, it was essentially just instant flop after instant flop. I’m glad that the lineup right now, at the very least, seems strong enough to last at least a year (though we need to see if reality matches).

Another thing that this does though is act as a promotional push from the editors to make Yozakura more popular. Sales wise, it does decent and has been growing on a per volume basis, so this would suggest that they’re willing to invest into it now and try to make it a big hit instead of just a decent success. If you look at sales data, Yozakura actually has a somewhat similar arc to Act-age for their first 3 volumes (a modest increase per volume before nearly doubling for volume 4), and Act-age now gets close to selling 100k copies in its first week. Hopefully Yozakura can follow suite!

Just make a twitter for Yozakura now, please ^_^


For some fun, we’re going to have a question every week that revolves around Jump. Be warned though, unlike the rest of Making the Jump, this trivia question can be about any series that ran in Jump! So without further ado -

Q: As mentioned earlier, there are only eight ( 8 ) series in Jump currently that have been running for more than a year (with Mission: Yozakura Family most likely going to join that group in August). One Piece (1997) is the oldest series currently in the lineup. Excluding Hunter x Hunter, what series is the second oldest, and what year did it start?  Good luck and please don’t google it if you don’t know the answer!


And that’s all for this week! Next time, Me and Roboko joins Jump’s lineup (though there might be a catch, stay tuned) and we get Time Paradox Ghostwriter’s first ranking! Plus One Piece returns to the lineup and we’ll hopefully get to look at manga sales for some series next time (Jump releases new volumes in Japan on July 3rd!). Tell me what you felt about this week’s Jump. Thanks for reading and remember: support the official release!

Another week and another edition of Making the Jump is here! We’re talking about Issue #31 of Weekly Shonen Jump this time, which came out July 5, 2020. The batch of four new series debuts concludes with the addition of Me and Roboco to the lineup this week and Time Paradox Ghostwriter is finally ranked. Plus, we got some preliminary data on how Jump’s July releases are faring. It’s a pretty packed issue this week so let’s get to it!


The first thing to examine is this week’s Jump’s Table of Contents. As you know, a table of contents is a list of what to expect inside whatever literature you’re currently reading, and Jump’s no different. It gives us the order of how series appear in that week’s Jump issue, what series received a center color page (or CP for short), among other things. This isn’t an exact representation of a series standing in Shonen Jump, but it can give us a close look at how Shueisha views a series based on patterns and the like. That’s generally why people view the TOC as a ranking of sort.
A series “rank” is just where they appear in the magazine (for example, a series that ranked 4th that week means it’s the fourth series to appear in that week’s Jump, excluding CPs). It’s the closest approximation we can get on a series’ popularity before its first volume is released. While readers in Japan can vote on their top 3 series for a week, ultimately it is up to the editors to decide the order of the TOC (though those viewer votes obviously have a huge factor in the editors’ decision making). New series aren’t “ranked” right away. We don’t know how far back TOC’s are made or how many weeks back they’re meant to reflect a series status, but it is a general rule of thumb that a new series doesn’t start “ranking” until its 8th chapter (or the first chapter where it does not receive a CP if chapter 8 receives one).

Here is the TOC for Issue #31 of Weekly Shonen Jump (released 7/5/2020) [NOTE: If there’s two names next to an author avatar, the top italicized name is the one who uses the avatar]:

*Will fix later*

Next Issue Preview:

So let’s cut to the chase, it looks like Haikyu!! is actually ending really really soon! Huh, gotta say, didn’t see that coming at all. I realized this was the last arc and all, but I totally thought that Haikyu!! might end December maybe even early 2021. I wasn’t expecting it to be maybe three chapters left. Well, it seems to be the case, so what a run it’s had. I’ll go more in depth in a later edition of Making the Jump, but it’s incredible what Haikyu!! was able to accomplish. With an important series like this ending so soon, it’s obviously going to leave some major ramifications in Jump and the TOC. I’m really curious about what’s going to take Haikyu!!’s spot in the TOC. For a long time, it was basically a fixture of the top 5 and a reliable series to give a cover, and with The Promised Neverland and Kimetsu no Yaiba already concluded, that now leaves three series that usually received top 5 placements, CPs, and Covers gone. One Piece, My Hero Academia, and DR. STONE are still here, but with more frequent breaks from the former and realistically you can’t give the latter two everything every single week, I wonder what the situation will be. I think Jujutsu Kaisen is primed to take one of the spots, but is Shueisha just going to stick with a four series rotation? The next two logical series to step up would be Act-age and Chainsawman based on success, but are they ready for this moment? Are they going to go all in on Mashle and start pushing it as a pillar? It’s the best performing new series since Chainsawman, but can it grow or is this already its peak? This is going to be an interesting summer to follow, I really wonder what Jump’s top echelon is going to look like in three months.

The top isn’t the only important part of the lineup however, and now we have rankings for all three of the Moriking-Bone Collection-Time Paradox Ghostwriter trio. Time Paradox Ghostwriter’s first ranking is a respectable nine. The previous two’s initial rankings sort of make this look bad in comparison, but middle of the pack is a decent enough first ranking. Of course, the problem is that its way harder to go up then it is down and the first chapter of a new series is usually the best chance a series has to rank high initially. Not to mention, chapter 2 onwards is where the controversy really begins, so it is much more likely to go crashing down than maintain stability. Hopefully it can though, because it’s never nice to see a series with a lot of potential crashing hard before volume 1 even releases. Speaking of crashing down, Bone Collection went from the top 5 all the way to the bottom 3 in the span of one issue. No matter how you slice it, that can’t be a good sign. It’s possible it can shoot up next issue, but I highly doubt that it can recover enough so that it’s top 5 once more. Moriking on the other hand, not only continues its dominance with another top 5 placement, but it’s even getting a CP next issue! That’s definitely a good sign and hopefully it can translate into sales. Right now, it seems like my statement from last week is half true: Bone Collection’s high placements might be the case of editor pushing while Moriking is getting good reception. Still too soon to be definitive, but it’s definitely not a risk to get into Moriking at the moment.

On the other side of the spectrum are Agravity Boys and Mitama Security. Mitama is at the second to last spot for the second week in a row for the first time ever I believe. This comes off the heels of yet another bad sales effort for volume 3 (only managing to sell around 3.8k first week this time), with no signs of sales growth while its contemporaries (Undead Unluck and Mission: Yozakura Family) showed noticeable growth and Mashle had a strong debut. So with what looks like a shift to the bottom of the TOC and poor sales, this would naturally make it seem like it’s an axe candidate, but things aren’t that clear. Before this stretch, Mitama had erratic placements ranging anywhere from 6-12 (with an occasional placement in the top 3) so it seemed like it had editors support at the very least…but what about now? Mashle is a success, Moriking looks promising, and Me and Roboco seems like they’re setting up for the long run. Is there really a reason to keep Mitama at this point? Readers like it sure, but it doesn’t translate to sales and now the magazine has other gag manga that people like to read. How much can magazine readership save Mitama? Agravity Boys on the other hand, is basically the opposite side of the coin. Sales wise, it did much better (around 9k first ten days, 12k first month) than Mitama, which are…fine(?) numbers, but it still did worse than Yozakura. Not only that, putting a series last place is the last thing Shuesha should want to do if they had faith in it growing. Agravity Boys volume 2 came out July 3rd and well, no CP to advertise it once and it’s in last place now. Not to mention, it’s been bottom 3 for almost its entire run, with only a once in a blue moon instance of getting out of the bottom 5 while being last place way more often. TOC placements aren’t everything of course but being at the back for no apparent reason can’t be a good sign for its future. We’ll have to see how this plays out, but ehhh, don’t have really high hopes for either Mitama or Agravity’s future at the moment, especially since We Never Learn is above both of them this week (alongside Bone Collection). I imagine that we’ll get probably one more batch of new series before 2020 ends, and these two (alongside Bone Collection) are the prime candidates for the axe.

Finally, let’s talk about the newest series to join the Jump lineup: Me and Roboco! With every series appearing on the front cover for it (in perhaps a callback to former Jump gaga series Isobe Isobee Monogatari’s first cover), the fact its first chapter page count totals only 31, among other things, it seems incredibly likely that this series is meant to be the “end of magazine” gag manga. It’s been about two years since there was a traditional one in the magazine, so for those who don’t know, what this means basically is that Jump likes ending the magazine with a pure gag manga so that the reader can conclude their reading with a smile and laugh. These series are usually shorter and also always placed dead last, so their placements don’t matter and they tend to be more forgiving if a gag manga doesn’t do as well as they would like. Me and Roboco seems primed to take that spot at the moment so in a way, you can look at this batch consisting of Ayakashi, Magu-chan, and Dolphin as competing amongst themselves now instead of including Roboco in that race. Of course, I could be wrong and Roboco can be a regular series as well, but all the evidence points to it being the new “end of magazine” gag manga.
         

And now let’s shine some light on the most recent chapter of some series currently featured in Weekly Shonen Jump. These aren’t my top five chapters of a week necessarily, but they are ones that I want to highlight and talk about a little.


I think it’s notable that this chapter happened now, when chapter 34 would be the last chapter of a volume 3 (for reference, 27 should be the first or second chapter of volume 3 if it’s like a normal Jump manga). The reason I say this is because for uncertain series, a flashback arc to explain the backstory of the main characters, ESPECIALLY a multi-parter like this one here, is usually a sign that a mangaka was told to hurry up and is now trying to fit in everything he can before the ax falls. Combine that with what probably is a decline in sales and bad TOC placements week in and week out and…yeah, there’s a 90% chance that we’re heading towards the end once the flashback arc ends. As for what’s here in the chapter: it features Chris and Saga, who are the two characters in the series that I actually do like a lot. Seeing their dynamic is always a blast and makes me wish that Saga got more focus in general because he should be a great character, but he wasn’t allowed to be one for whatever reason. What Agravity does best is developing relationships between a pair of characters; so having this chapter was really nice.
 

Oh Yabuki, I see you throwing in that To Love Ru reference, you ain’t slick~ Anyway, I think this chapter does a good job of laying foundation work for both the first “arc” of the series as well as how exactly we’re going to see Matsuri and Suzu’s relationship develop now. Before this, we only had Suzu’s side of the story, but now that we have Matsuri’s side, we can see how they both grow as people and how they feel about one another. We even see the groundwork set up for Shirogane and how he will grow alongside Suzu and Matsuri plus a new character on the horizon. The art continues to be really well done and the ecchi hasn’t quite made it to original To Love Ru levels yet (I’ll let you decide if that’s a good or bad thing).


Moriking continues its streak of outrageousness and wholesomeness this week with another chapter featuring Moriking’s direct rival Oki. Last week, I mentioned that people have called at least four series in Jump the next “Reborn” and I think aside from Yozakura, the main target of this label is Moriking. I think it’s easy to want this series to become a battle manga, and its really easy to see how it can get there if it needed to in an attempt to gain popularity (which doesn’t seem to be necessary atm based on TOC placements and the fact its getting a CP so early after its chapter 2 one). However, I think we would lose what makes Moriking good in the first place if that were to happen. What I really love about this manga is Moriking’s devotion to doing the right thing without resorting to violence and him living mundane life with his family day to day. I love that Moriking comes up with absurd solutions to other characters problems. This chapter was about a pet show and Moriking and Oki battling for the Insect King throne using it! The human characters would stop being relevant because they can’t keep up with the insects in combat. It could still be comedy, but I think Moriking’s always serious attitude would not work as well in real battle situations.


I’m going to be honest, story wise, I don’t have much to say. Not much occurs in terms of advancing the plot and realistically only a couple attacks happened. Why this chapter stands out though, is the artwork. My god, the artwork. Horikoshi has always been one of the best artists in Jump, but he has gone Plus Ultra for this arc and is on a completely different plane now. The sense of terror and fear that Shigaraki is able to convey with just one panel of his face is incredible. I’m not even the one fighting him and I’m scared just looking at him. There are beautiful panels with Bakugo and Endeavor. I can see emotions on characters’ faces and it makes you feel tense. There is also a sense of dread here after the foreshadowing of what could happen to Shigaraki down the line.
 

Well, here we are again. I was originally going to do a different series this week, but this chapter was so impactful that I felt like I had to talk about TPGW again (don’t worry, the series that got pushed back is one of the ones getting a spotlight next week…unless the chapter is complete garbage which I highly doubt it will be). After the gigantic bombshell dropped last week, this chapter continued its heavy nature and defined what exactly Teppei needs to do now and our first “conflict” in the series. There’s more controversy here, which is the point. It’s becoming more and more obvious that this is meant to be more of a character study than a traditional series. Teppei is answering these questions his own way, but we’re also meant to consider for ourselves about if what he’s doing is right or not. We’re supposed to question if his approach to his mission is correct or if there is a better answer. We’re seeing Teppei hit rock bottom and torture himself endlessly because of his choices. How much will we see him grow? I’d like to say we have a long time to find out, but this series’ first placement was middle of the pack, soooo we might be seeing an answer sooner rather than later.


Weekly Shonen Jump isn’t the only publication that Shueisha has under its belt. It publishes a myriad of other magazines and has various online platforms not including Jump where it publishes original manga. This section is meant to be a generally minimal spoilerish look at series from said areas and maybe introduce people to hidden gems.

Change the new world. Originally joining Weekly Shonen Jump’s lineup in 2013, let’s take a look at Jump Square’s hit World Trigger! While not as much of a secret as ‘Tis Time for “Torture” Princess, World Trigger is without a doubt a series that gets overlooked a lot, though that’s more because of external factors than through its own faults. Before we go into the series itself, let’s take a look at its history. As mentioned, World Trigger was originally released in Weekly Shonen Jump starting back in 2013. It was originally a meh-bad ranking series, usually enjoying a mid-low placement before volume 1’s release, but it wasn’t particularly in danger of getting cancelled, mainly cause there were other series doing much worse than it (it was also fortunate to be a series that came out during Assassination Classroom, Nisekoi, Haikyu!!, The Disastrous Life of Saiki K. and Shokugeki no Soma’s rise to popularity, but before they all reached their peaks, meaning there was still room for not as successful Jump series at the time). Once that volume came out though, it was off to the races. It never truly took off since you know, the aforementioned five series, Kuroko no Basket, Bleach, Naruto, and One Piece among others were there, but World Trigger was making a niche for itself in the most competitive manga magazine. Even as the years went on, it was making waves in the magazine and increasing its volume sales (thanks Toei for a bad anime. It was an awful adaptation, but it at least boosted sales for the manga) to the point where it was among the top sellers of the current Jump lineup (granted, Bleach, Kuroko, among others ended at this point). And then it came all crashing down. The mangaka seemed to be having health problems (I believe neck, but I don’t want to say definitively because I don’t know) and it caused him to take a hiatus at the end of 2016. Which lasted until the end of 2018. That seems like a death sentence. Not only that, but it even left Weekly Shonen Jump and was transferred to monthly magazine Jump Square to help accommodate the mangaka’s situation. It should have been the end of the ride. Maybe one strong performance before fading to obscurity. It didn’t. It’s still pulling off close to what it performed in its peak two years later. It’s a miracle story and a feel good one. It’s so nice to see that a series was able to build such a loyal fanbase and still sell amazing after all this hardship. I haven’t talked about the actual series though so let’s do that now.

The first thing I think that stands out right away about World Trigger is that it feels like a “smart” battle manga. What I mean about this is that a lot of the popular shonen battle series feel like they mainly just consist of screaming, willpower, and maybe one plan that isn’t actually all that deep but characters pretend only someone that can solve the Millennium Prize Problems could come up and act out said plan. While I’m not going to sit here and say World Trigger has strategies that complex, it is definitely a step above most battle manga in terms of creative ways for characters to fight. A majority of the fights in the series are team based, which definitely helps with both variety and creativity, but the part that really makes these fights above average is that every moment matters. There isn’t useless fluff in the actual battle parts and everything done in the battle, has a purpose. Something a character does or thinks about doing in part 2 of a fight, probably will come up again in part 6 or 7 of the same battle. It really pays attention to small details and makes sure they pay off eventually.

This attention to detail and eventual pay-off also applies to character arcs and development. Character arcs take a while, and I mean AWHILE, to complete, but they are extremely satisfying to see unfold once a character makes a breakthrough. They also are never left unresolved. Look at Chika for example. Pretty early on, she has a flaw that is a pretty big weakness. This idea is introduced around the mid-thirties I believe. It doesn’t get fixed until chapter 195 (and we don’t even know if it was a one-time fix, or if she was able to solve it for good). It’s not dropped or forgotten until that moment either. It was constantly built up to and we see Chika struggle or other characters talk to her about it, trying to help.

There are some faults to the series. I would say most of the time, the art’s average. I can’t really blame the mangaka since he’s had health issues over the years, but you’re going to see this a lot. It’s also easy to feel overwhelmed. They throw a lot of info at you at once and it relies on text dumps to explain certain strategies. I can overlook these things though because the content here is amazing and well thought out. I think this series is well worth checking out.

July is here now, which means it’s time for Japan to release new volumes for Weekly Shonen Jump series! This time around the manga getting releases: My Hero Academia (MHA) volume 27, Black Clover (BC) volume 25, DR. STONE (DS) volume 16, Act-age (AA) volume 12, and AGRAVITY BOYS (AB) volume 2 for currently running series and Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba (KnY) volume 21 (both regular and Special Edition [SE]) and The Promised Neverland (TPN) volume 19 for recently completed series came out July 3rd. We won’t be seeing hard numbers or even estimations yet as it’s only been a few days in Japan, so instead let’s look at some rankings it received on sites like Honto and Shoseki (NOTE: These numbers aren’t concrete on their own, they give a general idea on how a series is doing but you won’t get a lot out of them. If a series has 4| 20| 300 next to it, that means it was ranked 4th day 1, 20 day 2, 300 day 3 etc. These are JAPANESE numbers only.) I also want to emphasize that these rankings are RELATIVE. Just because one series does better than another in a previous month DOES NOT mean it is guaranteed to have sold better than it.

Honto:

Shoseki:

Oops, I completely forgot that Kimetsu no Yaiba was also getting a special edition for volume 21. While at first seems like this would double volume 21 sales, the most likely scenario is that combined they do what a volume would have done without the existence of a special edition. I would normally guess that it would do less than a normal volume, but literally nothing about Kimetsu no Yaiba’s sales make sense anymore. I honestly wouldn’t be shocked if both these still manage to do a 1.5 million first week or something crazy. I don’t think that’s really interesting though. Yaiba’s been defying the odds every time already, there really isn’t much to say about it.

So let’s instead look at Agravity Boys numbers. Its first ranking of 67 and 60 respectively are both down by a noticeable amount from volume 1’s (53 and 45). I don’t know if you can chalk that up to July being a busier month than April because if we’re being real, it was never going to get close to My Hero, BC, Yaiba, or anything its releasing alongside with this month to begin with. Its Jump contemporaries wasn’t competition, but more the Jump+ titles that aren’t as lucrative and I don’t know what was releasing in April for Jump+. All I know is that July doesn’t immediately seem like a busy month for Jump+, with the most notable releases being sub 20k sellers week 1. The fact that it plummeted after day 3…eh, I would not say that’s a good sign in the slightest.

I think an under looked at aspect of this month is the Dr. Stone, Black Clover, Act-age, battle that’s going on at the moment. This year, Dr. Stone and Act-age have both been going through a lot of growth and priming themselves to become strong titles for Jump. Black Clover on the other hand, has been in the decline for a while. Back in April, for the first time, it lost to Dr. Stone in terms of sales. I think this is the first time it lost to Act-age in terms of ranking. This might be the sign of a greater Black Clover decline since if Act-age is able to outperform it this month, I believe that makes Black Clover fall to the eighth best selling series in the current lineup (only ahead of We Never Learn). Which…would be pretty bad honestly. By no means is it in danger of getting cut, but if it continues a freefall…is there a reason to really keep it around long term? Happened to Bleach, happened to Toriko, happened to Reborn!, among many other big-decent sellers in Jump history. At some point Shueisha is going to decide they had enough and tell Tabata to start wrapping things up if this continues. As for Act-age, what a story! From humble beginnings to possibly conquering (an admittedly past its peak) Black Clover. Not bad for a once bottom dweller and sub 30k selling series. It lost day 3, but let’s see how this develops over the month.  

It’s important to remember that these are only rankings. We won’t have any numbers until later in the week so the ranking situation could be telling a different story.
   

This section is going to be really quick this time. Originally, I wasn’t even going to include this section this week, but there actually was some new information about Shonen Jump anime this week. First, the Kimetsu no Yaiba movie is confirmed to be coming to North America. That’s really good because the movie is a canon arc to the series and would be required to watch to follow a season 2 if it comes out (which it 99.99% will). Other than that, DR. STONE season 2 has a new trailer, key visual, and now has a release window of January 2021. That’s fantastic as I love the anime (well, I also love the manga) and the part they’re adapting is without a doubt my favorite part of the series.



For some fun, we’re going to have a question every week that revolves around Jump. Be warned though, unlike the rest of Making the Jump, this trivia question can be about any series that ran in Jump! So without further ado –

Last week, the question was what the second oldest series currently running in Jump and what year did it debut. The answer is...

Spoiler:

It’s also sort of crazy how One Piece and Hunter x Hunter are the only series still running that debuted before 2010.

For this week, we’re going to play a guessing game! Who is this silhouetted figure?

Post your answer in this thread!
HINT: I didn’t mention Hunter x Hunter coincidentally. What did Togashi do before it?


What a busy week! Next time, we’ll get more concrete numbers on how our July series are doing so I’ll talk more about them. Also we’ll begin the Haikyu!! appreciation/celebration then . Tell me how you felt about Jump this week, even if they aren’t in The Spotlight and let me know if there’s a particular series in Jump you want to know more about! Till then, remember: Support the official release!

Back like we never left, it’s the third edition of Making the Jump! We’re talking about Issue #32 of Weekly Shonen Jump this time, which came out July 12, 2020. We have some major shakeups in the TOC this week and Haikyu!! gets the cover for the last time. I also wanted to talk about what might be the next hit on Jump+ so let’s get right into it!


The first thing to examine is this week’s Jump’s Table of Contents. As you know, a table of contents is a list of what to expect inside whatever literature you’re currently reading, and Jump’s no different. It gives us the order of how series appear in that week’s Jump issue, what series received a center color page (or CP for short), among other things. This isn’t an exact representation of a series standing in Shonen Jump, but it can give us a close look at how Shueisha views a series based on patterns and the like. That’s generally why people view the TOC as a ranking of sort.

A series “rank” is just where they appear in the magazine (for example, a series that ranked 4th that week means it’s the fourth series to appear in that week’s Jump, excluding CPs). It’s the closest approximation we can get on a series’ popularity before its first volume is released. While readers in Japan can vote on their top 3 series for a week, ultimately it is up to the editors to decide the order of the TOC (though those viewer votes obviously have a huge factor in the editors’ decision making). New series aren’t “ranked” right away. We don’t know how far back TOC’s are made or how many weeks back they’re meant to reflect a series status, but it is a general rule of thumb that a new series doesn’t start “ranking” until its 8th chapter (or the first chapter where it does not receive a CP if chapter 8 receives one).

Here is the TOC for Issue #32 of Weekly Shonen Jump (released 7/12/2020) [NOTE: If there’s two names next to an author avatar, the top italicized name is the one who uses the avatar]:
*Will fix later*

Next Issue Preview:

First and foremost, we need to address the major elephant in the room: My Hero Academia is on break this week. This was an emergency break, not announced and in the preview pages from last issue, you can even see My Hero in it. And well, that seems to have turned the entire TOC on its head huh? This is probably the most interesting TOC I’ve seen in a while. There’s so much to unpack here, I don’t even know what’s a good starting point. (Also, My Hero Academia will be back next issue, this was done because Horikoshi is switching to digital, and needed time to do the transfer. He’s not sick as far as we know.)

Well, I guess the top is as good as any. Last week, I predicted that Jujutsu Kaisen was being primed to be the next big series in Jump and the TOC and well, yeah, it’s number 1 this week. I wouldn’t blame you if you put a heavy asterisk next to it (since Dr. Stone and Moriking both got CPs this week, Haikyu!! got the Lead CP and cover, and One Piece and now My Hero Academia are on break this week), but it was able to get the top spot this week. Is this going to be the start of a trend? Or is this just because everything’s not ranked this week? I wouldn’t be surprised with either possibility. I’m hoping that this is a case of the former though. Jump is losing pillars left and right and they’re going to need new ones. Kaisen is a really good series, should be able to get really popular easily, and it doesn’t seem to be ending anytime soon so it’s not going to disappear suddenly like Kimetsu no Yaiba and The Promised Neverland sort of did.

As for the rest of the top 5, what an interesting gathering of series we got here. I think Mashle being so close to the top (and getting another CP next week) isn’t that much of a shock. It’s the best performing new series in 2020 and is a comedy, which Jump seems desperate to find a hit for at the moment. Chainsaw Man was a little bit of a shock in that it’s been awhile since its ranked so high, but realistically this was to be expected as it sells really well and is obviously very popular. I feel like the only reason why it’s usually in the middle a lot to begin with is the content. I wouldn’t exactly say it’s uh…appropriate for the average twelve-year-old that buys a random issue of Jump. Which leaves us to this week’s four and five: Mission: Yozakura Family at fourth and Undead Unluck at fifth. For Undead, it’s not that much of a shock, it’s gotten sixth or seventh a decent amount and it’s gotten decent sales. So fifth was the natural progression (especially with half the lineup not ranking). Yozakura though…I can’t lie, when I realized half the lineup isn’t getting ranked, in my head I thought it would be fourth or fifth since Kaisen, Mashle, and Black Clover are the only series that Yozakura has never ranked above, so being above everything else wasn’t that much of a stretch. Still though, actually seeing it just makes me so happy. It probably won’t last, but a part of me hopes this is the start of a Yozakura push because it does as well as Undead sales wise, it also offers something different from the current lineup, people DO like it, and there’s really no reason to NOT give it a push. I just want to see more CPs, both because it’s a sign of success for a series and Yozakura actually has really good ones.  

And now here’s the bottom 4. Quite frankly, I would say being this low down isn’t that great, but you especially want to avoid being the bottom 3 repeatedly at all costs. And well, things are not looking so hot for Mitama Security: Spirt Busters or Bone Collection. They both ended up falling lower placement wise (the only reason they have better “ranks” than last week is because less series are ranking this week) and Mitama has now “graced” the last place position. Never reaching literal last was the one saving grace it had, and now it doesn’t even have that anymore. Mitama has to be next on the chopping block at this point. The only real question is if it is going down by itself or taking something with it. Bone Collection is sinking lower and lower by the week and its quality hasn’t gotten better as time goes on (putting it lightly) so the chances of a miracle rebound are becoming less likely as time goes on. The only saving grace it has is that maybe volume 1 will sell a lot of copies, but good luck with that one. Agravity Boys isn’t growing it seems sales wise and its been bottom 3-5 basically its entire run TOC wise. Agravity’s only saving grace is that…it’s not the worst selling series in the current lineup? That’s really all I got for it. I really wouldn’t be shocked if all three got the axe at this point, even if technically only one needs to die as far as we know (Burn the Witch is the only series confirmed for 2020 at the moment, though they might do a new batch soon).

Finally, Time Paradox Ghostwriter. If you look at numbers, it seemed like it stayed pat, but when you actually compare the TOCs, it went from dead in the middle to bottom 4. Remember how I said its much easier to go down the TOC than it is up? Well we’re seeing this here. It doesn’t help that chapter 3 and beyond is when things get REALLY controversial for most people, so I would not be shocked if it TPGW started entering the bottom 3 soon as well. Unlike the other three though, I think there’s a lot in TPGW’s favor to keep it around a little longer than those three. One, controversy sells. I bet Shueisha’s play at this point is hoping that all this debates and “backlash” the series has gotten at this point generates enough curious people to buy volume 1 in August to not make it a flop. I think Viz and the West would LOVE for this to be a success, they keep talking about it and the Western reception of it seems really positive (with some people still arguing about its controversial elements), but ultimately the series fate is in the hands of Japan. I think it’d be a shame if we lost this series so soon, but I wouldn’t be shocked if we did.


And now let’s shine some light on the most recent chapter of some series currently featured in Weekly Shonen Jump. These aren’t my top five chapters of a week necessarily, but they are ones that I want to highlight and talk about a little.


This was another great development chapter for Satsuki. We learn more about her start as an actor and that she wants to evolve further. This continues this theme of “consistency vs peak performance” that I talked about last time I gave a chapter the spotlight. Satsuki is already considered a great actor (especially in terms of a child actor) and probably could do a decent job if she just continued what she was already doing. She wants more though. She wants to be at the top of the actor world, to not disappoint Yonagi and Tamaki. She acknowledges her weakness and wants to overcome it. I really want to see how Satsuki grows as an actor. I want to continue seeing Yonagi be a mentor figure as well as see her own growth. I wonder what Tamaki’s role in this arc will be. There’s so much intrigue here for the upcoming arc.

Did I mention that these dorks are really adorable?


What a coincidence, the chapter I ended up talking about is the first one I’ve been able to follow in like forty chapters. A lot of people like Chainsaw Man. It’s really stylized, the mangaka’s previous work was a cult classic and played up meme culture, in a way Denji is a really relatable MC. I just don’t really get it. I’m not really seeing what everyone else is seeing with this series that made it a big hit. Granted, I think I’ve reached the point where I don’t hate the series (mainly cause there’s now several series currently running in Jump that I actively dislike more than Chainsaw Man), but I just don’t understand how it connected with people.

The reason I brought that up is because this chapter was different. I actually understood what was going on, I was able to follow the plot of the chapter from beginning to end, and I didn’t think anything was needlessly convoluted for the sake of “abstract artistic symbolism” or anything like that. I actually felt bad for Denji and Power (for once). The one thing I have been able to follow consistently is the bond between these two, and Aki. So seeing this situation was a little heart wrenching (I’d imagine this hit harder for people that like the series more than I do). The action here felt like it was possible to follow. All around, it was probably the first chapter I’ve genuinely enjoyed in a long time.
 
This arc feels like endgame, so I don’t know how much longer this series is going to last but keep producing chapters like this one and I think the ending will be satisfying, if not somber.  


I was going to talk about last week’s chapter of Dr. Stone last week, but then TPGW came out with a second impressionable chapter. Kind of worked out in the end cause ultimately, I thought this was a stronger chapter than last week’s. This was the conclusion of Xeno’s rise to the top of this stone society. The gears are turning for the next part of this arc to pick up and I’m looking forward to the science wars that’s about to start. My favorite parts of Dr. Stone have always been when both sides realize the other’s plan and now have to adapt to that to counter them. I look forward to seeing what comes next in this battle. While I think Dr. Stone is at the very least “good” every week, I have to admit I wasn’t loving this arc before this. Maybe its because the cast has gotten too big for its own good (in the sense that we did not need everyone from Senku’s side to be here) or because I’m not really feeling Xeno as much as previous antagonists, but this chapter just made me realize that there’s something off that’s making me not like this arc as much as previous ones.


The first thing that stuck out in my head was the fact that this chapter had a “chapter” cover kind of page where it just had a picture of the cast enjoying the coastline. It’s not extinct or anything, but that feels like a relic of the past: something authors from the 2000s-2010 did often but seemed to disappear as time went on. I know Act-age does it, but that’s the only manga in Jump since 2017 done by a newbie that I can think of that does that. Just interesting to see the differences between the mindset of mangaka back then versus now.

As for the chapter itself, it was the third one and we finally have a little clarity about how the world of this series works. That’s something I noticed a lot about Tamura, especially as someone that’s read both of his previous series recently: he takes awhile to explain the rules of his world, and usually the first time he talks about them it’s not really clear. That’s how I felt reading this chapter so I guess that’s just a trademark at this point (and I thought it wasn’t possible to be more vague for a premise’s explanation than not explaining how the daughter of someone that died in like the 1400s was able to reincarnate and take over the body of a random 15 year old boy). All we really got was “We don’t know about 95% of the species that live in the ocean” (which I’m pretty sure is an inaccurate number btw) and “don’t be shocked when we get more freaks in later chapters.”  Not only that but I’m still not sure what direction Tamura wants to take this story. Does he want this to be a buddy cop like comedy series? Does he want this to be a supernatural-like thriller? Does he want this to be a story driven manga or episodic? I don’t really get why it’s like this either since his previous works I understood what he was going for right away. I fear that the fact that the direction isn’t clear at the moment might end up costing Tamura in the end because both Magu-chan and Ayakashi know what they want to be which makes it easier for readers to get invested with. Tamura really can’t afford to be wasting time trying to figure out where to go.

Positives, I thought the action scenes looked really good, especially the panel I posted above. I’m still liking the characters, though I haven’t found the one character I love yet like I did in either of his previous two series. I think the fish people are unique and fresh at the very least.


What better way to celebrate Jujutsu Kaisen’s coronation then by giving it a spotlight? Based on the title, I think you can already tell that this arc has been going on for awhile LOL. It doesn’t look like it’s going to end anytime soon either. That kind of makes it hard to recommend to follow without catching up since well, it’s already so far in and characters are already established so this wouldn’t be a good introduction to them per say. The chapter ends with the “MC” trying to kill a spirit while taunting it!
The action, as usual, was top notch and among the best Jump has to offer at the moment. It also gave some shine on characters aside from the main trio and we got to learn more about Geto’s followers. Their dynamics, what each of their goals were, small things that helped build up the two sides. My main issue here is that things are hard to follow. I’m not talking about in the sense that the story’s confusing (though it’s been 32 chapters, I’m definitely mixing up details at this point). What I mean is that it feels like it just randomly cuts to certain points. It doesn’t flow from one panel to the next perfectly. Overall I think what’s actually happening is still really good and deserving of this push, just that I can get lost at times.

Weekly Shonen Jump isn’t the only publication that Shueisha has under its belt. It publishes a myriad of other magazines and has various online platforms not including Jump where it publishes original manga. This section is meant to be a generally minimal spoilerish look at series from said areas and maybe introduce people to hidden gems.


Jump+ is an interesting platform to say the least. There’s a lot of stuff that doesn’t take off at all, there’s stuff like Fire Punch that didn’t sell noticeably well but obtained a cult following, series like Darling in the Franxx and World’s End Harem that end up becoming pretty successful for uh…reasons, and then there’s Spy x Family that blew up right away and is slowly reaching million seller status within a year. It’s always interesting to see how reception for a new hyped up Jump+ series compares to its eventual sales.

The reason why I’m talking about this is because I think Kaiju No. 8 has had the strongest reception for a Jump+ series since Spy x Family back last year. So many people were talking about this series and hyping it up, and it was even trending in Japanese Twitter the day it came out. So naturally, I needed to check this series out for myself. There’s an issue with that though. It is on Mangaplus…but it’s only in Spanish (thanks English translators ^_^). I have the ability to read something in Spanish (granted, it’ll take me a long time and I still need to use google translate for some parts), but for those that can’t, I hope Mangaplus will release an English version soon cause they haven’t added a not Weekly Shonen Jump series to the service since October and a lot of the old ones are ending so they kinda need to replenish the lineup soon…

That’s enough talk about the circumstances of the manga though. Let’s get into the series itself now. I do want to preface this though with the fact that I hate Kaiju. I’ve never been a fan of Godzilla, the Kaiju archetype is one of my least favorite in Yu-Gi-Oh!, and the last Kaiju manga I read was a WSJ series called Ziga and it quite frankly may be the worst Jump cancelled manga I’ve ever read in my life (and I CANNOT STAND U19). So basically, a Kaiju series would have to do a lot to impress me. I don’t want to say that Kaiju No. 8 absolutely blew me away, but this was an incredibly strong chapter one, much more impactful than a lot of recent WSJ chapter 1s if I'm being honest.

What we have here is the establishing of a setting, getting some information right away but leaving a lot of room to go in depth for, and the baseline for character relationships. My favorite aspect of this chapter is seeing Kafka (not a subtle reference in the slightest, but we’ll get there) thinking back to his promise with Ashino and not giving up his dream of being on the Defense Corps and looking after his junior who in turn shows gratitude for this act. However, so far, Ashino also wasn’t secretly waiting for Kafka all this time, she didn’t seem weighed down by him never fulfilling his part. She also has no idea about what happens to Kafka at the end of the chapter, so seeing where they go from here is definitely intriguing as there are a ton of possibilities.

The art was really on point. It’s only chapter 1, but if it’s this consistent with its art, it would be a treat. Designs are on point. The thing at the end of the chapter actually looked cool, which is a problem I feel for a lot of series that needs to make designs feel awesome; they fall flat most of the time because they overdesign it or it just isn’t appealing. The Kaijus looked neat. I think Kafka looked average, but that’s kind of the point; he’s been a big loser for a long time so he shouldn’t really look cool. Everyone else that mattered though, looked really cool.

There are definitely some problems, I think. If you haven’t read the chapter yet, I’ll blur out the ending but

Spoiler:

This development both had no buildup and came out of nowhere. It’s shocking yeah, and it’s a good hook to read more, but it also feels out of left field because we don’t even know if that’s something that should theoretically be possible in this world. So foreshadowing isn’t really a strong suite at the moment. Also, based on the ending of the chapter as well as Kafka’s name, I think you know what I’m alluding to next: this series isn’t subtle. Even the thing that causes the change in Kafka looks like what his name is a reference

Spoiler:

Normally I wouldn’t care about subtlety, especially in a manga targeted at like 13-year-old boys, but I think this lack of subtleness will actually hurt it in the long run. Like I said earlier, one of the most interesting parts of this chapter was the ambiguity of the relationship between Ashino and Kafka. If we get the answer to that straight away, that takes away one of the best part of the series right away. However, that’s not something to be to fearful of at the moment. There’s only one chapter right now, maybe I’m just assuming too quickly.

Overall, I still think this was a really impactful chapter 1 and with the buzz around it alone, I think it’s worth checking out. You can find a Spanish translation on Mangaplus, but hopefully they can do an English one soon ^_^
       

Oricon numbers are out now, which means we have numbers for sales. These are still estimations since Oricon doesn’t do every single store, but it is far closer to the actual numbers and is generally accepted as the main/ “official” way to track sales. Sites like Shoseki are more for series where they don’t rank in the Oricon top 50. That being said, here are the numbers for July’s series. For this image, the white numbers are from Oricon and the red numbers are estimates from Shoseki. Also, if a series has Oricon numbers, I will not be putting Shoseki numbers there.

*Will fix later*

Kimetsu no Yaiba volume 20 sold 1.9 million in five days back in May. Volume 21 sold 2.041 million in three this month. That’s it. That’s the comment. I really have nothing to say. It’s just insane what this series is doing LOL.

My Hero Academia vs The Promised Neverland, this entire time seemed like it was going to be Neverland’s win, but My Hero’s first day might have ensured its victory week one. That’s just one example of why Shoseki isn’t as important as Oricon. As for the numbers themselves, this is both series best performance out of a three-day first week yet. My Hero’s previous best was volume 10 selling 208, 539 in its first three days, so almost a 50k increase since then. It’s only slightly down from last volume’s first week (but last volume also had two more days). We need to see later weeks sales to see the complete picture, but My Hero Academia is still going really strong it seems. Similarly for The Promised Neverland, its previous best three day opening week was 218, 380 for volume 16, and is also right around last volumes performance (which also opened to a five day first week). I think there’s one volume left, maybe two, so I’m really curious to see if it gets a major ending boost as time goes on.

Dr. Stone was up 24k from last volume, so the growth is definitely there. Black Clover also did 11k more than last volume. Act-age isn’t easy to compare because the last time it had a three-day first week, it was before its explosive growth. Let’s see how it does week two. I think Dr. Stone might be above Black Clover now, but BC is a strong second week seller usually, so we’ll need to wait on that one. Either way, it makes me happy seeing Stone grow like this. It was basically the manga that got me into dwelling deeper into Jump because I wanted to know its survival chances and I still think it’s been consistently great since its debut in 2017.

Finally, we got Agravity Boys…and yep, I wasn’t expecting Oricon numbers, so we’re using Shoseki estimates for this. Volume 1 also had three days and it managed 5,186 copies sold according to Shoseki so…I guess it’s technically growth, but it didn’t even increase by 1k. That is not good. Mission: Yozakura Family and Undead Unluck both showed signs of growth last month, Mashle started hot, and Moriking is looking like it’s going to start hot too (there’s also the x-factor of Time Paradox Ghostwriter) so there’s really no reason to keep Agravity around. Pretty unfortunate since it’s definitely not as big of a flop as say Mitama, and people do like it, but sometimes thems’ the break.


Haikyu!! season 4 has a new key visual out. This one features the strong and fierce Hyogo team, Inarizaki High. Not only that, but it’s officially been confirmed that season 4 is back in October! The good vibes from Haikyu!! just keep rolling.


For some fun, we’re going to have a question every week that revolves around Jump. Be warned though, unlike the rest of Making the Jump, this trivia question can be about any series that ran in Jump! So without further ado –

Haikyu!! is coming to an end really soon. Eight years for a sport series in Jump is nothing to scoff at. Aside from Haikyu!!, what was the longest running Jump sports series to start in the 2010s?

As for last week’s question. The answer is:

Spoiler:

And that’s all for this week! Next time, we’ll continue the Haikyu!! celebration as it should be the last chapter. Tell me how you felt about Jump this week, even if they aren’t in The Spotlight and let me know if there’s a particular series in Jump you want to know more about! Till then, remember: Support the official release!

well hopefully the emergyency break for MHA for its transfer to digitial will help it.

It’s come to this. Our Little Giant has grown and is able to fly high on his own now. We’re talking about Issue #33-34 of Weekly Shonen Jump this time, which came out July 19, 2020. The final chapter of Haikyu!! has been released. It’s a bit of a somber feeling honestly, seeing something so important to current Jump leave the lineup, but the show must go on. And I’m definitely going to give it the love it deserves today.


The first thing to examine is this week’s Jump’s Table of Contents. As you know, a table of contents is a list of what to expect inside whatever literature you’re currently reading, and Jump’s no different. It gives us the order of how series appear in that week’s Jump issue, what series received a center color page (or CP for short), among other things. This isn’t an exact representation of a series standing in Shonen Jump, but it can give us a look at how Shueisha views a series based on patterns and the like. That’s generally why people view the TOC as a ranking of sort.

A series “rank” is just where they appear in the magazine (for example, a series that ranked 4th that week means it’s the fourth series to appear in that week’s Jump, excluding CPs). It’s the closest approximation we can get on a series’ popularity before its first volume is released. While readers in Japan can vote on their top 3 series for a week, ultimately it is up to the editors to decide the order of the TOC (though those viewer votes obviously have a huge factor in the editors’ decision making). New series aren’t “ranked” right away. We don’t know how far back TOC’s are made or how many weeks back they’re meant to reflect a series status, but it is a general rule of thumb that a new series doesn’t start “ranking” until its 8th chapter (or the first chapter where it does not receive a CP if chapter 8 receives one).

Here is the TOC for Issue #33-34 of Weekly Shonen Jump (released 7/19/2020) [NOTE: If there’s two names next to an author avatar, the top italicized name is the one who uses the avatar] [NOTE2: For this TOC, I’m going to replace a series’ author/artist’s name with their author comment if it talks about Haikyu!! or Furudate-sensei]:

*Will fix later*

Next Issue Preview:

Haikyu!! is actually over. There’s officially no sport series in Jump at all for the first time since I think the 1970s. The reason why it got the cover last week as opposed to this issue with its final chapter is because Jump wants to look towards the future (well, I guess this week its more like they wanted to celebrate One Piece’s anniversary) and would rather push something else that's going to keep running than dwell on the past for its grand finale. Haikyu!!’s already a big success and realistically doesn’t need one last cover to attract readers when it’s not going to be in the magazine anymore, so no real need to give it that, ya know? Rest easy, King. You absolutely deserve it. Thanks for the amazing eight years.

Good thing Haikyu!! is ending this week because I got almost nothing else to say about this TOC other than I changed most of the series pictures I’m using for them LOL. It’s a perfectly average TOC that doesn’t really say anything other than things might be dire for Time Paradox Ghostwriter if it can’t turn it around soon (or if its sales next month can’t save it). Moriking is pretty low this week, but it’s probably a fluke. It’s not like the rest of the placements are chaotic. If you swapped Moriking and Mitama Security, then no one would bat an eye at this TOC. This is just one of those weeks where Mitama gets a high rank randomly; it didn’t “escape from the jaws of cancellation” or anything like that, and something gets placed way lower than it should be because of Mitama’s placement. I really don’t get what’s the point of giving Mitama these rankings somewhat frequently, but it’s no big deal. Moriking’s almost definitely going to make it to October at the very least, can’t really say the same for Mitama.  


And now let’s shine some light on the most recent chapter of some series currently featured in Weekly Shonen Jump. These aren’t my top five chapters of a week necessarily, but they are ones that I want to highlight and talk about a little.

For this week though, I’m going to make an exception. Instead of talking about five series relatively spoiler free, I want to give all the attention to one series chapter this week. This one is going to be more spoilerly than normal, so be warned. So without further ado:


This is as fitting of a final chapter title as any for this series. The first chapter of this final arc was called Challenger, and the chapter I would describe as “turning point” of the final arc (as that point is where the plot really starts) was called Another Challenger. The theme of the entire second half of the series was “What are you going to do when presented with a challenge that is hard to overcome?” so bookending it with this is fitting.

It’s very hard to end a series in a satisfying matter, it’s twice as hard to do it in Jump since you’re constantly worrying about if you’re going to get the ax at any point. So while it’s technically not a high bar to cross, I think it’s incredible that Haikyu!! managed to have a really good ending. Almost every character received some kind of closure and this was the epitome of fanservice. There are some amazing callbacks such as Kita bragging about his high school teammates when they appeared in the Olympics, Iwaizumi eventually working alongside Ushijima, Ushijima appearing in Tendo’s documentary (and they’re officially best friends! I love these dorks so much!), and so much more if you’re an extremely observant reader.
The person I want to bring up and talk about specifically first though, is this guy:
The King of All Courts himself: Oikawa. I think that it’s quite poetic that Oikawa, the first boss we see in the entire series (aka the first challenge that Hinata and Kageyama needed to overcome), ended up being the final boss for Kageyama and Hinata’s climb to the top of the Olympics. The intro the commentators gave him really put a lot of things into perspective. Oikawa throughout the series was a top 3 setter and arguably was Hinata and Kageyama’s greatest opponent (while Ushijima was powerful Oikawa was the whole package), yet he wasn’t well known in Japan throughout his school life because he never made Nationals once. Yet he worked hard and endlessly to eventually become one of the top setters in the world (and yes, that is indisputable. He’s a starter for Argentina’s Olympic team. Argentina is really strong in volleyball). Oikawa’s path was arguably harder than Hinata’s since at the very least, Hinata gained recognition because of his decoy playstyle and making Nationals at least once. Oikawa was just constantly overshadowed by younger setters (Kageyama, Atsumu) and prodigies (Ushijma, Sakusa). His team was looked down on by his peers because he couldn’t accomplish anything with them. These geniuses continued challenging his idea that hard work can overcome natural talent. He went across the globe to make a name for himself. He was constantly the challenged by these people showing him up. He never gave up though. He worked and worked until he stood on this world stage as the challenger to Japan’s finest.

Spoiler:

This chapter also makes you realize just how much you grew to love Hinata and Kageyama as a team as well as a pair of rivals. If you really think about it, this final arc was only about half a year, so Kageyama and Hinata were on opposing teams for only around thirty chapters. Yet we don’t realize what we have till its gone so after what felt like so long, seeing those two stand side by side on the biggest stage of them all with their original high school numbers…it just made me emotional. Not only that, but to get to see their quick one last time before we skip to another year where they stand as opponents once more, but as friendly rivals that have acknowledged each other completely…man there’s just no way you can consider this ending bad. We saw them at their peak and their worst. It was definitely a difficult path to get these two to actually like each other, but they eventually did. And they were able to grow into the best versions of themselves once they reached that point. At one point they were fallen crows faced with controversy. They rose to the challenge though. They went from the defeated to the defeaters. They made it to the top of the world. They were able to find what they were looking for thanks to the other person. All this comes together in this moment and I can’t help but get emotional.
While it’s a little disappointing that we don’t really get to see much of either of these last two games (for now. Who knows, maybe we’ll get a “Kuroko no Basket: Extra Game” style epilogue for these down the line) I think they accomplished everything they needed for what Furudate-sensei was trying to convey in this final chapter. The “Challenge” theme I think I’ve already talked enough about, but what else was this chapter supposed to besides that and be fanservice? Well, its said in the chapter itself: Volleyball is fun. There was not a single sad person in this chapter. Everybody was smiling once they stepped on the court or started watching the game. Furudate-sensei even specifically brought back a background character that told Ushijima that volleyball was boring just to show that there’s a lot of love in this sport. This was a serious competition, but no one really felt like they were dreading this game or were nervous about the world ending if they lost here. They just focused on being the best they could be and enjoying themselves out there. It was simple, but that’s the point, fun is simple. You don’t need to break down things you find fun to a complicated level. In the end, if you can smile and be proud about something you find fun, that’s enough.

I think Furudate-sensei nailed the ending. Thank you for all your hard work. You truly created something amazing in these eight years. I look forward to anything you have planned for the future.
     


Weekly Shonen Jump isn’t the only publication that Shueisha has under its belt. It publishes a myriad of other magazines and has various online platforms not including Jump where it publishes original manga. This section is meant to be a generally minimal spoilerish look at series from said areas and maybe introduce people to hidden gems.


So, according to VIZ and Mangaplus, the mangaka requested specifically that this English translation be read left to right instead of right to left like other manga. Can’t say I really get it since this manga doesn’t really do anything that suggests that it’s better read that way and I think we’re past the point where it’s “weird” to read a manga right to left, but whatever, if it’s what the mangaka wants I’ll respect it. This is from the person behind Rosario Vampire and it’s the first series in a while that Viz/Mangaplus picked up from Jump+ right away for English.

The series is about a twenty-eight-year-old woman that looks really young (we’ll talk about how young later) trying to become an actress and failing time after time. We’re meant to presume that she loses jobs cause of her temper, but there’s obviously more to Chloe than meets the eye. Turns out that she’s a pretty powerful medium for spirits that all want to possess her and her “temper” is more just her repelling spirits and unexpecting humans not knowing that they were possessed in the first place. This naturally leads to ecchi hijinks and we’re introduced to the male lead character, a spirit named Kai, a self-proclaimed “lolicon” lover…we’ll get to that later. Anyway, after a conversation and meeting the producer from earlier, we get to the real meat of the series, the idea of Kai possessing Chloe so that she can become the titled “Ghost Reaper Girl” (a reference to Chloe’s most notable role) and it’s basically a magic girl series it seems.

I think the manga looks beautiful. I wasn’t big on Rosario Vampiro but it always looked nice, so it’s not that shocking that this one looked good too. It might also because I don’t like Rosario Vampiro, but I didn’t notice “same-face” syndrome with any of these characters either. Chloe and Kai don’t look like anything from the mangaka’s previous series, which is good, some artists just end up making characters that look similar to his old ones. I also think that even though it was flipped to left to right, it was easy to follow. Nothing to confusing yet and the flow is nice. That’s about all the nice things I could come up with though.

I think there’s a lot of problems with this first chapter, a lot of it to do with the premise. First off, it’s an exorcist manga in a modern-day setting. I get it, exorcists are cool and demons are an easy thing to show off your artistic ability with, but when you have Jujutsu Kaisen, Blue Exorcist, Twin Star Exorcists that are already modern day exorcist series, and then stuff like Seraph of the End which is basically the same thing except replace demons with vampires, floating around (not to mention all the flops we get), you have to do something really thrilling to stand out from the pack…and I don’t think magic girl with pervert as your partner is the way to go. Granted, this is still only chapter 1 so who knows where this decides to go, but as of right now, my initial response to this was that it didn’t do much to differentiate itself from the crowd. On top of this, two series immediately came to mind when I first read this: Act-age and Ayakashi Triangle. The idea that the girl is suspectable to being possessed and has a boy that “protects” her from these evil spirits is literally Ayakashi Triangle. Chloe was a failure of an actress before the series began and did something that rubbed producers/directors the wrong way constantly. That was literally Yonagi before chapter 1 of Act-age. I’m not saying this is a rip off of either series, the mangaka is a veteran so they surely can come up with a unique spin to an existing premise. What I am saying though is that doing a similar premise to these two is not doing it any favors in standing out in an already crowded genre.

Let’s get into the “loli” thing. Let’s put aside the fact that the MC is a lolicon lover, which is its own can of worms (my tl;dr is that there’s no way to justify this, Kai’s forever going to be a garbage character), and instead look at Chloe. A loli is generally a girl that looks like a child but is an adult. The entire premise of the story is that Kai wants to be with Chloe because he’s attracted to lolis. The problem with that is…CHLOE DOES NOT LOOK LIKE A LOLI. She at most looks like she’s 20 years old. She still clearly looks like an adult so ignoring the fact that Kai is garbage morally, he’s clearly blind. On top of this, Kai is supposedly a big fan of Chloe (to the point that he knew about Ghost Reaper Girl, which was a massive flop in this universe), so how would he not know that she’s almost 30? This feels like both a contradiction and a lame attempt to appeal to a certain sub-demographic of people. I really hope this aspect of Kai’s character disappears over time, but he was proclaiming it constantly, so I don’t know about that one. Hopefully then, Chloe isn’t forced into countless loli jokes.

Finally, where exactly do we go from here? It’s probably a magic girl manga, so I assume we go through traditional magic girl shenanigans for a bit. What’s a long-term goal though? What is this series going to work up to? Depending on where it goes, it could be up or downhill for here.

I might have sounded harsh here, but I do want to reinforce that I did like this chapter. There’s a lot I didn’t like, but I was still able to enjoy this for what it is, and I’m interested in seeing where it goes. I just don’t think it’s as good as Kaiju No. 8.  


It’s finally time to say goodbye. It still feels so surreal actually seeing it, but Haikyu!! is finally over.
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I checked the series out on a whim back in 2015 partially because J-Stars Victory Vs+ recently came out and I was obsessed with that game (and I’ll still fight to this day that it’s a good game) and Hinata was one of the characters in the game (support only; but my goal was to check out basically every series in that game), partially because I was still looking for a sports series to follow after Kuroko no Basket’s ending left a giant hole in my heart (the first of many holes that the ending of Jump manga would leave), and also because I loved (well, still love) Amalee’s cover of the anime’s first opening: Imagination. All these things led me to checking out the series in late summer of 2015 (right before season 2 started airing) and it was love at first sight. I loved it so much that I couldn’t even wait for season 2; I went straight to the manga and went out of my way to marathon it until I was fully caught up, not reading anything else until I was. Season 2 came out shortly after and I’ll say it was one of the bright spots in my life during that time.

It's basically always been there since I started really getting into anime and manga, reaching this day still feels incredibly weird. It wasn’t always sunshine and rainbows for the series. The beginning of the timeskip was kinda brutal (bite me Oikawa fans. His parts, aside from the last chapter, definitely dragged compared to the rest of the time-skip) and reading some of these games was absolutely brutal weekly (though they are much better if you can read the entirety of it all at once). I can look back on those days fondly and still remember that I love this series from the bottom of my heart.

What’s Haikyu!! about? Well, on the surface its about a high school first year named Shoyo Hinata who was inspired to love volleyball after one day seeing a player nicknamed “The Little Giant” play on the center court of High School Nationals. In his third year of middle school, he encounters a player named Tobio Kageyama that would go on to be destined to be his greatest rival of all. Once they both entered high school, they become teammates and fate begins turning for these two.

So what about this series makes it better than your average sports series? I think there’s a lot of factors at play here. First and foremost, I think every single major character is solid. The most important thing in a sports anime/manga is the cast since we’re going to be forced to see these people a lot and I think Haikyu!! humanizes these characters really well. Every opposing team/rival felt like people instead of just a plot device needed for the main team to develop. There were several moments where I was actively rooting for the opposing team instead of Hinata’s. I think what helps with this feeling is that just because someone lost, it didn’t feel like their journey was over. They still mattered in the end and still took an active role in helping the world grow. A lot of times in other sports series, it felt like once a team lost they just get sidelined, relegated to just being a sideline commentator. Haikyu!! was different though.

Another thing I think Haikyu!! excelled at is the use of themes in the story. A lot of prevalent themes appear throughout the story and they always come back down the line when you least expect them. Nothing is ever forgotten and Furudate pays it off every single time without fail. Just pay attention to something small like Hinata learning how to bump properly or Bokuto.

For me though, the thing that I loved most about Haikyu!! was that it taught me that failure is okay. In life, we face difficult situations that sometimes we can’t overcome the first time. And that’s fine! We just need to keep tackling the problem and eventually we will be able to get over the hump and stand tall and proud. Luck is also a part of our lives. Sometimes we just don’t get lucky and fail when things looked like they were meant to be. That’s fine too though. Ultimately, we can’t let ourselves be brought down by luck. Something is always going to happen. It’s up to us to not let luck always win though and smile despite how hard it can be sometimes. There will be a time eventually that we can be happy.

I could go on for days about how much Haikyu!! matters to me and how much I recommend it others. I hated volleyball before reading it and now it’s my third favorite sport and I regret not being able to play it when I was younger. I’ll leave things with this: I love Haikyu!! from the bottom of my heart. I am eternally grateful that I was able to experience this amazing series while it was running. It was there during some of the darkest points of my life and it will always have a place in my heart. It’s going to admittedly be hard to get through some weeks without it being there anymore. I’m going to cry reading this chapter knowing that this is the end of the main story.

I’m not going to be sad though. I’m not going to be sad because it’s over. I’m going to smile and be happy because Haikyu!! happened.  


For some fun, we’re going to have a question every week that revolves around Jump. Be warned though, unlike the rest of Making the Jump, this trivia question can be about any series that ran in Jump! So without further ado –

This one is a simple multiple-choice question: There were 4 notable successes in Jump back in 2012: The Disastrous Life of Saiki K., Assassination Classroom, Haikyu!!, and Shokugeki no Soma. Which one of these was the LAST one to debut?

Last week’s answer:

Spoiler:

And that’s all for this week. Next week, Jump’s actually on break since this was a double issue. I’ll be here though. I hope you’ll stick around for a special edition of Making the Jump. I’d love to see your thoughts on Haikyu!!, whether it be the manga or anime. Till then, remember: Support the official release!

Well, Jump’s on break this week, but I didn’t want to take a break four weeks into doing this. Gotta make this a routine after all! So for this week, I figured why not venture outside of Shuiesha and check out some of the series for one of their biggest competitors: Kodasha! For this week, let’s look at the second bestselling shonen magazine at the moment: Weekly Shonen Magazine. This edition is going to be shorter since well: the TOC is essentially meaningless for WSM, Kodasha always releases their WSM volumes on the seventeenth of a month so there’s no recent sales numbers to analyze really, and there’s really no point to looking Beyond the Jump this week since we’re already doing that. Let’s get straight into it though. This week we aren’t Making the Jump…this week we’re grabbing something new from The Magazine Rack.  


There’s an eensy teensy problem about Weekly Shonen Magazine that makes this kind of hard: there’s no official English simulpub for almost any of these series. That basically means there’s no point in making The Spotlight be about a series chapter that week since there’s a chance that translations might not be caught up completely. I’m just going to say google is your friend, and good luck if you want to check these out. I’m going to try my best at the very least to pick series that have an anime coming out/are almost guaranteed to be getting one that you CAN check out on services like Crunchyroll or Hidive or series that DO have an official volume release.

These are going to be more spoilerly than normal and more of a look at the series than specific chapters. Without further ado though, let’s shine that light on five WSM series.


Just cause these characters look extremely familiar doesn’t mean that this is just Fairy Tail again, even though in the beginning it feels like it is. I can guarantee you that Eden’s Zero has a bunch of merit of its own. This isn’t just Fairy Tail but in space like any preview or color page would make it appear to be. I don’t know what sort of enlightenment journey Hiro Mashima went through between the conclusion of Fairy Tail and now, but the difference in writing is like night and day. For example: while yes, the word friend is definitely overused here (though I don’t know what the raws say, so could just be a translation issue), the series is definitely self-aware about this fact and makes fun of it a lot. It’s a ridiculous series, and it doesn’t try to pretend like it’s a serious epic like Fairy Tail did. The characters aren’t reinventing the wheel, but they aren’t trying to either.

There’s a lot of cool ideas though. A space odyssey will always be cool (unless you’re Samurai 8). The different planets and their gimmicks are interesting concepts, and while some hit and some don’t, for the most part I think they make the adventure enjoyable enough. The cast of characters are all good to tolerable, most of the humor is deeper than “lol ecchi” (though that is still here somewhat). So far, save for one instance, the battles haven’t gone down to “MY FRIENDS ARE MY POWER!” like Fairy Tail boiled down to nearly every time. The characters have interesting fight styles and the resolutions of conflicts are neat. The art is as great as always from Mashima. I’d say that overall, this invokes a greater feeling of Rave Master rather than Fairy Tail, which is great since I like the former way more than the latter.

You aren’t going to get an original new experience in the shonen demographic with this manga. If you want cool fights with great choreography and fun characters, you will get it here. It isn’t going to get stupid at any point. I know if you felt burned by Fairy Tail, it might be hard to put your trust in this series, but I genuinely believe it’s worth giving a shot at least.
 

I know what I say here may be controversial, but I stand by it. Some people like this series because they’re addicted to “trash reading”, aka they hate a series and they know they do but they just can’t stop going down this rabbit hole. However, I’m going to sit here and say that this is not only a good series, but a great one.

The harem subgenre of romcoms is inherently flawed. The author has to stretch things out longer than it needs to realistically be so that he can develop a believable relationship between the chosen girl and the male MC. Often times, an author has to make the “winning” girl obvious so that the reader can fully see how their relationship got to that point without it just seeming like they pulled it out of their butt. The biggest tissue of all though, every girl will have their fans. Only one girl can win 95% of the time. You’re going to make a lot of people angry. I understand all this, but the reason why I still love harem series is because it shows different dynamics between characters, new sides to the MC, and most of the time, even if I don’t like the “winner” seeing their relationship with the MC grow over time feels great because I can see genuine love.

I think you can see where I’m going with this. In Rent-a-Girlfriend, there’s an obvious girl that’s 99% going to end up with Kazu. Kazu was absolutely a bad person at the start of the story, there are some absolutely terrible people/characters (MAMI!!!!!!), there are controversial characters (Ruka), and then there’s the sweetest girl you’ll meet in Sumi (who also has her own spinoff!). There’s a wide range of how people act. Growth as people, trying to understand one’s self, moving forward despite pain, these are all things this story expresses. The main complaint of this series is that Kazu is completely spineless and doesn’t do anything to advance the relationship, but…that’s the point. He’s in this situation in the first place because he didn’t have the will to tell his grandma the truth about the relationship between him and Chizuru. Chizuru can’t be honest with herself or Kazu about how she feels about him because their entire relationship was built on a lie, and now she doesn’t know what to do in order to change it. Kazu can’t ever make a move because he allowed this lie to play out and made it so he can’t try to get closer to her after realizing that he actually does love her. He’s also lonely and pathetic so he doesn’t know how to put his romantic feelings separate from his uh…horniness. The whole point of this story is Kazu growing into a respectable human being. This takes time though. He can’t just do things that break the status quo he and Chizuru set for themselves easily. The constant going in a circle that most harems do makes perfect sense here.

As for the other main complaint of the story: Ruka. I know she’s really clingy and can easily be considered annoying, but I think most people don’t look at it from her perspective, rather they only look at it through their own. Is Ruka completely innocent in this scenario? Of course not, she definitely takes some things too far. A lot of it though is because a) she’s a young girl that’s been considered different her entire life and she finally found something she thinks is love. I don’t blame her for trying to pursue Kazu relentlessly since it’s possible that she’ll never find anything close to it again, b) Kazu is also largely at fault. While in the beginning he didn’t have much choice, at this point he could definitely say he’s not interested and go their separate ways. Kazu isn’t like that though. He doesn’t understand romance or even being an adult yet, but he’s going to grow over time and find out his solution to this problem. I’m not asking people to like Ruka or anything, but I think to hate her without remorse, people need to actually understand her side of this and decide, not just use their ideas.

It's not a perfect series. There are some characters that genuinely are terrible and serve no purpose aside from being awful (MAMI!!!!), some arcs do in fact go on longer than they needed to. However, I don’t think it deserves to be called a trash series and there genuinely is a lot to this series than meets the eye. It’s not going to make you fall in love with harem manga, but if you already liked them, I absolutely recommend this series unironically.


If you’re wondering why this looks like Soul Eater, it’s by the same guy. This series is pretty weird in that some of its jokes/ideas are really out there, just like Soul Eater, but don’t be afraid. This isn’t just his previous series with a firefighter skin. Fire Force does a lot to make it stand on its own merits.

First things first, I’ll rip off the band-aid right now: this series’ fanservice is just as jarring as Soul Eater’s. There are clear instances of it, but they’re done in such a weird way that it’s hard to tell if they’re meant to be comedic, a parody of ecchi elements of shonen, or what. So if you didn’t like that in Soul Eater, you’re not going to like it here. Nothing as bad as the ending of Soul Eater’s manga ending yet, but just keep that in mind if you check the series out.

I think Fire Force’s biggest strength is its creativity. You’d think having a world where the main power is fire that it’d get old real quick, but its actually impressive how many ideas Okubo comes up with to keep the fire powers fresh. Sure, some of these are incredible stretches for “fire” based abilities, but he also comes with some really good powers for some people. I think he also comes up with interesting ways to get focus on characters aside from Shinra (like having an arc where a member of the villain group “trains” himself to fight Tamaki in chapters spread out instead of all at once) and interesting ideas for arcs.

I think most of the fights hit well. The only fights I would consider “terrible” are Tamaki ones…and I think that only applies for the comedy ones. She’s actually got some of the cooler fights when they (and she) are being taken seriously. The anime definitely cranks it up to eleven and creates an absolutely beautiful experience, but the manga looks cool enough on its own. The facial expressions are on point, making for some good comedy at certain moments.

It doesn’t reinvent the wheel or anything, the characters are fun with some gems, but nothing truly stand out about them. I’d say give this series a shot if you want a great animation experience or fun traditional shonen battle manga.    


With Haikyu!! now done, I would say there’s a big hole in the sports manga department. We got titans like Hajime no Ippo and some series like Diamond of the Ace has made a name for themselves (Real will also be finished someday…hopefully) but there isn’t a top dog in my opinion. There’s going to be scrambles of course, but I think one of them is primed to reach the apex…all it needs is an official translation or an anime. Blue Lock legitimately has everything it needs to become a legendary sports manga by the time it ends. All it needs at this point is some official way to support it outside Japan.

As for the series itself, what about it makes it stand out? Well, the artwork for one. It’s got this gritty and dirty look to it that is both reminiscent of sports series of the past as well as giving the series its own flair. It captures the inner thoughts and greed of the characters very well, which you’re going to see a lot of for reasons I’ll explain in a bit. The art really helps with the action and games as well. When someone makes a play, you feel the impact based on how terrifying someone’s inner demonic aura or how the ball looks while flying towards the goal. The mental background a character sits or stands in while going through an inner monologue all look amazing too, which does a fantastic job of showing someone’s state while they’re processing what’s going on around them. The only negative really is that it doesn’t feel like there’s a lot of background variety, but well, when it’s a soccer manga where the cast is in a training facility 24/7, I guess setting variety is hard to come by.

This series is very different from other sports manga. A lot of them talk and show the good side of being on a team and how the grind to become the best is fulfilling and rewarding and other rainbow and sunshine concepts you associate with sports. The very premise of this series is that 300 high school boys are aiming to be the best striker in the world. Solo. By himself. It’s not about how together they can make Japan a threat in international soccer. It’s about creating the ONE strongest striker by trampling on the hopes of the 299 other players in Blue Lock. This manga encourages individualism and strengthening one’s own desire to be the best over the desire to make the team the best. It shows the ugly and hard parts of playing a sports seriously, from constant failure, to humiliation, to how the grind damages you badly. It’s a harsh reality check about the world of sports…which is pretty ironic since the concept of having a private facility to raise the best striker while keeping 300 high school boys out of their schools to raise them is completely unrealistic.

That doesn’t mean that Blue Lock is completely devoid of sports series staples. The most basic thing a sports manga needs is a strong cast of characters which this series has in spades. Since everyone is competing against one another, that basically makes everyone the “rival” character. Rival characters are usually the make or break part of a sports manga so giving Isagi all these interesting dynamics for opponents and people he may be forced to team with alike is an intriguing spin on the concept. Some characters obviously stand out more than others (mainly because they feel like actual threats to Isagi’s climb to the top rather than just a minor inconvenience while on the way there), but the main characters are all at least “good”. Character wise, I think the weak point of the series is making me care about characters who obviously aren’t going to be important long term. Most of the not major characters feel like the fodderest of fodder, like they would feel just as important if they didn’t have a name and never interacted with the main plot. You can tell basically right away who’s going to matter down the line and who’s just there to make the actually relevant characters look amazing.

Of Weekly Shonen Magazine’s current ongoing lineup, I think Blue Lock is the strongest manga featured in it. It’s the complete package, from strong characters, to breathtaking art, to intense storytelling. Now, just give me an anime or official English release for the manga please.      


This is technically cheating but hey, they’re rereleasing the manga in full color in Japan and the English volume release isn’t finished yet so it’s ongoing still .

Nisekoi ended all the way back in 2016 and I won’t be afraid to admit that its conclusion left a gigantic hole in my life. I’m a softie at heart; romance is probably my favorite genre for manga and it was thanks to Nisekoi. That being said, for a long time, I felt empty reading/watching romance series. There were some I liked, even a lot, such as We Never Learn. It just wasn’t the same though. They couldn’t fill the void that Nisekoi left. At some point, I gave up hope that I would ever find that series. Then, by some miracle, I found this series.

For Rent-a-Girlfriend, I described the pitfalls the harem subgenre falls into all the time. Stuff like an obvious winner, drags things out, etc. were just natural parts of harems. Even my beloved Nisekoi fell for everything that I described. This series though, was completely different. Maybe because it was more a mystery and drama than a comedy, but this was the first time I genuinely thought any of the girls could end up with the MC and be believable. Negi Haruba was able to make every girl genuinely likeable in their own way, and it really came down to if you like certain tropes or not (I hate angry-type tsunderes so I couldn’t click with Nino, but she’s definitely a well written character for 75% of the story, for example). Futaro is a strong lead character, which a lot of authors struggle with for the male love interest.

The romance and end goal of marrying Futaro was secondary. The main focus of the series was the growth and development of the quints as students and people. Negi did a fantastic job of characterizing them. They felt like compelling people with depth and completely unique. By the end, they were all endearing in their own ways. Their bonds as sisters really show up prominently as well. You can tell how close they really are and the fact that they’ve fallen for the same guy doesn’t completely destroy everything they established before he entered their lives. They don’t hate each other or fight intensively about which one is going to end up with Futaro like in most other harems.

The strongest point of this story without a doubt is Negi’s storytelling. He is a master at foreshadowing: something minor may come up in one chapter, and then thirty-fifty chapters later it’ll come up again and put the pieces together to create an engaging plot. He’s able to create dramatic plots that don’t feel overbearing or ruin the flow of the series like what happens to other harem series when they try to be serious. Most of the character arcs in the story are satisfying and emotionally connectable. He tackles family issues and tutor problems masterfully…for the most part. For 90% of the story, the quality is also consistent, getting better as time goes on (which is rare in harems; they usually peak at one point and then go downwards in terms of quality.

Do I like this series more than Nisekoi? If it wasn’t for the last 10 or so chapters, probably would have. You could tell Negi wanted out at that point (can’t say I blame him; kid was born right before that so probably wanted to spend a lot of time with them). That doesn’t matter though. I think this is an amazing harem series that does something different from the romance genre of manga and I absolutely recommend it to not only romance lovers, but anyone that wants a compelling story about learning and growing as people.

Remember though, the best girl of the series is Miku. Revere the Church and the Goddess as she loves all.      


Kodasha’s actually been kind of busy lately. Eden’s Zero got an anime announced recently. Both Fire Force and Rent-a-Girlfriend are currently airing this season. The Quintessential Quintuplets are coming back for season 2 in January of 2021. Tokyo Revengers also got its anime announced recently. Ahiru no Sora is currently about to reach its final amount of episodes for now, and the mangaka recently stated that they did not like aspects of the adaptations, so who knows if we’ll get a season 2…All in all, I’d say they aren’t in the middle of a dry spout for anime.
 

The Quintessential Quintuplets was both a miracle and a curse for Kodasha. Its explosion in popularity after the anime aired made it WSM’s second or third best selling manga in the current line-up (behind only Seven Deadly Sins and perhaps Diamond of the Ace). They really needed that because while they have a lot of good selling manga, Magazine didn’t/don’t have that many great selling manga, other than those three, I think Days is the only other manga they had that can make it over 200k sales before falling off the charts. Quints could have been a pillar for years to come if it continued long term as its growth was ridiculous (if Kimetsu no Yaiba didn’t happen, most people that analyze manga sales would probably be talking about Quints growth and how dumb it is instead). It ended before reaching its peak though. Not only that, but SDS also ended (theoretically. I think there’s supposed to be like four spinoff series for it coming at some point). So Magazine’s kind of in a tight spot at the moment with one series that can manage above 200k, a bunch of series that can manage somewhere between 50k-100k but probably have peaked (I don’t think Fire Force or Rent-a-Girlfriend can grow much more than they have), a few series that are carried by their author’s name it seems (Eden’s Zero could possibly still explode, maybe, but I’m convinced the only reason Orient still manages 30k is because the author did Magi. Literally no one talks about it at this point), and then a few series where they sell a lot but could either be stunted or explode once an anime comes out (Tokyo Revengers I feel like has reached a peak but the upcoming anime could boost it, Blue Lock I am confident can explode in popularity if it gets an anime soon, and Shogi-senpai could either be stunted at 60k or the Takagi-san anime fans might get into it and cause it to explode too). Notice all the speculation I did. I had nothing concrete to say about almost any current manga’s future sales. In my opinion, that’s the worst thing for a manga magazine. It’s one thing to know you have a few hits, and then a decent number of flops (I wouldn’t say it’s “working" for them, but Sunday’s still around after all. And Champion is in a similar situation but seem to be doing fine). But when you don’t know what to do and whether or not its worth taking a risk to invest in almost two-thirds of your lineup…yeah you got some problems.

Enter this series. At first, Couple Cuckoos seems to be in line with the Eden’s Zero and Orients of the lineup: Couple Cuckoos is by the woman that did Yamada and the Seven Witches. Unlike the other two however, from volume 1 to volume 2, Cuckoos has shown substantial growth. Volume 2 managed to sell over 30k copies in three days and ranked 32 on Oricon (Tokyo Revengers’ most recent volume for reference, was only one spot higher and sold maybe 1k more). Its received numerous accolades and advertisements claiming it to be a fast rising series (in the first half of 2020, Cuckoos volume 1 was the 2nd best selling first volume of a manga excluding spinoffs, and I think top 10 if you do include them), has received constant reprints almost every week, and was even nominated for the Tsugi ni Kuro Manga Taisho Award (which is basically the manga you think is going to be a big hit in the future). A fan based nominated award sure, but that’s definitely a good sign for reception if fans got it into the final ballot. While you can argue that this series got lucky with timing, starting the week after Quintsended in Magazine, at some point quality needs to be accounted for.

The story is a simple harem story. It has the “which girl is going to win is obvious” issue if that’s something you can’t look past. If you can though, I think it’s a comfy and low-key story with a lot of good fluff. The relationship between Nagi and Erica feels natural (despite the stupid premise of the series), I really like the dynamic between Sachi and Erica, and right now the “how do we get to the end goal” part of the story is really good. It’s definitely not reinventing the wheel at the moment. It doesn’t need to though. People clearly like it and it’s at the moment I would say it’s Magazine’s best shot of making a new “pillar” aside from Blue Lock or Tokyo Revengers maybe exploding in popularity after a future anime.
 

For some fun, we’re going to have a question every week that revolves around Jump. Be warned though, unlike the rest of Making the Jump, this trivia question can be about any series that ran in Jump! So without further ado –

Q: Of the current Jump lineup, if Shueisha were to celebrate their anniversary on the date they debuted on, which one would be first?

Last week’s answer:

Spoiler:

And that’s it for this special edition. This may seem like filler, but I really didn’t want to take a break four weeks into doing this and I was in a tight spot since Jump was on break this week. I just poured my heart out about Haikyu!! last week too, so I didn’t want to do a deep dive into an older Jump series so soon after it. Thanks for reading anyway, we’ll be back next week with Making the Jump. Till then, remember: support the official release!

And we're back to our regularly scheduled programming! This is the last edition before the August volumes of Jump are released, so let's jump into Issue 35 of Weekly Shonen Jump.


The first thing to examine is this week’s Jump’s Table of Contents. As you know, a table of contents is a list of what to expect inside whatever literature you’re currently reading, and Jump’s no different. It gives us the order of how series appear in that week’s Jump issue, what series received a center color page (or CP for short), among other things. This isn’t an exact representation of a series standing in Shonen Jump, but it can give us a close look at how Shueisha views a series based on patterns and the like. That’s generally why people view the TOC as a ranking of sort.

A series “rank” is just where they appear in the magazine (for example, a series that ranked 4th that week means it’s the fourth series to appear in that week’s Jump, excluding CPs). It’s the closest approximation we can get on a series’ popularity before its first volume is released. While readers in Japan can vote on their top 3 series for a week, ultimately it is up to the editors to decide the order of the TOC (though those viewer votes obviously have a huge factor in the editors’ decision making). New series aren’t “ranked” right away. We don’t know how far back TOC’s are made or how many weeks back they’re meant to reflect a series status, but it is a general rule of thumb that a new series doesn’t start “ranking” until its 8th chapter (or the first chapter where it does not receive a CP if chapter 8 receives one).

Here is the TOC for Issue #35 of Weekly Shonen Jump (released 8/2/2020) [NOTE: If there’s two names next to an author avatar, the top italicized name is the one who uses the avatar]

*Will fix later*

Next Issue Preview:

A week break and the TOC still feels like nothing truly out of the ordinary. There are only a couple things that sort of standout but generally there isn’t much to say. My Hero Academia is celebrating its sixth anniversary, which is always nice to see. Getting a CP next week as well is sort of odd since Horikoshi hasn’t been doing a lot lately, but I get it. It’s the second biggest manga in the magazine at the moment, it can do things like that.

Time Paradox Ghostwriter, oh Time Paradox Ghostwriter. This is heartbreaking to see. A series with so much potential and its come crashing down. I think this is the poster boy for series that were misguided to demise. The first volume is going to need to pull off a miraculous amount of sales to save this series. Even then, that might not be enough to salvage it because even if we had evidence that it was going to be an amazing seller (we don’t have much meaningful data, but basically any pre-release info points to it not selling a lot), the development of the story has made it so that there’s no chance of this being a long runner. I guess we learned another lesson today: sometimes series can’t overcome controversy if readers hate it enough. I would also say that Japan and the West have way different views on things cause this one is by far the most talked about newbie of 2020 in the West, but we been know that. Also, Western popularity isn’t saving a series. If Japan doesn’t like it as well, a series days are numbered.

The other thing of note here is that Agravity Boys actually made it out of the bottom 3 for once. Hold your cheers because there’s a good chance that this is a one week fluke. As Mitama has shown time and time again, sometimes they just randomly put a gag series high up there. I don’t think Agravity has any real momentum with this placement either. I would argue the quality of the story has been going down recently, so this probably wouldn’t last, all the ending flags are still in the series, it’s been like 30 weeks and STILL no sign of a CP beyond the obligatory one series get for chapter 2, and Agravity itself has sometimes gotten out of the bottom 3 one week only to end up dead last the next.

Now that I’m looking at it actually, everything releasing a volume in August other than Jujutsu Kaisen, Mashle and Chainsawman (aka, the two series that are going to sell the best not counting Haikyu!! and the newbie series that’s also basically guaranteed to sell) are all in a line from Moriking down. I wouldn’t be shocked if the strategy was put them all together on purpose so that people can see what they can buy the Tuesday after this issue comes out at their bookstore. Since Agravity released volume 2 in July, it would disrupt their chain. I could be wrong though. Let’s see how it does next issue. Maybe it actually is rising up the ladder.

The last thing to bring up isn’t about what is there, but rather what’s going to be there. Ayakashi Triangle is going to start ranking next week. Time sure does fly huh? It felt like yesterday I started Making the Jump with Hardboiled Cop and Dolphin and now series from its batch are starting to get ranked. There’s a lot of possibilities for Ayakashi’s first placement. I’m not going to be shocked if its low because ecchi series tend to rank lower. I’m not going to be shocked if its high since Yabuki is a veteran and they might feel inclined to give his series a little push (by the way, he was allowed to do a collab poster featuring female characters from Jump’s other series, something that’s usually reserved for people that are sticking around for a while. Sure it could just be because he’s a veteran and the only ecchi artist they got at the moment, but it’s worth considering). I’m also not going to act like it’s a huge deal if this series gets a CP early because Jump has done that for a lot of veterans new work after they came back (it happened with Tamura’s last series and probably will happen with this one, happened with Kuroko’s author, it happened with Yozakura, it even happened as recent as last batch with Moriking). I do wonder how things are going to turn out because I do like Ayakashi and there are signs that it was received decently. We just need to wait and see.


And now let’s shine some light on the most recent chapter of some series currently featured in Weekly Shonen Jump. These aren’t my top five chapters of a week necessarily, but they are ones that I want to highlight and talk about a little.


It’s chapters like these that make me smile about Yozakura’s future if it’s allowed to evolve into the Reborn! successor that it can be. This chapter exhibits the strong bond and teamwork Taiyo has with his family (in this case Shinzo). It highlights Gondaira-sensei’s strength in drawing action scenes. It showcases that this manga is good even without Mutsumi being there. Most importantly, it shows how cool the other family members really are. From the beginning, Shinzo was an interesting character and had potential, but he didn’t get the spotlight save for his one chapter early on. This time around though, we got to see what he’s actually capable of. It felt like one of those early chapters of Reborn! where Gokudera or Yammato got to show off that they’re more than just regular high school kids against actual mafia members.

I think this chapter was also important in the aspect that it showed that its safe to invest in the series for a while. Taiyo and Shinzo didn’t even come close to capturing coco so that point isn’t getting resolved soon. There’s another mysterious figure here now that’s going to clash with the Yozakura family soon (who’s hinted to be a member of the Yozakura as well since he has a cherry blossom ring too). We clearly aren’t wrapping things up anytime soon. Plus, with the first anniversary coming up the end of the month, other new series looking like they’re going to do worse than Yozakura sales wise (and already doing worse TOC wise), I would say its almost a definite that Yozakura is making it to 2021.  


I wanted to talk about Black Clover for a while, but I never felt like it was right since most weeks I just liked or wanted to talk about other series more. This week felt right though because it was the conclusion (presumably) of a major battle. I wanted to talk about this because this chapter was good, but it also sort of visualizes my biggest problem with the series right now: “why do I care?” Ever since the timeskip, I haven’t really cared about 80% of what’s been going on. Even this chapter, the fight between Asta and Yami vs the devil who’s name escapes me, it was a cool moment that Yami recognizes Asta as an equal finally, but I don’t think the fact it was this devil mattered at all. I really haven’t cared that they’re fighting the Spade Kingdom at all and this war was the thing that I was looking forward to the most since the concept of multiple kingdoms was introduced in the first arc. It’s just, it feels like Tabata actually planned for the series to end with the defeat of last arc’s main villain, but he got the okay to continue and now didn’t know what to do. Black Clover’s fast pacing is its biggest strength, but also its biggest weakness. That fast pacing really works when something’s been hyped up over hundreds of chapters and we get a resolution. It really doesn’t when Tabata has to essentially start from scratch and do the build-up all over again. I feel like in 100 chapters the series will be absolutely amazing again, but I really don’t know what Tabata can really do to fix this.    


Of the latest four series, I think Magu-chan has established itself as the best of them by far. It knows what it wants to do, its trying to be entertaining rather than just competent, and it is actually funny without trying too hard. Magu-chan stands out partly because Magu-chan is a really good lead character and has amazing comedic delivery, but also because it’s not trying to extend past its boundaries too quickly. The mangaka knows that this is ultimately just a slice of life comedy series, so they’re focusing on refining that and getting that done before trying to expand. Most of the time, the reason why series survive in Jump is because they either tried to showcase what they will be at their peaks if allowed to survive or because their characters are strong enough that people are willing to risk getting invested in them, and I think the later is what the series is trying to do. If you want a comfy series that doesn’t take itself seriously, I definitely think this is the series for you. Hopefully Japan agrees since its going to start ranking soon.


Comedy is definitely Moriking’s strong suite. I never want to see this become a battle manga, even if it probably be a decent one. It captures the innocence of a little kid’s summer vacation and their bond with pets really well. I just don’t think it should be something its not. I think Oki and Sakura’s introduction into the story helped save the story from feeling dragged out. Turning down Shoko’s overreactions to everything around her also made it so that when she does it, it doesn’t feel forced or overdone anymore. If you were turned off by the first chapters, I think these later ones are so much better and can potentially change your mind on it. My one worry is that we aren’t going to make any progress on the main plot of the insect wars for awhile now since barring a disastrous sales performance, Moriking is going to be around for a bit so the author doesn’t need to rush the series.

And so ends our journey through the Fumino route. If you’re reading this chapter, at this point you know that each girl is getting their own route and ending with Nariyuki. So with that in mind, I figured that I should focus on the routes themselves then talk about individual chapters. I can still talk about this chapter still, but I feel like it is a little pointless because you need to have been reading the series already to jump in at this point.

I will say, comparing the final chapters of Fumino’s arc with Uraka’s and Rizu’s (since they’re the other two completed ones so far), I would say that it’s miles ahead of Rizu’s arc and about the same level as Uruka’s. The comedy and fluffiness was on point, right around peak We Never Learn levels. The fanservice of showing other characters I think was better handled in Uruka’s last chapter, but I think this felt more like a Fumino chapter than the last Uruka chapter felt like an Uruka one. I think this was a nice wrap-up for Fumino’s route.

Now in comparison to the Rizu and Uruka routes, it may be my bias speaking since Fumino is my #bestgirl, I think her route was by far the best one so far. It felt more concise and actually focused on the girl’s development rather than just getting the girl together with Nariyuki. It didn’t have any out of nowhere plot device to get this couple together. It felt more in line with We Never Learn than either Uruka’s or Rizu’s. And most importantly, Fumino was the main character of her own route.    



Weekly Shonen Jump isn’t the only publication that Shueisha has under its belt. It publishes a myriad of other magazines and has various online platforms not including Jump where it publishes original manga. This section is meant to be a generally minimal spoilerish look at series from said areas and maybe introduce people to hidden gems.


Both the writer and the artist for this new Weekly Young Jump series aren’t strangers to the manga business. I’m not that too familiar with Mengo Yokoyari’s work, but Scum’s Wish was successful enough to get both an English release and an anime, so she must have done something right. The writer though, Aka Akasaka, I’m definitely familiar with one of his works very well and if you’re into anime culture, you’ve probably heard of it: Kaguya-sama: Love is War. While I may have some…controversial(?) opinions on that series that I may go over someday (it is a Shueisha series after all!), this team up of two famous mangaka definitely intrigued a lot of people when this was announced. That isn’t what got me though.

As you can probably guess from the cover of volume 1, this is an idol series, and if you’ve ever seen me in any social area, you would immediately know that I’m idol scum. I eat up basically anything that has to do with Japanese idols/bands/music. So naturally, I was sold on this series from the start. The art looked great, I am a fan of Kaguya and I was confident that Aka would do a new twist on the idol genre, and I could only imagine that this would be given a decent run at the very least since Japan is riding high on the Kaguya hype now that The Quintessential Quintuplets is “over” (Kodasha is rereleasing the entire manga in fullcolor in Japan at the moment) and We Never Learn probably isn’t making it to 2021. My assessment seems to be correct: three days for volume 1’s first week and it managed to chart on Oricon with 20,264 copies sold. I don’t remember the last time a Young Jump manga had that strong of a debut (to be fair though, I only really started falling this magazine when Oshi no Ko came out since Kaguya was the only series I read in it before that), so that’s definitely a great start (for reference, the probably other notable Young Jump manga to debut in 2020, The 100 Girlfriends Who Really Really Really Really Love You, debuted at maybe 9k copies sold for volume 1, couldn’t find an exact number. I’m pretty sure it didn’t chart on Oricon though).

So now that we’ve established that we’re probably in this one for the long haul, let’s talk about the actual series now. As previously mentioned, Oshi no Ko is an idol series. However, this isn’t your traditional “idols are rays of sunshine, everything is happy go lucky” kind of story. The idol industry has its own darkness. Basically everyone that follows it knows this. There are some absolutely terrible practices and ideologies forced on young girls and women, and some weird manifestations that appear in some fans thoughts that are incredibly twisted. Aka decided to dive headfirst into this and create a tragic piece rather than the average idol story. Pretty expected if you know him, Kaguya-sama is basically the antithesis of regular romcoms after all. What you don’t see in Kaguya-sama though is just how sadistic this guy can be. You get hints of it (being Maki is suffering, Our Guy can’t catch a break, etc.), but this man is outright cruel in this series. Our first introduction to upcoming idol Ai Hoshino is that she’s sixteen years old, is pregnant with twins, and the father ran off to who knows where. Yep, twenty pages in and the drama is there right away. We also learn about a patient at the hospital named Serene. Well, former patient. She died at some point before the start of the series and in a way, her memory is what gives our doctor watching over Ai his fandom for her. The chapter ends with our good doctor being murdered by some mystery stalker for Ai and getting reincarnated as one of the babies that Ai gives birth to (I’ll let you guess who the girl twin is. You don’t get a prize for guessing right).

And that first chapter sets the tone for the series. We get a lot of light and comedic moments with Ai and her kids over the first chapters, and then you get hit with a truck of emotions. You see Ruby (the girl twin) try an idol audition, seem like she’s going to make it, and then gets screwed over. You see Aqua (the boy twin) morph into a new person after a certain event that involved Stalker-kun.

It’s one hundred percent different from Kaguya-sama, which is great. The hardest thing for an author who has a successful series under their part is making new works not remind readers of their older work and make them wish it was that instead. I vastly prefer this to Kaguya. You probably couldn’t tell that they were written by the same guy. I think it does everything right for a drama series.  

For some fun, we’re going to have a question every week that revolves around Jump. Be warned though, unlike the rest of Making the Jump, this trivia question can be about any series that ran in Jump! So without further ado –

Q: Who is this? HINT: Sand is his strongest weapon.

Last week’s answer:

Spoiler:

And that’s all for our first issue back to Jump series. Next time, we’re going to look at the first week sales for August’s releases and oh boy there’s a lot of them. Jump also releases a day late, so we’ll be back Tuesday instead of the usual Monday. Till then, remember: support the official release!

Alright, before we go into this, I feel like I have to address this. In light of what happened to Act-age’s author, I decided to remove his name and picture from any TOC image or mention in text. I think I got everything, but if I missed one, please let me know. I don’t want to go in depth about it here, but after learning what he did, I wouldn’t feel right acknowledging him in any way. I do not condone his actions and hope justice is served, and that Usazaki-sensei is doing alright as well.

Usazaki-sensei hasn’t done anything wrong, so please don’t mix her with the author’s crimes and please keep her in your thoughts. She got screwed over by someone else’s decisions and probably lost her first series in Jump right when it was reaching its peak popularity. She’s only 22, so she might also feel guilt or anxiety over this situation, so give her some love if you can and please support her if/when she hopefully comes back to drawing manga. If you want to learn what the author did, just google Act-age. You’ll find out real quick.

Sorry for this downer, but I had to talk about it a little. I don’t think it would be right to talk about this in a lighthearted manner or treat it like another series getting cancelled in the TOC section, so I did it here. This is the only time I’ll bring it up here. Anyway, on with the show.


Welcome to another edition of Making the Jump! Summer is coming in full swing now with August sales looking mighty interesting and some interesting moves on the TOC. And we’re making the jump this week with our first group cover! Let’s get right into it.


The first thing to examine is this week’s Jump’s Table of Contents. As you know, a table of contents is a list of what to expect inside whatever literature you’re currently reading, and Jump’s no different. It gives us the order of how series appear in that week’s Jump issue, what series received a center color page (or CP for short), among other things. This isn’t an exact representation of a series standing in Shonen Jump, but it can give us a close look at how Shueisha views a series based on patterns and the like. That’s generally why people view the TOC as a ranking of sort.

A series “rank” is just where they appear in the magazine (for example, a series that ranked 4th that week means it’s the fourth series to appear in that week’s Jump, excluding CPs). It’s the closest approximation we can get on a series’ popularity before its first volume is released. While readers in Japan can vote on their top 3 series for a week, ultimately it is up to the editors to decide the order of the TOC (though those viewer votes obviously have a huge factor in the editors’ decision making). New series aren’t “ranked” right away. We don’t know how far back TOC’s are made or how many weeks back they’re meant to reflect a series status, but it is a general rule of thumb that a new series doesn’t start “ranking” until its 8th chapter (or the first chapter where it does not receive a CP if chapter 8 receives one).

Here is the TOC for Issue #36-37 of Weekly Shonen Jump (released 8/10/2020) [NOTE: If there’s two names next to an author avatar, the top italicized name is the one who uses the avatar]:

*Will fix later*

Next Issue(s) Preview:

Well, we got a lot of info this week huh? Where to even begin…

I basically already gave my opinion on Ayakashi Triangle last week, but I will add that my personal guess was somewhere 4-6, so I was pretty close. This high of a ranking is a great start, but now it has to build on this and maintain it. We saw Bone Collection completely collapse after a strong first two rankings and even Moriking has been slumping as of late. Again, this is an ecchi series, so it going down the TOC isn’t as bad as say, Bone Collection falling apart, but its still important to be in the middle rather than the bottom even if it is ecchi. I will say though, at the moment, it seems like Jump is positioning this one as the face of its batch as its more prominent on the group cover, volume 1 is getting released October as opposed to the probable release month of November for the other 3, etc.

And just as this batch begins its placement tour, we get FOUR MORE NEW SERIES! If you were keeping track of this, the fourth of these series (Bokura no Ketsumei, tentatively translated as Our Blood Oath) will be the SIXTEENTH series they started in the fiscal year of 2020 (AGRAVITY BOYS and the cancelled Zipman!! started in 2019, but the issues they debuted in are considered 2020 issues) which is quite a lot for one year. The headliner of this batch, naturally, is the previously announced Burn the Witch which is Tite Kubo’s next series after Bleach. We knew it was going to be short, but I don’t think anyone was expecting four chapters short. I’m assuming that the chapters are going to be longer to compensate (since they need content for the movie, plus I imagine that they’re going to sell a single volume of this still), but still, all this hype does feel kind of wasted on a four chapter miniseries. As for the other three, the artist of 2019 flop Tokyo Shinobi Squad, Kento Matsuura, returns with writer Gotou Tougo this time for Honomieru Shonen (a serialization of their one shot that won the 2018 Golden Future Cup), Isobe Isobee Monogatari’s Nakama Ryou has finally come back after three years with a new series, and newcomer Kakazu Kazu is the mangaka for the aforementioned Our Blood Oath. Interestingly, two of these look to be horror series as the one shot Matsuura’s series is based on was horror while Kakazu Kazu seems to be modifying a one shot they did last year, which was based on vampires. I wonder how this is going to shape up as HOPEFULLY the last batch of 2020. I’m not fond of horror at all, but hey, you never know, they might end up becoming my new favorite series. I definitely didn’t like science before DR. STONE or spy stuff before Yozakura.
 
And since we are entering a batch of new series, naturally that means old ones gotta go to make room. Our first casualty is Mitama Security: Spirit and Busters. Can’t say its too shocking, its rankings were no longer as good as they were six months ago, sales definitely aren’t at a level where Shueisha would want to wait it out, and Tsurun-sensei definitely shouldn’t be held back any more with this deadend and focus on making his next one a big hit. There’s going to be one more bonus chapter on Jump+ released the end of the month, but that’s it for Tsurun-sensei for now. As for who else is getting the axe, since Burn the Witch is only four chapters, only three current series need to end. Bone Collection is the obvious second candidate: abysmal rankings and awful sales, already in an arc that screams “show’s over folks!”, and let’s be real, does nothing to make it worth keeping around. Which leaves us with one more series. At the moment, there’s really only two possibilities: AGRAVITY BOYS and Time Paradox Ghostwriter. TPGW is once again in last place, and as I said last week, its sales definitely aren’t good enough where it saved itself from cancellation (it was probably too late to begin with honestly). Not only that, but now we can see with no debate that Japan DOES NOT LIKE this series AT ALL. It’s definitely talked about yeah, but not for good reasons and it seems like it wasn’t even controversial enough where people bought it just to have an opinion. There’s literally nothing at this point that will save it. On the other hand of the spectrum, we got AGRAVITY BOYS, which surprise-surprise, sank all the way back to the bottom after its seventh-place placement last week. The reason why this one can go is that the flashback arc is over, so it can easily finish everything up in two chapters as it is a gag series (and since Mitama is ending this week, we know whatever else is ending has bare minimum two chapters left), multiple volumes are out and it didn’t grow to even Yozakura’s initial level, and its also basically been nothing but terrible placement wise on the TOC. Its basically dead as well, we just don’t know when its going to be put down for good. It could be the next Mitama, or they may decide that it’s had long enough and focus on the newer series.

With that said, even though those four above are the ones in biggest danger, there are some series that need to look out and do something or else they’ll be on the block next axe round. Moriking is the biggest example of this. We see here that it’s still in the middle, so all is not lost yet, but it needs to get higher again because the sales are not that strong for it. Mitama lasted so long because its reception in the magazine reader base was good enough to warrant keeping it, so Moriking needs that at the very least to be given a similar chance. Not only that, but we got Magu-chan creeping up on it with a really similar concept and arguably more buzz (at least in the West, which granted, means nothing), Me and Roboco also being really similar in concept, and Yozakura, Mashle, and Undead slowly distancing themselves from the Newbie Bowl, there really isn’t a lot of room for error for Moriking at the moment.

I think the other series that needs to do something quickly is Hardboiled Cop and Dolphin. Obviously, it hasn’t even ranked yet so for all we know, it’s doing great in the votes, but I will say right now its primed to get lost in the shuffle. The same thing kind of happened to Hungry Marie too back in 2017 honestly. There were stand outs from the batch it debuted in (DR. STONE, We Never Learn, Robot x Laserbeam) and those that looked like way bigger flops/worse in general (U19, Poro) that sort of just left it as sort of there. It got to live longer than normal because it wasn’t the worst received one yeah, but it was also sort of just there. I feel like a similar thing could end up happening with Dolphin. If Shuiesha only pushes one of the four, Ayakashi looks like the one they will, and Roboco seems like the most divisive one so that one will stick out more. I guess Magu-chan is basically in the same position as Dolphin too, but I think the difference here is that I think the series itself is good enough where it can go high and its doing something to differentiate itself from the rest of the magazine (or in other words, I think it’s the standout of the batch) whereas Dolphin is all over the place and doesn’t do anything really well that makes you think “It’s offering something unique to Jump to justify it living.” Again though, it isn’t even ranked yet, so for all I know, Dolphin actually is doing amazing.


And now let’s shine some light on the most recent chapter of some series currently featured in Weekly Shonen Jump. These aren’t my top five chapters of a week necessarily, but they are ones that I want to highlight and talk about a little.


Well, here we are. Its clear that we’re heading towards an ending. Gotta say, I’ve been following Jump manga for a long time, and have been reading a bunch of manga that got axed prematurely for years. This is without a doubt the one that was most blatant about the fact that it’s getting cancelled. Like really, the author basically inserted themselves into the story and talked about what was up, to the reader. All this talk about an unfinished story and choosing to leave a story unfinished rather than have the story end with Aino’s end, the robot just being a character another author thought up (basically admitting it was a Deus ex Machina), it screams that this wasn’t the original plan at all but we need some kind of answer to wrap this up. As a result, I’ll be frank, this new direction deserves to be axed. I understand that this was a pivot to save readers after the initial direction was taken so badly by JP readers, but this new direction was way worse than what we were getting before (even if that was controversial), came completely out of nowhere (in story at least; you can tell the direction changed completely after volume 1 and when the series started ranking in the TOC), had to keep doing massive time skips to move things along instead of just making one event that took place over a smaller scale of time, and took away all the interesting parts of the characters and ironically made the “justify plagiarism” complaint actually way more valid.

When this was first released, I thought this series would be memorable and it is, but for all the wrong reasons. Instead of being a unique experience that comes once every five years (a la Assassination Classroom, and The Promised Neverland), it will be remembered as the go to example of how Western reception means NOTHING if Japan hates it, and what NOT to do if you’re a new series in danger of getting axed.    


Another chapter, another showcase of great artwork from Horikoshi. Its chapters like these where I think My Hero is at its best. Chapters showcasing someone as a real hero and doing something heroic. The moment Kirishima jumps into the scene and takes over from where Ashido left off is pretty good, especially since this is the first time in a long while that Kirishima got a chance to actually step up. This chapter is hinting that some pro heroes are goners, so we’re getting consequences in this arc. Not only that though, but our dear students are stepping up when they’re needed most and proving that they’re also worthy heroes. Plus, we got some intrigue with Shigaraki and Endeavor’s encounter going on here. I wonder if Endeavor actually is going to walk out of this the same or if we’re going to start his fall now. The series has picked up a lot lately, hope it keeps this ball rolling.  


And so begins the fourth of five routes. While Fumino is #bestgirl, this route is the one that interests me the most. Senpai has always been given the short end of the stick so I wondered if her route would feel equal to the first three. Not only that, but unlike Fumino, Uruka, or Rizu, I feel like Senpai’s character was basically done developing by the end of the series. I didn’t think there was much more she could do. Not only that, but the fact the series has started falling in the TOC and this didn’t even get a CP unlike the other 2’s first chapter makes me worried that Senpai (and Sensei by extension) are going to end up getting shorter routes since they weren’t one of the main three.

Well, right away this one separates itself from the other three routes so far. We’re way in the future for this one (guess that makes sense, Nariyuki and Senpai both picked professions that take a long time to finish school for after all). We got the kiss in the first chapter instead of near the end so now we have to see how the relationship goes from there. Oh, and most importantly, they’re completely away from the rest of the cast now so most of the references and callbacks to events aren’t going to be viable, so we’re going to see a new town. This change of scenery is definitely going to help Senpai’s route feel like its equal to the others because so much more has to be put into this.

I’m intrigued to see where this route goes. Since they’re older now, presumably we’re going to get a more mature relationship developed. High School hijinks don’t really work when you’re both in your mid-twenties and out of university at this point. Other (better) characters aren’t going to steal the show. We aren’t going to get someone else’s perspective on events we saw already constantly. It’s going to have to focus on Nariyuki and Senpai both, for better or worse.    


So after reading this chapter, I’m pretty sure Ayakashi is just going to live based on how much people like the ecchi. It’s still going for “monster of the week” type plots and not really building up to anything big. I think that’s fine, the art and ecchi is the main selling point after all. Just, we haven’t gotten anything that would make someone like the series ASIDE from the ecchi. What made Yuuna and the Haunted Hotsprings so good was that all the characters were likeable and endearing, even in the beginning. Plus, even if it was just ecchi hijinks early on, there was a hook that was intriguing (Yuuna’s past) that made it worth reading. Here…Matsuri doesn’t really want to go back to being a boy as long as Suzu is safe? Suzu already decided that she loves Matsuri no matter what, so she has no conflict? Like, what’s the actual reason to read the series other than skim it? Plus, continuing the Yuuna comparison, the ecchi here is pretty tame…so like, is ecchi lovers going to stick to this forever or just read something outside Jump instead?

For Shueisha’s sake, I hope this high ranking wasn’t just a fluke, but I can’t really see Ayakashi maintaining its momentum at the moment.


Remember how I said that Dolphin needed to do something or else it’s getting lost in the shuffle? Yeah…it didn’t really do anything except boob jokes for an entire chapter. So either Tamura’s already got nothing to make this series interesting, or he’s banking on immature kids to get votes (in a magazine with Ayakashi Triangle and We Never Learn…yeah, good luck with that). This chapter did nothing AT ALL to alleviate my fears of this just ending up being there. If anything, it reinforces them. All I really got from this chapter is that Chako is the cutest girl ever, but that isn’t anything new. We got basically nothing about the future direction this series is going, nothing that really makes Shark likeable, or Umi an actual character aside from she’s the whole island’s idol. I really don’t know what Tamura is doing this time, he was able to establish something by this point in both of his previous series. I really don’t get why he’s dragging his feet now. The more this series goes on, the more it feels like Beelzebub was just a fluke…


Aka, the closest I’ll ever get to actually talking about Teasing Master Takagi-san since that’s a Monthly Shonen Sunday title.

Teasing Master Takagi-san is one of my favorite manga and anime series of all time. I collect the manga and plan to someday import volumes for the spin-off series Karakai Jouzu no (Moto) Takagi-san if it never gets an English release, I’ve colored panels from both the original and Moto which I don’t often do for anything, and I rewatch the anime at least once a season. So imagine my joy when I found this series that’s basically the same thing, except weekly!

And well, for the most part, Kubo-san basically is just Shueisha’s version of Takagi-san. Kubo-san and Shiraishi have a similar dynamic to Takagi and Nishikata, the supporting cast is minimal, the setting is mainly the school but occasionally goes around the town, a lot of the chapters are singular episodes, and the main content of the chapters is Kubo-san’s teasing. What it DOES do differently from Takagi-san though is give Kubo-san’s thoughts on situations which helps make these events feel more…sweet? The thing that sticks out the most in Takagi-san is that we don’t get to see Takagi’s thoughts, even though her facial expressions makes it clear what she’s thinking. While that makes it easier to relate with Nishikata, that ultimately does hinder the development of their relationship since Takagi isn’t being clear with her feelings. Here, Kubo and Shiraishi’s relationship we see evolve in real time and you can tell that it grows over time where as Nishikata and Takagi feel like its stagnant. I think it helps that time is a linear movement in this story as well; we aren’t jumping forward and back in time like Takagi-san does.
 
I think this series is really comfy. It captures the feeling of falling in love and trying to deal with it very well. It does enough to make it something a fan of Takagi-san would like, while still being good on its own merits. I definitely would recommend this if you enjoy slice of life series with a hint of romance.


August is here now, which means it’s time for Japan to release new volumes for Weekly Shonen Jump series! This time around the manga that were released on August 4th include: Haikyu!! volume 44, Jujutsu Kaisen volume 12, Chainsaw Man volume 8, We Never Learn volume 18, Mashle volume 2, Mission: Yozakura Family volume 4, Moriking volume 1, , Time Paradox Ghostwriter volume 1, Bone Collection volume 1, Mitama Security: Spirit Busters volume 4, and Guardian of the Witch volume 2. Also for this month, we’re going to track the sales for Jump+ series ‘Tis Time for “Torture”,  Princess volume 3…mainly because there were eleven Jump series and I wanted an even number (I could have ignored Guardian of the Witch since its already cancelled and volume 3 comes out in September, but that wouldn’t be fair since I did Demon Slayer and The Promised Neverland for July even though they both concluded). I think this should be fine because I have talked about ‘Tis Time for “Torture”, Princess on Making the Jump before, so it’s not like I’m pulling a random series out of nowhere. It’s time to look at sales!

These are still estimations since Oricon doesn’t do every single store, but it is far closer to the actual numbers and is generally accepted as the main / “official” way to track sales. Sites like Shoseki are more for series when they don’t rank in the Oricon top 50.

Anyway, starting this month, I’m going to do something a bit different. Oricon also releases a top 10 list for manga sales by series every week as well. What this number tells us is if a series backlog is selling well or not, in other words, is it growing as a franchise or is it just new volumes getting sales. If a series appears on this top 10 list, I will put that number UNDER the volume’s sales numbers in pink. As usual, the white numbers are figures given by Oricon and red numbers are estimates from Shoseki. If a series has Oricon numbers, I will NOT put their Shoseki estimates there.

*Will fix later*

And here we are. I won’t front, this is probably the most anxious I’ve been for a month of volume releases since February when Mission: Yozakura Family and Mitama Security: Spirit and Busters were making their volume debuts. There was a lot of buzz back then over which one of those two, if either of them, were going to end the 2019 curse of everything after Chainsaw Man flopping. Similarly, there was a lot of buzz this month for this group of series releasing. With our newcomers, would Time Paradox Ghostwriter be able to overcome the controversy surrounding it and become a hit? Was Moriking actually capable of living up to the “push” Shuiesha gave it in the magazine and translate that into volume sales. How big of a flop would Bone Collection be (sorry BoC fans, after the series sank in the TOC, it was basically clear that it was a goner)? Would Mashle be able to continue the strongest debut since CSM and chart on Oricon this time? Would Yozakura continue its slow but steady growth, possibly also appearing on Oricon this time too? Even our big series had questions. Would Jujutsu Kaisen or CSM sell more as the two rising stars of Jump battle it out once more? Could Haikyu!! continue TPN and My Hero’s trend of going up after seemingly hitting a wall (well, return to form in Haikyu!!’s situation)? Is the TOC fall of We Never Learn going to be reflected in volume sales? So, let’s not delay this any further, time to look at the sales!

I think the obvious thing to talk about first is the duo of Mashle and Mission: Yozakura Family. It’s been a long time, but we’re finally seeing new blood prosper, and it feels so good. Both series continue their growth, with both managing over 15,000 after their first weeks. To put it in perspective, in six days, volume 4 of Yozakura Family outsold what volumes 1 and 2 did in their first month. Of course, it needs to continue this growth come November, but at the moment this is a solid path. I think the fact that they’re doing something for the first anniversary, it continues to grow, basically doing a “series reprint” for it (volume 1 was reprinted earlier in the month, the rest is getting reprints in September), and waiting an extra month to release the next volume is showing that they’re going to try to invest in Yozakura at least a little. It’s the eighth oldest series in the lineup now (excluding Hunter x Hunter) so I think its about time Shueisha tried positioning it as more than just a new series (a CP or magazine cover would be nice!). As for Mashle, well, it’s proven to be the most successful new series since Chainsaw Man as it nearly doubled volume 1’s first week back in June. It also made Oricon! The last time a new series did that in Jump was…I think Samurai 8 (and that didn’t end up helping in the end…). It’s good that Jump has FINALLY found a gag series that stuck with readers (even though it’s more battle comedy at this point), and they definitely need as many hits as they can get right now. I think this performance has basically confirmed Mashle as a long-term member of the Jump roster and Yozakura is sticking around till 2021 at least. Mashle’s next volume is out in October and Yozakura’s in November, so the goal now should be to make Oricon for Yozakura, and to stay in for multiple weeks for Mashle.

And the rest of the new series…they’re not looking as bright. Guardian of the Witch only managed to rank 1 day on Shoseki before falling out (it did come back for day 3 though, only to fall right back out). I think that’s all that needs to be said about it. Mitama also had its usual unimpressive run, barely managing anything over 6 days. It’s just been declining after every volume’s release. Considering we now know that this is the end, at least I can give Shueisha credit for at least waiting for the volume to come out before cancelling a series. There’s nothing like not buying something because you know it got cancelled and tanking the sales and thus profit even more. Which leads us to our three-debuting series.

Bone Collection is a failure, not that shocking, the writing was on the wall for this one. Don’t be shocked if it ends as soon as next issue. At least it actually managed to rank in the top 500 though for its first week. It’s not Zipman!! flop level. As for Moriking…it looks like our insect boi is going to have his King of the Forest coronation sooner rather than later. It didn’t even beat Mitama’s volume 1 numbers (which sold 4,953 copies back in February according to Shoseki). I can’t imagine Shueisha wants to waste another year on a gag series that’s going nowhere (especially since Moriking doing this bad basically means they’re stuck with AGRAVITY BOYS for at least another couple months now. I really don’t think they want two deadend gag manga), but they already decided on who’s getting cancelled this round so it’s safe for the next few weeks bare minimum. I think volume 2 might decide its fate, but don’t be shocked if Moriking starts dropping on the TOC and no longer seems pushed by the magazine really soon. It sucks for Hasegawa-sensei. This is his third and maybe last chance at making a hit with Jump and it’s looking like it’s a no go. Who knows though, they tried their hardest to make Spring Weapon No. 1 a success despite the case it was DEFINITELY not one (and I don’t mean in the Yozakura "are these sales good enough?" way. SW1 did worse back then than what AGRAVITY does NOW in 10 days, and back then flops had more sales than flops do now), they might try making Moriking the “new” Phoenix of Weekly Shonen Jump.

As for Time Paradox Ghostwriter…yeah, the controversy didn’t pay off at all. Its numbers are pathetic, to be blunt. The fact that it couldn’t even outsell Mitama’s first volume, and it’s not even a gag/comedy manga (intentionally anyway. Maybe JP considers it comical that Jump would publish this series based on the Amazon reviews) which usually have lower expectations than other manga, is just sad. What once was a potentially monumental and unique shonen experience has been reduced to a failure that is probably gone by the end of the month. It’s truly sad, but them’s the brakes. I hope Kenji Ichima isn’t disheartened by this because they definitely can tell a compelling story if they’re not getting cancelled and the artist is too good to just give up on manga (if you add up the manga he’s worked on alone and one’s he partnered with a writer for, this will be his third failure without a real success).
   
Jujutsu Kaisen seems to be reigning supreme over Chainsaw Man once more despite everything online making it seem like Chainsaw Man was going to sell more this time around. Just goes to show that the story isn’t finished until the volume is up for sale. Not only that, but the series sales for Kaisen suggests that the backlog is doing way better than Chainsaw Man’s. Not that surprising, Kaisen’s basically being positioned as the next pillar of Weekly Shonen Jump, has an upcoming anime, and is definitely more mainstream compared to CSM. I think its more impressive that CSM kept it that close despite having no anime announced, less volumes for backlog, and not being something you could really recommend to the average joe. It’s going to be interesting to see how they grow as now they’re Jump’s two newest major series (though CSM might end next year…) so we’ll see if Kaisen can take it to the next level and if CSM can move past its lack of mainstream appeal.

Haikyu!! was a pretty dominant first place for all six days of its first week on Shoseki, so being the best seller on Oricon isn’t all that shocking. The sales are obviously still way down from its peaks, but it is slowly going up like My Hero and The Promised Neverland did despite having no anime airing. Unlike these two, I don’t know how well it’s going to hold, but at least the series is going to end on a somewhat high note.
       
We Never Learn is standing pat (well, it’s numbers are down but only very slightly) it seems. That was fine for a long time since there was a period after CSM where WNL was still a huge gap away from other newbies. Things are different now though. Mashle is right on the heels of it, and Yozakura is slowly inching towards it. I still don’t think we have to worry about a premature cancellation for this series, but it is weird that we’re finally seeing new series that can potentially challenge it now. There’re probably three volumes left, and volume 19 is coming in October, so we’ll see if Mashle can surpass WNL by then.  

Finally, we have Jump+’s very own ‘Tis Time for “Torture”, Princess. Volume 2 was released back in February, going against Yozakura 1 and Mitama 1 and selling slightly less than Yozakura and way more than Mitama. Well, this time it went up against Yozakura 4 and Mitama 4 and its basically the same story (well, saying it sold slightly less than Yozakura would be generous to Princess; Yozakura sold sold close to if not double than Princess according to Shoseki estimates). Obviously, there’s more sales this time, which is great, but I feel like the way the platform treats the series (they advertise it like it’s the fifth or sixth most important series) doesn’t quite match up with the sales. Like, these sales I think are still pretty good for Jump+ standards, but I think not even making Oricon doesn’t quite add up for a “near pillar” series. Again, these sales are still pretty good (I think), it’s beating a lot of Jump’s recent failures after all. I don’t think its in danger of getting cancelled or anything. Just, I don’t know, maybe I’m expecting too much from a gag series that usually has 13 pages, but I feel like this should be higher than it is. Then again, they just announced that there's 150,000 copies in circulation, so hey, what do I know?     




It looks like this is where we say goodbye to Mitama Security: Spirit and Busters. Starting in the first week of September of 2019 (one week after Mission: Yozakura Family), divided opinion upon first images for it being seen would be an understatement. It was a gag manga (granted, it was before the great wave of gag/comedy manga of 2020), an exorcist manga (right off the heels of Kimetsu no Yaiba’s explosion in popularity, Jujutsu Kaisen’s rise, and the most recent hit in Jump being about demons, plus exorcist manga being oversaturated and not wanted in general), and if you compared the preview images of Yozakura and Mitama, 9/10 would say Yozakura’s looked miles more interesting and appealing. Basically everyone wrote it off from the start and thought Yozakura would be the way bigger hit if either of them succeeded. And then we got to the first chapter’s actual release. Again, this was off the heels of Yozakura’s first chapter, which most people thought was the strongest first chapter since Chainsaw Man. I think being generous, Mitama’s first chapter is pretty meh, so as you can probably imagine, reception for it was pretty divided. And it continued like that until chapter 8, when it started getting “ranked” in the TOC. It not only got a bonus chapter that issue, but its first placement was sixth, which was one behind Yozakura’s first placement. From then on, it didn’t have bad placements either, often being right on Yozakura’s tail. It then turned around after Yozakura got a CP at chapter 14, but not in the way you would expect it.

At that point, Yozakura started falling down the TOC to bottom 3 status and Mitama stayed steady at the 9-10 range, until it eventually got its own CP at chapter 19. At this point, I think I do need to address the fact that both Yozakura and Mitama both had a delayed release for their first volumes, with not only taking longer than usual for newbies to release, but also being pushed back another month from January to February. Because of this, people’s opinions on them changed as they now had time to reflect. Most people began thinking that Mitama was the promised one, the one that would save gag manga and be the second hit of 2019 for Jump and that Yozakura was going to flop massively and sell 5k if it was lucky. Even I got caught up in it. I was depressed because as we’ll get into it later, I’m not the biggest fan of Mitama, and Yozakura’s my favorite new Jump series from 2019 and 2020 (so far) and one of my favorite manga from last year in general, so that prospect being really close to reality just made me sad. And well, February came and Yozakura sold 10k in 6 days while Mitama managed I think 5k. You’d think that would be all she wrote, Yozakura did almost twice as well and Mitama could barely outsell recently canceled manga Yui Kamio Let’s Loose. Well, the ride continued as not only did Mitama manage another CP, it even got 3rd place on the TOC plus a T-shirt campaign from the editor and a design a spirit contest. So it was clear they weren’t willing to abandon it just yet.

Well, the unfortunate thing was that volume 2 came out in March and showed a DECREASE in sales instead of growth. That should have been it, but nope, Mitama kept trucking, never being a permanent bottom five dweller and still stealing upper spots. Then we come to June with volume 3’s release and we see even more signs of decline, only managing 3.8k sold week one. Unfortunately though, it seems like Mitama’s luck has run out because with both the emergence of Mashle and Undead Unluck, plus Yozakura’s actual signs of growth, there is no reason to keep Mitama alive. They tried, they really did, but people just didn’t buy it enough to keep it afloat.

As for the series itself, what do I think about it? You ever have that thing where you just don’t understand what people like about it? That was Mitama for me. I tried my best to like it, and there was a five chapter stretch where I thought it did turn it around, but then it gave me an arc I hated and a chapter about a side character that I hated a lot and from that point on it soured on me completely again. I genuinely was confused about how it survived so long despite showing basically no signs of anything good in it, but comedy is subjective, and the “LAWL, COMPLETELY RANDOM SO ITS FUNNY” kind of humor doesn’t really get me, so that’s part of it. That being said, I can have empathy for the people that did love it. It was clearly loved despite sales not saying it was. Everyone I knew that did read it past chapter 10 loved it a lot and cited it as the funniest series Jump had done since Saiki or Gintama (beloved comedy series) and kept hoping that the miracle that they never came would arrive.

Even if I didn’t like the series, I can’t take away that Tsurun-sensei accomplished what a lot of mangaka can only dream of: last nearly an entire year in Weekly Shonen Jump. He also did that on his first try (he was a Jump+ mangaka before Mitama) and did so while defying the odds time and time again. I’m confident that he’ll be able to figure something out and make a proper hit in WSJ eventually. For now though, it’s time to turn the page on this chapter of his career and look back and realize that he had one miraculous run.


For some fun, we’re going to have a question every week that revolves around Jump. Be warned though, unlike the rest of Making the Jump, this trivia question can be about any series that ran in Jump! So without further ado –

Q: Hunter x Hunter has been on hiatus. A lot. Due to that, it misses a lot of group covers, like this one. So this week’s question is simple: when was the last time it appeared on a group cover? When I say appear, I mean actually be part of it, not be some advertisement in the corner that has nothing to do with the actual cover.

Last week’s answer:

Spoiler:

And that concludes a packed edition of Making the Jump! Sorry about the extra wait, I forgot that Oricon numbers don’t go up till Thursday. Oops. Well, at least we aren’t going to have two editions so close to each other as Jump is on break this week before we get Burn the Witch! See you then where I’ll go over more sales for our August volumes. Till then, remember: support the official release!

And so begins our latest runthrough of new series debuting. This week is the debut of probably the most anticipated series, Tite Kubo’s return to Jump with Burn the Witch! Let’s get right into it as we talk about Issue #38 of Weekly Shonen Jump!


The first thing to examine is this week’s Jump’s Table of Contents. As you know, a table of contents is a list of what to expect inside whatever literature you’re currently reading, and Jump’s no different. It gives us the order of how series appear in that week’s Jump issue, what series received a center color page (or CP for short), among other things. This isn’t an exact representation of a series standing in Shonen Jump, but it can give us a close look at how Shueisha views a series based on patterns and the like. That’s generally why people view the TOC as a ranking of sort.

A series “rank” is just where they appear in the magazine (for example, a series that ranked 4th that week means it’s the fourth series to appear in that week’s Jump, excluding CPs). It’s the closest approximation we can get on a series’ popularity before its first volume is released. While readers in Japan can vote on their top 3 series for a week, ultimately it is up to the editors to decide the order of the TOC (though those viewer votes obviously have a huge factor in the editors’ decision making). New series aren’t “ranked” right away. We don’t know how far back TOC’s are made or how many weeks back they’re meant to reflect a series status, but it is a general rule of thumb that a new series doesn’t start “ranking” until its 8th chapter (or the first chapter where it does not receive a CP if chapter 8 receives one).

Here is the TOC for Issue #38 of Weekly Shonen Jump (released 8/23/2020) [NOTE: If there’s two names next to an author avatar, the top italicized name is the one who uses the avatar]

*Will fix later*

Next Issue(s) Preview:

Let’s just get straight into it: that’s a good first rank for Magu-chan: God of Destruction! Well deserved. It was definitely the best series out of its batch of four and should get recognition for that. Time and time again I’ll stress that consistency is the important thing for new series as they get their first placements, but I’ll also always say that it’s better to start on the top and fight from there rather than scrap your way up from the bottom in hopes of surviving. Not every series is a Bone Collection after all. Sometimes a series being on top deserved to be on top.

Speaking of Bone Collection, the axe beckoned for it and it has finally connected. At fifteen chapters, this was the most brutal cancellation we’ve seen in awhile (though we might see one that’s worse next week ^_^) and well, this was completely predictable. There’s just no long term future for a series if it crashes all the way down to bottom 3 literally overnight…or overweek in this instance. Combine that with abysmal sales and yeah, this was long overdue.

I think this is no secret: there’s like a 95% chance that Time Paradox Ghostwriter is the final casualty of this round of axes. It’s been consistently last for weeks, it bombed sales wise, people hate the series in Japan, and even the story itself is saying this is the end. It’s going to have a pretty unceremonial death, but oh well. The real shame of this is if it got a second chance at life, it probably could do better than half of the upcoming series and some of the series that are going to begin ranking in the upcoming weeks. Not everyone is lucky in Jump though.

A lucky person though, or series in this case, is Moriking. Its first placement post flopping and still right in the middle. Next week is the real test. I think the honeymoon period for Ayakashi Triangle is over and we’ll see if its high rankings are genuine or editorial push now, we’ll see if Magu-chan is somewhat consistent, the big hitters (DR. STONE, Mashle, and even Black Clover) are ranked next week, the series getting CPs next week aren’t necessarily things blocking Moriking from higher rankings, we get another contender in Hardboiled Cop and Dolphin entering the fray. The only big series missing next week is One Piece. We’ll see just how well Moriking can hold up against all that competition, but something tells me we’re going to see the fall next week.

On the topic of the series getting CPs though, yep, Undead Unluck is getting 2 consecutive ones for winning the 2020 Tsugimanga Award, which is basically the next manga you expect to be a big hit. I don’t think that’s really a prestigious award (well, it kinda is, but in reality this award is “what has the biggest online presence” since its entirely user vote based and if you know about the series that made the top 20, you’d be very confused about the placements otherwise), and maybe Shueisha feels similar, considering AGRAVITY BOYS finished sixth and is still in the bottom three, Mitama finished 11th and is gone now, Mashle only finished 13th and is getting the biggest push, and Mission: Yozakura Family wasn’t even top 20 yet it’s constantly staying afloat and getting a CP next week. With that and its next volume coming September 4th, I would expect this to be the last time for a while that Undead is in the bottom 5. I would say this is definitely the last time, but this is the same magazine that put Bone Collection top 5 for its first two placements and kept giving Mitama good spots despite being the definition of “dead series walking”, so who knows what happens after those two CPs. As for Yozakura, it actually made it to 1 year and Jump is actually giving it something! That’s a lot more than what most series get so I’m already grateful, even if I would have liked a cover. I hope this is a sign that they’re going to give it a little push because unlike the other newer series (excluding Mashle and Undead), it actually IS growing and doesn’t do embarrassing numbers sales wise. Could they be better? Sure. You know how you get better numbers? You show consumers that you actually care about the series and do SOMETHING that gives them the idea that its not just going to be forgotten. I’m hoping that this CP is that “something”, but we’ve been down this road before, so I’ll hold my breath on that one.

The last thing to talk about is probably Dolphin’s first placement next week. Like I alluded to earlier, next week is PACKED, with only really One Piece’s absence being something to help it. You see, since Yozakura and Undead are getting CPs, that basically takes out two “lower” placing series for Dolphin, aka series that would have actually helped pad out its first rank. Combine that with Magu-chan starting out good and signs pointing to Ayakashi possibly being popular, all the other high ranking series, and even curveballs like We Never Learn and AGRAVITY BOYS sometimes getting love, and there is a very distinct possibility that Dolphin can start out as low as 11 or 12 and in the bottom three next week. However, there are some factors that I think it has that can also mean it starts out high. First: it’s by a vet. These days, it feels like a series really has to be awful for a vet to end up with a low first ranking. Not only that, but Beelzebub was a success, even if he came out with Hungry Marie after that. That’s bound to give Tamura some leeway. Second: what I like to call, the Bone Collection effect. Without question, chapter 1 was the best chapter of Bone Collection. Similarly, I think chapter 1 of Dolphin is the best chapter of the series, outside of maybe chapter 5. That first chapter being good might be enough for it to get votes from reader surveys and get good early placements before it falls apart. Third: TPGW is the only new series in recent memory that didn’t get at least 5th for their first placement and I still think the only reason why it wasn’t top 5 is because Japan put that series on blast right from the start for the plagiarism aspect it seems. Dolphin is definitely not on that level of hate, so it has that going for it too. I don’t want to make it sound like its doomed because for all I know, Japan loves the series and its going to be the next Assassination Classroom or DR. STONE, but nothing about the series itself suggests that it can be a long term success or even stand out among the crowd. We just need to wait for next week though.    
     
And now let’s shine some light on the most recent chapter of some series currently featured in Weekly Shonen Jump. These aren’t my top five chapters of a week necessarily, but they are ones that I want to highlight and talk about a little.


Everything is finally coming together. Another stellar chapter here. On the eve of the anniversary, Yozakura has hit its stride and proved that it belongs with the big boys. This is the result of building a relationship between Taiyo and Mutsumi, creating a family bond between the Yozakuras, building up Taiyo. There are so many ways that we can go now with this new development, I am excited to see where it goes. Not just from Taiyo’s end either. We might be able to finally see Kyoichiro go all out against this mysterious man who is clearly connected to the Yozakuras in some way. We still don’t really know what Tanpopo is up to aside from making the Hazakura serum and an army. Just so much intrigue here that I can’t wait to see unfold.


This is more of what makes Mashle what it is. I think I’ve come to realize I’m just not into Mash fights because they all boil down to “he’s really physically strong!” I’ll give Komoto credit: he does come up with creative ways to use physically strong in fights. It’s just jarring because I think the other characters fights are always more interesting than whatever Mash does, even though the other powers aren’t interesting inherently either. I still think this series is funny, but I think it’s reached the point of the joke got old for me. It’s impressive how many ways Komoto comes up with to hype up the next part of a fight next week, but I need more at this point. I just want this arc to wrap up and start world building some more. The series is definitely safe now; give it the depth it desperately needs.


Our arc without Senku being the driving force continues with Chrome’s team trying to tunnel their way forward with a drill. This is a nice change of pace chapter, getting more focus on Taiju. We also get to see more of Chrome’s adaptability and genius, as well as more Hyogo and Tsukasa interactions with the team. We’re in the middle of a dangerous mission, but it’s always nice to see our crew having fun and just interact. This is the calm before the storm and I look forward to what’s next, but these small moments are some of DR. STONE’s stronger parts. I can’t help but think we’re getting ever so closer to the end since we’re nearing a final confrontation even with Senku out of commission for a while and everyone else is stepping up to make up for his absence. All in all, Stone continues its dominant streak of consistency.


And we’re back here with Sukuna showing off just how powerful and crazy he is. As you can see from the title, we’re still in this Shibuya arc and it’s still going to be a long while. It’s getting a little tiring at this point just getting fight after fight without a break honestly. For me, the best parts of Kaisen has always been when characters got to interact with one another and exchange trash talk. Here, its life and death battles left and right and they can’t really get personal with the cursed spirits, so it just feels like things are off here. Sure, it’s a little back to form with Sukuna entering the fray and showing his power, but I don’t think focusing on one character’s fight is the series strengths. I know this is a major arc, but I don’t know. It’s one third of the series so far and I haven’t really dug it (I still like it though) since the early teens part of this arc.


It’s been four years since Bleach ended and two years since the Burn the Witch one shot ran in Jump, but Tite Kubo has finally come back with a…miniseries. You can clearly tell that Kubo is taking advantage of that too. Since he doesn’t have to worry about setting up the premise in the first chapter and make it engaging enough for people to want to come back, he can instead focus on developing the world more and diving straight into the characters development. If I remember right, the one shot focused on Noel’s POV more while this chapter more focuses on Ninny’s. This chapter assumes you read the one shot already, which if this was going to be a long runner, might as well be a death sentence. Here though, it works to Kubo’s favor because if we’re real, having to build a world is not one of his strong suits. So with that world building done previously, let him build his characters and introduce the elements of the world that make it different from Bleach in the actual series. This chapter highlights all of Kubo’s strengths: great character designs, action shots looked great, simple but fun, stupid names. It also does show off some of his shortcomings. Like I’ve said over and over, this series is going to only be four chapters. Yet Kubo crammed in ALL this stuff that would need more than four chapters normally. What the end of Bleach showed is that Kubo is really bad at being concise. Will that be a problem here? We’ll see…but not exactly confident it won’t be right now. That was the only real negative I had though. Balgo was toned down here and not annoying beyond belief. I think Noel and Ninny are interesting leads. Dragons intrigue me on how they differ from hollows. I’m here Kubo, you got me. Now keep this up.  



Weekly Shonen Jump isn’t the only publication that Shueisha has under its belt. It publishes a myriad of other magazines and has various online platforms not including Jump where it publishes original manga. This section is meant to be a generally minimal spoilerish look at series from said areas and maybe introduce people to hidden gems.


For something called “the harem subgenre”, it’s actually a rare occurrence for a harem romcom to actually end with a harem. I don’t really know why, but I assume one of the reasons why is because most writers enter a series with some kind of ending in mind, and the easiest ending is usually picking one guy or girl as the endgoal and creating a cast that develops that relationship. You create a story with one guy/girl in mind, but you don’t expect certain characters to get really popular so you’re stuck in between a rock and a hard place if what you planned for isn’t exactly what aligns with what readers want. That plagues almost every harem series, but it probably hits the hardest in series where the entire cast or the cast aside from the main love interest are beloved and readers want them all to be happy. Combine that with a lot of big romance series ending or being near the end at around the same time, and it got people hungry for something new. Which leads us to this.

As you can probably guess from the title, The 100 Girlfriends Who Really Really Really Really Love You (which I will refer to as 100 Kanojo from this point on. Kanojo means girlfriend if you were wondering why this is the abbreviation most westerners use) is a harem series where the main character, Rentarou, has the mission to end up with 100 girlfriends all at the same time, given to him by the god of love after a near death experience. That sets the tone for this series. We aren’t taking anything seriously at all, which is odd, because 100 Kanojo HAS done good emotional arcs so far during its run (granted, I think it was the weakest part of the manga as of right now, but they’re still technically well done). If you want a sense of realism in your romances, you definitely not getting any of that here. This is a wish fulfillment romance series in every sense of the term. Every trope you can think of for a girl in a romcom, is here or will be here (give it some time). Is there a specific quirk or trait you can think of that you would want in your best girl? There’s a good chance at least one girl in the cast will have them. Do you want to be the ultimate chad? Rentarou’s got you covered. Do you want ridiculous (as in crazy, not lewd) fanservice panels or entire scenarios? Definitely here!

Ultimately though, while I think this series is a lot of fun, its greatest strength of “fulfilment” manga is also its greatest weakness. A part of what I think makes a romance series good is the payoff of seeing two people grow to like one another and seeing how they conflict with each other as time passes on. We don’t really get that here. You get maybe the first couple chapters of conflict between Rentarou and x girl, he resolves their initial problem and they fall in love, the girl joins the hijinks of the harem, and there you go, there’s your development. I realize we’d be reading something longer than One Piece if each girl gets an arc that’s over 5 chapters probably, but I don’t really feel anything when a girl enters the harem because of this. This isn’t a series where anything truly deep or meaningful is going to happen, and it doesn’t really want to do that. That’s fine, it’s just not something I can truly love because of that.

If you’re wondering how it does sales wise, apparently it has 150,000 copies in circulation after two volumes, which is pretty decent for WYJ standards…I think. Oshi no Ko had a good start, Kubo-san’s and Kowloon Generic Romance had better ones but they’re around the same ballpark. WYJ isn’t what I would call…solid at the moment (they’re actually in a pretty similar situation to Jump, down to having a major title being on constant hiatus. Except I believe in REAL still. It’ll finish someday I swear T_T), so they’re probably going to let anything that looks successful live. Not only that, it definitely has a lot of online fans, since it won second place in the Tsuji Manga Awards this year (where were you people when volumes came out tho?). All in all, I think this will be a fun romcom for however long it lasts, but don’t expect it to be like a Quints or Kaguya in terms of seriousness.      

Continuing with our August sales, let’s check out the week 2 numbers.

These are still estimations since Oricon doesn’t do every single store, but it is far closer to the actual numbers and is generally accepted as the main / “official” way to track sales. Sites like Shoseki are more for series when they don’t rank in the Oricon top 50.

*Will fix later*

And just like that, almost half the field have fallen out of the top 500 on Shoseki. That’s uh…not good. Bone Collection is gone as of this issue, Mitama is over. GOTW has been long concluded. There’s a 95% chance that TPGW will be leaving us next week. Moriking does NOT want to be in the same group as these series. This seems to be a nightmare scenario for our Forest Boi. I would say Moriking has to hope its reception is as good as Mitama’s to even stand a chance, but the other thing that saved it time and time again was that we didn’t have promising newbies. Yozakura was there, but that was one series and there was a chance that it could crater sales wise back then. Now though, Yozakura is looking like a series that is continuously growing (even if it’s slow), Mashle is a hit in the making sales wise, and Undead won the Tsugi award. Add on to this that AGRAVITY BOYS still does better (it’s not pretty, but it at least makes it to second weeks of charts. It also did pretty good in the Tsugi award), we have four series that are releasing their volume 1s in October-November, four new series entering the magazine (well, three since Burn the Witch is a miniseries), and possibly more new series in December (I say possibly, but it’s more like probably. 2018 was the one year in the past 5 that didn’t have at least one new series debut in the first issues of a new fiscal year or the last issues of the previous year. They waited till mid-January though so it still would be around then). I’m just not seeing a world where Moriking gets to live long term. A shame since this is Hasegawa’s third and maybe last chance but Jump magazine readers just don’t want to buy his series for whatever reason. Maybe he can make a proper hit on Jump+?

It’s not all gloom and doom for newbies though. Mashle and Mission: Yozakura Family continue to be the beacon of light in this sea of darkness that is new series. While it didn’t make Oricon this week, Mashle still did better week 2 than the flops did week 1 (their best chance at getting sales), and Yozakura was a couple hundred behind TPGW’s week 1 performance if you remember last week’s diagram. With this and week 1’s numbers, Yozakura 4 has made it to 21,048 copies sold. What this means is that in 13 days, this volume outsold what volume 3 did in its first month back in June (20,566). With still two weeks to go, it might actually reach 30k in a month! With a CP announced, a good placement on the TOC, and its 1st anniversary coming next week, things are looking bright for our family. As for Mashle, is there really anything else to say? Its clearly a bright star of the roster and going places. Just continue on this path and it might become a future pillar of the magazine. Another good week for these two.

We Never Learn didn’t make Oricon for the second week again. Not really shocking at this point, but the sales still are going down a little as time goes on. Chainsaw Man is keeping up its strong month with another almost 40k copies sold. That’s way ahead of last volume by I think 33,000. Things keep looking up for this as it now gets to 162,054 in thirteen days. Jujutsu Kaisen had another good showing on Oricon…but it’s slightly down from where last volume was in the sense that this had two extra days to get sales and it’s barely doing better than volume 11. Not a major deal since it’s still a big series in Jump, but that was a little weird. Haikyu!! had another 96k which ends making this volume bigger than last volume, but not by too much. So yeah, I think it’s going through a little resurrection before ending, not on TPN or MHA level, but one nonetheless. Good to see.

Also, this isn’t related to August sales per say, but I don’t think I’ll find a better place to mention it. DR. STONE made it to 7 million copies in circulation. If you remember, it was at 5 million last month. I honestly have no idea where this resurrection came from (I mean I sort of do. This boost started after it appeared on a talk show, but I don’t think boosts like this last this long usually), but I am all here for it. If any series deserves this increase, it’s DR. STONE. Now let’s aim for 10 million!

With Burn the Witch now out, let’s look to the future at our series debuting next issue: Hono Mieru Shonen. This one shot first appeared in the 2018 (and as of this writing, most recent) edition of the Golden Future Cup. If you don’t know what that is, it’s basically a competition that Jump runs where one shots from upcoming mangaka go against each other and are voted on by the magazine readers to determine which one is the best. The winning mangaka or pair are promised a serialization of a full series (it doesn’t necessarily have to be a series based on the one shot that won the GFC), though participants are sometimes allowed a series of their own even if they didn’t win. Of Jump’s current lineup, Yuki Tabata (Black Clover), Tomohiro Hasegawa (Moriking), and Gege Akutami (Jujutsu Kaisen) entered the competition and ended up with a series despite losing. On top of this Ryuhei Tamura (Hardboiled Cop and Dolphin) won back in 2008 and Hitsuji Gondaira (Mission: Yozakura Family) won it back in 2015. However, there is something…odd about the GFC winner’s series.

There’s a bit of a “curse” for winners in that their series based on their GFC entry don’t ever last long. Of the winners, only two (Tamura’s entry was Beelzebub which lasted four years when it became a series and Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan by Hiroshi Siibashi lasted 4 years as well) made it past one year. Even Tamura and Siibashi only get around this phenomenon if you count their GFC entries. They have series that lasted under one year under their belts after those series concluded (Tamura with Hungry Marie and I’ll be honest, I’m pretty sure Dolphin's heading the same way. Siibashi had Illegal Rare and Yui Kamio Let’s Loose). I think Gondaira-sensei is the first person who won the GFC who has a series that lasted a year WITHOUT it being based on their GFC winning one shot and some people would argue that he got lucky that he lasted this long (it’s Yozakura for the record). If I had to give a reason, maybe it’s because these GFC entries were designed as one-shots. They didn’t have a series in mind because there was a pretty good chance they wouldn’t win and what’s the point of making a series that couldn’t even win a competition for not big names (that didn’t stop Tabata or Hasegawa though…). The point is history suggests that Hono Mieru Shonen is already battling an uphill battle.

As for the series itself…yeah, GFC history isn’t the only thing that suggests that this one is an uphill battle. We got another exorcist series on our hand. Considering two of the three series that died to make room for this batch of new series were exorcist manga, of the last batch of four the most popular one is probably an exorcist manga, the poster boy of this group (even if its only around for 4 chapters) is basically an exorcist manga, the hottest manga in Japan at the moment is an exorcist manga, and Jump’s rising star is an exorcist manga (and you can argue that their OTHER rising star is also an exorcist manga), HMS is already dealing with both oversaturation problems as well as the huge possibility of being overshadowed. Honestly, you got to feel for Matsuura. His first series came out the same batch Samurai 8, which Shueisha was PUSHING and already treating like the future of shonen before a chapter even came out. Now he’s coming back during the batch where BLEACH’S mangaka is coming back and was also hyped up a lot before his first chapter. He has very bad timing it seems.

Beyond that though, I read the one shot and…yeah, it’s definitely a series. I don’t think it really did anything that propped it up form “just another exorcist series” which has been the biggest problem for most exorcist series of late. Ever since Jujutsu Kaisen, I felt like people who do exorcist manga focus more on making their exorcist series different from the average one, rather than making a good exorcist series first, and then making it unique over time. For example, Bone Collection focused on Paira as a fanservice tool and just being random instead of establishing how that world works and creating a structure for the yokai that you could later on make unique. People making exorcist series miss that while JJK has a cool power system and how its cursed spirits work is interesting, in the beginning, most of it was still basic exorcist tropes just done well (we didn’t get graded spirits till later, we didn’t get how the power system works until much later, etc.). Once people realized it was good, Akutami-sensei focused on the unique aspects of their world. Akutami-sensei focused on applying their unique flavor to the formula and changing the parts of the wheel over time if they didn’t work rather than trying to reinvent the wheel completely without realizing why things were part of the wheel in the first place.  

Of those two approaches, I think HMS is way closer to Bone Collection than Kaisen. Right away, it throws out how Reikai’s work and explained what makes them different from the average spirit, we got the MC with a “cool” gimmick that “no one has done before” (I can probably find an exorcist series where the MC uses keys if I cared enough), the MC doesn’t really have anything that really sticks out as likeable but instead is supposed to be likeable because of “cool climatic moment in a fight where they protect the girl.” It’s a one shot, so maybe things will change in a full series, but yeah…I don’t think it stands out in a good way.

I want to make it clear that I don’t think it’s a “bad” one shot or that even if it was bad that means the full series will be bad, but I don’t think it was really interesting. I think it falls into basically every trap Bone Collection did in its first chapters (focusing on the wrong things to be “unique”, ignoring basic rules of the world and only explaining how you’re “different” from other exorcist series, not doing much to make characters stand out). They don’t make your series stand out against the competition or makes people think you NEED to read this one despite the oversaturation of exorcist manga. You just become part of the oversaturation problem and get people to complain about your series instead, even if you are technically sound.

These are things that can be fixed between one shot and full series, and I hope Togo took the time to do that, especially since he’s had two years to make changes. But this series is facing a really uphill battle. I hope these two are ready.


For some fun, we’re going to have a question every week that revolves around Jump. Be warned though, unlike the rest of Making the Jump, this trivia question can be about any series that ran in Jump! So without further ado –

Q: One shots are often modified a little so that they can become a serialized series in magazines. Jump’s always done that, but it seems like they’ve been doing that a lot more recently. Including this batch of four new series, how many of the current series in Jump were based on a one shot?

Last Week's Answer:

And so the first of our four new series debut. How will it go with Hono Mieru Shonen next week? Also, I’m doing something a wee bit special next time. If you’ve been paying attention, you can probably figure out what it is. Till then though, remember: support the official release!

some of that sales data looks decent, but other bits of it really doesn't.

And here we are, with an eventful edition of Making the Jump! We got a new series here, a series celebrating its first anniversary, a series celebrating first place in an award, and…a series ending without being first in anything. Let’s get into it!


The first thing to examine is this week’s Jump’s Table of Contents. As you know, a table of contents is a list of what to expect inside whatever literature you’re currently reading, and Jump’s no different. It gives us the order of how series appear in that week’s Jump issue, what series received a center color page (or CP for short), among other things. This isn’t an exact representation of a series standing in Shonen Jump, but it can give us a close look at how Shueisha views a series based on patterns and the like. That’s generally why people view the TOC as a ranking of sort.

A series “rank” is just where they appear in the magazine (for example, a series that ranked 4th that week means it’s the fourth series to appear in that week’s Jump, excluding color pages). It’s the closest approximation we can get on a series’ popularity before its first volume is released. While readers in Japan can vote on their top 3 series for a week, ultimately it is up to the editors to decide the order of the TOC (though those viewer votes obviously have a huge factor in the editors’ decision making). New series aren’t “ranked” right away. We don’t know how far back TOC’s are made or how many weeks back they’re meant to reflect a series status, but it is a general rule of thumb that a new series doesn’t start “ranking” until its 8th chapter (or the first chapter where it does not receive a CP if chapter 8 receives one).

Here is the TOC for Issue #39 of Weekly Shonen Jump (released 8/30/2020) [NOTE: If there’s two names next to an author avatar, the top italicized name is the one who uses the avatar]

*Will fix later*

Next Issue(s) Preview:

It might look small, but there’s a lot of stuff going on this TOC. Let’s talk about the batch that’s slowly disappearing first since that seems like the thing that sticks out the most. I’ve already said my piece on Time Paradox Ghostwriter, I expected this, I made my peace with it. I don’t know how much more there is really to say. I guess I can add that this is proof that a series ending will never be dead last in the TOC, to give fans of the series at least a bring me up before the series leaves forever. If this extremely hated series didn’t finish last for its final issue after 3 consecutive ones previously, I don’t think any series that gets axed will be last for their final chapter. I don’t want to dwell on it though. We’ll get to talk about the series later.

(WARNING: A long analysis ahead. The tl;dr is Moriking is a goner, don’t compare it to Yozakura.) Which leads us to our future Forest King. Talk about a fall from grace. I even mentioned last time that this was probably the week that this would happen and it still hurts me to see Moriking that low. I also don’t see the route to escape from here. Even if for whatever reason Yozakura is always placed below Moriking from this point on (which is not happening), it would still be stuck in the bottom 3 constantly. They have 4 series that aren’t completely dead yet sales wise, so I don’t see why they would put them below Moriking. Two of them even have the same concept as it (Magu-chan and Roboco) so it’s not like it offers something unique to Jump at the moment. Speaking of Yozakura, I think that series is the closest comparison we can make for Moriking right now (both started good, got an early Color Page, and then dropped in the TOC) and well…people might think they’re in similar boats but I don’t think that’s the case at all. Yozakura did become a bottom 3 dweller early in its run, but there’s a lot of caveats to it:

1. the magazine wasn’t filled with new series by the time it ended up there. Yozakura was competing with Yuuna and the Haunted Hotsprings, The Promised Neverland, Kimetsu no Yaiba, Haikyu!!, in addition to Mitama, Act-age and our seven other established series. Not to mention, Samurai 8 was still there (and they were in their denial phase about it being a failure at that time), and I believe Zipman!! and AGRAVITY BOYS started up by then. That competition is way fiercer than what Moriking has to deal with now.
2. Yozakura ended up in the bottom 3, but it didn’t just crash there overnight…or week. It gradually lost its ranking, which I feel like isn’t as bad because in my opinion, that shows that there is at least a reader base that supports it, even if it isn’t growing/not as big as other series. Dropping from the middle to bottom 3 to me indicates that people just gave up supporting a series.
3. Yozakura’s drop happened BEFORE volume 1 came out. Did that delay in volume 1 end up saving Yozakura far longer than it would have if it released in January like planned? Who knows for sure, but I do know that once it did come out and actually sold decently, Yozakura was no longer a constant bottom 3 dweller: going from an occasional bottom 3 dweller, to a once in a blue moon one (usually on weeks that had barely anything ranked), to basically being right in the middle. Moriking on the other hand, got the push pre volume release (I think Jump even bragged that people liked the series in advertisements) and then once it did abysmal numbers, basically fell from its mantle.
4. When Yozakura was new, they were desperate for new series to be successful. Imagine this, Jump just lost two solid sellers in Hinomaru Sumo and Shokugeki no Soma (the latter one definitely hurt a lot even if it was a far cry from its peak). They knew that they were losing 4 more big series at the same time (again, Yuuna was a ghost [hehe] of its former self, but it still sold better than newbies do now), and We Never Learn was entering what was basically an epilogue run so its sales wouldn’t grow. This was also before DR. STONE’s resurgence, so it wasn’t a good sign that it was looking like it would be one of their most important titles. Samurai 8 was a colossal disappointment and cost them so much money. If you were in this situation, wouldn’t you basically keep anything that had remotely decent future prospects? That’s basically what kept Yozakura and Mitama from meeting their immediate demise. Now compare that to Moriking. Mashle has come and become a future hit in the making. Undead Unluck is getting the critical reception from outside the magazine and is also decent size sales wise. Yozakura is still a growing series. They lost one series unexpectedly, but they have new successes. Is there really any reason for Jump to give it a second chance at life?

Long ramble over, I’m sorry. Let’s move on to the next point, which I guess is Dolphin getting fourth. Ayyeee, I’m noticing a pattern here…Maybe they’re finally on to us and shifting when newbies start “ranking” Being serious, that’s another good ranking for another new series, but we need consistency. We’re already seeing it with Magu-chan unfortunately. It’s already falling down quickly. I wouldn’t be shocked if it was in the bottom three by the end of September, though I also wouldn’t be shocked if this was a fluke and it shot back up by the end of September. I think Magu-chan finds its stride chapter 3 and beyond even if I really liked chapter 2. If it continues being middle of the road for the upcoming issues…that’s when I’ll start getting worried. I admit though, I was wrong, Dolphin actually did make it to a good spot for its first placement. I’m expecting a drop to happen though cause chapter 2 and 3 were nice. 4-6 were slogs and 7 is hit or miss. It’s an uphill battle from here because as I’ve said in the past: it’s way harder to move up, than it is to go down the TOC.

Ayakashi Triangle is 6th once again, so I’m willing to say that at the very least, it’s consistent. Is it popular, who really knows? Moriking got good placements and an early color page and then volume 1 came out and did worse than Mitama. We need to wait till October to see if Ayakashi is truly popular. At the very least, getting a color page soon would show that Jump’s interested at promoting the series even for a little bit (though, Yabuki admitted that drawing the Jump Heroines Summer Poster took a lot out of him, so I’m not expecting that soon).

Well, looks like we have our new top 3 for the TOC. One Piece is absent this week, but DR. STONE and My Hero Academia have been battling for number one constantly now and rarely ever give up their top 3 spots. I think that’s fine, both series have been going through a resurgence of popularity it seems, doing better than ever despite 2020. I wonder if this will hold though once Jujutsu Kaisen starts airing in October. I also wonder if Mashle is going to be able to break in over time. It had an off week this issue, but I doubt it’s going to be out of the top 5 consistently now.  

For Me and Roboco, I originally said it could be the end of magazine gag manga so it probably won’t rank. Then these 7 issues happened. Nothing in the TOCs or treatment of the series suggested to me that Roboco is meant to be an end of magazine gag. Not only that, but Ryou Nakama, the mangaka of a former end of magazine manga, is back with a new series so who knows, maybe he’s getting the slot again because he’s done it before and was successful at it. His new series is also getting 2 chapters that total 25 pages for its debut next issue. For those reasons, I’m not treating Me and Roboco as the guaranteed end of magazine gag anymore. I’m going to say it ranks like every other series until they give me reason to believe otherwise. So next week, it is ranking. I won’t be shocked by anything at this point. Personally, I don’t see how it can do anything above bottom five based on these first seven chapters, but you never know. Everything new gets a good first placement these days it seems, but maybe it’s just been coincidences. Time will tell.
 
And now let’s shine some light on the most recent chapter of some series currently featured in Weekly Shonen Jump. These aren’t my top five chapters of a week necessarily, but they are ones that I want to highlight and talk about a little.

Mission: Yozakura Family Mission 48: Cleaning the Yard


The gift that keeps on giving, another good chapter of Yozakura has come. We see some of Taiyo’s new power here and it’s great. We see how deep Mutsumi and Taiyo’s bond goes and how far she’s willing to go for him and her family. We got to see more abilities of the family. Most importantly though, what a cliffhanger to end the chapter on. This is the first real time we’ll get to see Kyoichiro get serious. The admittedly predictable identity of mystery man, that’s bound to be an earth-shaking encounter. Congrats on one year Yozakura, you’re definitely primed to take the world by storm now.

Time Paradox Ghostwriter Chapter 14: Back Then (END)


And so the most hyped up manga of 2020 by the West dies with a whimper. I said in an earlier Making the Jump that ever since the series shifted directions, it basically deserved to die and this chapter reinforces that belief. If Bone Collection’s ending last week didn’t happen, I would say that this is the worst ending I have ever read from a cancelled Jump series (to be fair, I refuse to read Ziga’s or Noah’s Notes ending). I actually feel insulted because I defended the delay of Teppei facing problems for plagiarizing Aino because I thought that eventually they would address that and he’d get punished for it. Well…the fact that he was able to escape time freezing and somehow save Aino’s life without anyone ever actually believing he stole White Knight from her in the end, means nope, this series justified plagiarism. I’m an idiot for believing the writer would actually do something about that. Whether it was going to be addressed in the original plans, who knows, but that doesn’t matter. All that does is that in what we got, Teppei was rewarded for plagiarism.

All that inner conflict about whether or not he was doing the right thing? All gone. This series just self-destructed once it found out that people weren’t behind the original direction in Japan. It’s actually amazing how quickly things fell apart. I honestly have no idea how the person who wrote the first eleven chapters is the same person who wrote the last 3. I’m just glad this series got put out of its misery. It would have been sad to see this flounder for another 2 months instead of Moriking.

Black Clover Page 262: A Turbulent Conference


It’s been awhile since we saw most of the Squad captains in action so seeing them all together (for the most part) was a sight to see. It’s also a treat seeing Noel be serious and be threatening. Jack has grown on me over time and I like his dumb haircut. It’s just great to see Rill being himself again as well as Dorothy. Charlotte…exists too I guess. I miss Yami though, which made the last chapters hit a little harder for me. Black Clover is starting to get on that groove again. I thought that would happen but I’m glad we’re here now. I can’t wait to see what Nacht has in store for Asta and our captains.  

Burn the Witch Chapter 2: Ghille Suit


So remember how I said that this is Kubo so it’s extremely easy for him to not be concise? Yep, that’s exactly what’s happening here. This series is four chapters and we are now halfway done. Yet now we’re throwing in a jealous ex-bandmate sub-plotline with Ninny, this random guy who I don’t think is from the one shot that has something to do with Noel, light dragons in addition to regular dragons, Balgo possibly becoming a dragon still, there’s just so much here. Not to mention, basically none of the stuff from chapter 1 was built on or explained so yeah. I’m still really loving things, but I’m getting more and more worried that I won’t by the end of chapter 4. Aside from that though, I still think it looks really great, the character dynamic between Noel and Ninny is entertaining, and Kubo even decided that he wanted to keep drawing backgrounds for once.

Phantom Seer Chapter 1: The Boy With Psychic Power


And so Hono Mieru Shonen has become Phantom Seer…yeah, I’m not feeling this name as much, but I guess its fine (I think a literal translation would be Faintly Visible Boy so…it kinda captures the same feeling but not really). Also, kind of funny, but they actually typo’d the name of the first chapter on Mangaplus (they have Physic instead of Psychic). That’s not the important part though, the actual content is. First, they changed up the female character completely. I’m fine with that in the sense that I didn’t really like the girl from the one shot. What she got replaced with though, Riku, is pretty generic. I’m not someone that hates something or someone just for being generic, but I didn’t feel anything about her yet. I think that’s the best way to describe how I feel about the series in general. I didn’t feel anything reading it. For all intent and purposes, it’s a competent manga. The only really glaring problem I saw with this first chapter is that Riku is already set up to be another “damsel in distress” female lead in Jump and that’s the last thing I wanted. However, I also didn’t really find anything really good in this first chapter either.

I basically said when I was talking about the one shot is that there needed to be a lot of revisions to make this work and to his credit, Togo Goto actually did change up a lot. What he came up with is…basically a serious version of Samon-kun the Summoner, a Jump series from 2015 that ran for two years. Normally I’d be ecstatic for this. I recently read the series and I loved it, it honestly should still be with us today, so this being the successor should have been something I’m here for right away…but there’s a few fundamental differences that makes this work for Samon-kun and not here.

1. Right away, Samon-kun established that it was a comedy. So things like Samon being an insufferable jerk, Teruhashi being a perfect angel that helps everyone, all the reaction faces, that all fit in with the tone of the series. The entire point of the series is that Teruhashi was good and Samon wanted to corrupt her. Compare that to Phantom Seer where the tone is supposed to be more serious (even if comedy can be snuck in, it’s shonen after all), Riku being a perfect angel is played straight (which makes her boring as a result), I’m meant to like Iori unlike Samon, he just wants to be normal. Well, a normal person wouldn’t tell a person he just met that they’re weird for actually listening to his request to meet, that’s something straight out of proud jerk Samon-kun’s playbook. Also, what's the goal here? Just to get stronger? That works for a comedy. That isn't enough for a serious series.

2. The “demons” of the Samon-kun world are interesting. Not just cause of their designs, but what they’re based on. I immediately cared about these summons because they all were unique and add something to the story. There’s only been two named spirits so far in Phantom Seer, but neither of them really felt unique or interesting. They didn’t really have characters of their own either, just the generic “enemy” or “tool” “personality” of other summon based series. Another part of what makes Samon-kun work is that he’s a jerk to even his own summons. Iori has no relationship with his yet.

3. The art. Samon-kun stood out and worked because of its unique look. If it looked like the average manga, none of it would have hit home as well. Phantom Seer is basically what you get if Samon-kun didn’t have its unique artstyle. It all technically looks nice. The horror stuff looks terrifying. Just…it doesn’t really feel like it has character.

Now, can this get better? Of course. Unlike most of the new Jump series that I didn’t like after chapter 1, this one I actually feel like its problems are just because its chapter 1 instead of just being something I hate on a conceptual level. The last series I felt that way about was Magu-chan, and I love that series to death now. There also isn’t anything here that I think is so badly executed that the series is ruined yet. We just need to see if it can improve from here.


Weekly Shonen Jump isn’t the only publication that Shueisha has under its belt. It publishes a myriad of other magazines and has various online platforms not including Jump where it publishes original manga. This section is meant to be a generally minimal spoilerish look at series from said areas and maybe introduce people to hidden gems.


Following manga series as they come out is an interesting pastime. Series you swear will be great and popular end up dying within 19 chapters. A series you hate or think isn’t good enough to deserve popularity ends up being a multiyear titan that helps drives sales for companies. Sometimes you find your favorite manga from humble beginnings. And sometimes you end up discovering the next immediate pillar of manga before it was cool.

Tatsuya Endo’s career is a hope story come to life. He was as an assistant for Blue Exorcist of Jump Square and Fire Punch. He was mainly a Jump Square mangaka that never really managed to release a hit, I think only one of them made it past one year. He’s been at this for twenty years at this point, not really finding success. He didn’t give up though. He went from dark stories to somewhat dark stories because an editor wanted to see what he can do. Which led to the creation of SPY x FAMILY, a culmination of a previous one shot he did and the incorporation of his darker elements which became a lighthearted comedy. And if you’ve been following manga for anything beyond a completely casual level you would know that yeah, it blew up right away. It’s not really right to call this series a “hidden gem” since everyone already knows about it, but I feel like I had to talk about it at some point. Plus, it is completely crazy how in 5 volumes (as of September), it’s already at like 4 million copies in circulation. That’s completely insane, the last time we got something that big that fast was like Assassination Classroom back in 2012. This does not happen often at all.

So what about this series caused it to become a phenomenon? Well, it’s about spies. I think spies haven’t really been done much in manga up to this point, so it was fresh. I think this came out right before the Kimetsu no Yaiba wave hit Japan, so nothing was really taking the scene by storm. Not only that, most of the rising stars (TPN, Chainsaw Man, Jujutsu Kaisen, I even think this was around the time MHA started turning) were dark in nature so it stood out in a sea of hopelessness and despair. It was on Jump+ in Japan and Mangaplus in the West which made it much more accessible than the average new series. I think most importantly though…it’s just a good series. That chapter 1 was a pretty strong chapter one that established the strengths of the series and gave us some memorable panels. Most of all, it felt genuine. You could tell that Endo-sensei loved this story and was putting his all into making it good and this continues into the rest of the series. As the family slowly grows, you can tell that they want to be together, for their own personal reasons sure, but they like each other enough that they’re fine with this situation. We still Anya grow close to people in both hilarious and heartwarming ways. The characters never do anything that unintentionally comes off as dumb or extremely convenient. You’re rewarded for getting invested with these characters with a great cast and plot unfolding.

The series is also funny. If you’ve been around anime/manga communities, you’ve probably seen at least one Anya reaction face. The contrast in Yor’s inner and outer character is pretty funny, and Twilight always being serious and blunt makes me chuckle, especially when he realizes that Anya is endangering his job because she isn’t ready for something. Just day to day interactions between Anya and her fellow students are a joy to read because they feel like actual conversations and arguments elementary kids would have.

I would say my least favorite parts of the series and I think the weakest point would be the serious moments. Not so much the serious as in heartbreaking/somber ones, but more of the actiony traditional battle shonen parts of arcs. I understand they are needed and that they help make the light hearted comedy parts stand out more, but I don’t know, I don’t think there was a serious chapter yet that I genuinely think was an amazing chapter yet (though they’ve all been at the very least, good).

So yeah, SPY x FAMILY isn’t a hidden gem in the slightest. However, it is a really good series still. Do I think it’s almost 1 million per volume sales ratio good? Not exactly. It’s worth a read though.

You can check out SPY x FAMILY on Viz’s site or Mangaplus or buy the first volume since that’s been officially released in English!    


Should have seen this one coming eh? This is normally for debuting (whether it be all new or getting a physical release in English) or ending series, but this is a call for celebration. It’s always an achievement to be able to last one entire year in Weekly Shonen Jump. A lot of series crash and burn, even if they had a very promising beginning. Sometimes a series will have all the hype in the world but not be able to live up to it and underperform. Sometimes they just can’t compete against the competition and end up dying. So it’s impressive that Mission: Yozakura Family was able to survive this long despite all the things going against it.

So let’s go on a trip down memory lane. In August of 2019, a preview image for two new series were in Weekly Shonen Jump. These series would be Mission: Yozakura Family by Hitsuji Gondaira and Mitama Security by Tsutrun Hatomune. I was conflicted when I first saw this to be honest. Yeah, shocking I know, me of all people was skeptical about Yozakura Family in the beginning. The reason for that was because the mangaka’s previous series was Demon Prince Poro’s Diaries, a series that I made fun of relentlessly back when it was released and thought was possibly the worst Jump manga I would ever read (oh poor 2017 me. He had no idea about the garbage that would come in 2018-2020). However, the image of Taiyo and Mutsumi looking serious and awesome was trying to get me hyped. Plus, at that point, I had to deal with six series that I didn’t like all that much for like four months just be dead space in the magazine. I wanted ANYTHING to be new successful. Also around that time, I was getting prepared for the loss of The Quintessential Quintuplets, We Never Learn was entering endgame, and I was way more into Kaguya: Love is War than I am now. So me seeing this potential romcom that wasn’t a harem and looked similar to the romance stories I loved at the time, naturally decided to be hopeful.

And well, my hope was rewarded. Chapter 1 finally came out and I fell in love right away. It reminded me of Assassination Classroom, which if you didn’t know, is my favorite manga of all time. And then chapter 2 came out and I felt the same way. And chapter 3. And chapter 4. And so on. I thought this was it. This was the manga I’ve been waiting to love as much as I did Soma and Assassination Classroom (DR. STONE and Act-age were close but didn’t quite reach my love for those two series). And at first, it seemed like people agreed. It was getting good placements on the TOC at first and even got color pages early on. Then it slowly got lower, but never below the great quartet of Yui Kamio Lets Loose, Double Taisei, Beast Children, or Tokyo Shinobi Squad. Those four eventually ended though and Yozakura ended up in the bottom 3 constantly. Not only that, but Mitama was enjoying a rise in the TOC and being the clear favorite of the editorial staff. So my love was being trampled over and I was losing hope.

And then a miracle occurred. Volume 1 of Yozakura came out in February, and it sold decent! It got another color page, two even! It was getting merch! And it was rising from the bottom of the TOC to the middle. But people still doubted it. Despite that though, it has survived for one year. I don’t know how much longer this ride will last, but I’m glad that it made it one year. It proved doubters wrong.

Which leads us to the question: what is this series about? Simple really. Taiyo Asano is a regular high school student with a childhood friend named Mutsumi. One day, her older brother Kyoichiro decided enough was enough and that he was going to kill Taiyo for being too close to Mutsumi. Mutsumi, being the great friend that she is, decided that the rest of her family would save him, and ended up revealing that she’s from a family of spies and that she’s the next head. Things happen and eventually leads to Taiyo and Mutsumi getting married and we’re off to the races.

Without a doubt, the strongest part of this series is the relationship between Taiyo and Mutsumi. These two dorks are the best thing in the world. From chapter 1, it was clear that they were close friends, but we get to see over time how much closer they get to one another. Seeing these two have fun with each other and always want to be with each other, eventually growing into true love, just tugs at my heart. Whenever they’re together, magic happens, whether it be funny moments or heartwarming exchanges that deepen their bond. Those two have such great chemistry.

I also think that when another character gets focus, they have great relationships with Taiyo. Sui, Sosuke, Ayaka, they all play off well of Taiyo as they are opposite aspects of him (Sui is strong and cool compared to Taiyo’s tendency to lose his composure, Sosuke is a bigger loser than Taiyo so their friendship is both wonderful as it allows Taiyo to look good, and Ayaka’s craziness is a good juxtaposition for Taiyo’s off the hinge moments). Most people argue that the supporting cast doesn’t get as much focus, and I agree to an extent, I also think that it’s exaggerated. I remember characters if they’re clearly important. Gondaira-sensei does do a good job of making characters distinct, even if it seems like they have a gimmick similar to another character. There’s a lot of potential growth for these characters down the line too.

The art style is distinct. I personally think it’s really appealing, but I can also understand why someone wouldn’t like it. The action scenes look really nice and the heartwarming moments look great. My main problem so far has been the lack of diversity in paneling. While I’m not going to say its bad (unlike the travesty that is current day One Piece OOPS), I think he could try some more out there techniques. I also saw that before basically three chapters ago, there were like no double page spreads. Maybe he was waiting till he was safe to try out some new things, but that was something I noticed over this past year.

I won’t front, there are some stretches that I think most people won’t like as much as the good parts. I personally don’t think it ever gets bad, but others disagree. However, the good of Yozakura is just so good and makes me feel happy. I definitely recommend this series. It’s only up from here.
 


For some fun, we’re going to have a question every week that revolves around Jump. Be warned though, unlike the rest of Making the Jump, this trivia question can be about any series that ran in Jump! So without further ado –

I’ve been throwing some hard questions lately, so let’s toss a softball. Yozakura is celebrating its first anniversary and that’s always exciting for a series, especially in Jump. What’s the next series in the current lineup to celebrate its anniversary? HINT: It’s one of the “older” series.

Last week's answer:

Happy one year, Yozakura! Here’s hoping that this is the first of many. Next time we’ll look at some preliminary sales data for our September volumes that have three days for their first week. Till then, remember: support the official release!

School’s a startin', both in real life, and in this week’s Jump with the beginning of High School Family: Kokosei Kazoku! Let’s get to Making the Jump!


The first thing to examine is this week’s Jump’s Table of Contents. As you know, a table of contents is a list of what to expect inside whatever literature you’re currently reading, and Jump’s no different. It gives us the order of how series appear in that week’s Jump issue, what series received a center color page (or CP for short), among other things. This isn’t an exact representation of a series standing in Shonen Jump, but it can give us a close look at how Shueisha views a series based on patterns and the like. That’s generally why people view the TOC as a ranking of sort.

A series “rank” is just where they appear in the magazine (for example, a series that ranked 4th that week means it’s the fourth series to appear in that week’s Jump, excluding CPs). It’s the closest approximation we can get on a series’ popularity before its first volume is released. While readers in Japan can vote on their top 3 series for a week, ultimately it is up to the editors to decide the order of the TOC (though those viewer votes obviously have a huge factor in the editors’ decision making). New series aren’t “ranked” right away. We don’t know how far back TOC’s are made or how many weeks back they’re meant to reflect a series status, but it is a general rule of thumb that a new series doesn’t start “ranking” until its 8th chapter (or the first chapter where it does not receive a CP if chapter 8 receives one).
Here is the TOC for Issue #40 of Weekly Shonen Jump (released 9/6/2020) [NOTE: If there’s two names next to an author avatar, the top italicized name is the one who uses the avatar]

*Will fix later*

Unranked: Hunter x Hunter

Next Issue Preview:

I don’t have much to say. The only real notable things involve our most recent batch of series to rank. Just to quickly touch up on some other things though: Yozakura is back in the bottom 3 after a color page. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I honestly have no clue what they’re doing with it. It’s a series that’s just there, but the reason why it’s just there is because they don’t give it any push. I’ve given up on expecting any push at this point. It’s probably going to go on for as long as Gondaira-sensei wants it to at this point because there’s always a cushion for it, but that’s about it. I’ll believe a push is happening when I see it. Moriking is now a last place ranked series which in my opinion, basically makes it so you no longer have any protection. If something needs to get axed, you’re a prime candidate.

So now let’s look at our four series that got their first placements recently. First off, Me and Roboco got fifth…yeah, at this point I think first rankings are meaningless. All four series in this batch get top 5 for their first rankings? Yeah, that is definitely suspicious, especially since 2 of them are already bottom five or close to it. I’m not going to be shocked if Roboco drops like a rock quickly. The one that’s managed to always be consistent, Ayakashi, is once again 6th so I think things look alright for it. At this point a new series needs sales data before we can make a call but it looks things will work out fine in October for it. What’s not looking fine though is Magu-chan’s chances at survival. That one hurts because of the four, it’s easily my favorite but looks like thems the brakes. As for Dolphin…yeah, I don’t think that color page means anything other than they aren’t going to pretend a new series is popular after giving it an early color page anymore, they’re just going to be honest about a series getting pushed. Like, it’s not bad it got one…but we’ve been down this road already. Of the last four series to get an early color page, the one that was by a rookie was the only one that didn’t drop in the TOC right after it happened. Not to mention, Hungry Marie got a color page for chapter 8(!) and then dropped to bottom 3 right after. We’ll see if this translates to sales. I’m done believing a pre volume 1 TOC push will translate to good volume sales. I need to see it to believe it.

And now let’s shine some light on the most recent chapter of some series currently featured in Weekly Shonen Jump. These aren’t my top five chapters of a week necessarily, but they are ones that I want to highlight and talk about a little.


I would say that this chapter was another standard one. It was again, technically solid, but nothing truly amazing that makes it stand out I feel. At this point, my hopes for Riku being anything other than the generic female lead in Jump that doesn’t do anything are pretty low. I’m still not really digging Iori as the main character. It still felt like there was too much exposition in this chapter. It had tentacles because of course it did. I really don’t care about Iori’s power yet, or particularly feel bad that the totally not evil sister of him is essentially torturing him. It just feels so hard to care right now because nothing about it stands out or seems interesting. Maybe it needs to start an actual arc before I write it off, but I know series in Jump have been killed just because their first two chapters didn’t get noticed by the readers.


Sometimes you just to step back and go back to basics after “being in a rut” for a bit. I liked the chuuni introduced three chapters ago and think he’s a good addition to the cast. However, he wasn’t as strong of a character as the ones we got before him and sort of felt…off compared to everyone else in the story. That’s weird considering from chapter 1, it was established that basically anything goes in this world so him being a chuuni that actually has powers makes sense…but something just doesn’t feel like it works here. So I appreciate going back to what this series does best: Magu-chan vs Naputaaku. These two steal the show every time they appear and interact with each other and it was the case here too. So far, this series has stayed true to itself and it’s good because of it, but I’m worried that people might not want to read this kind of series in Jump. We’ll have to wait for November to see volume sales. For however long this ride is though, I’m going to enjoy it.    


Meanwhile we have…this. Getting a color page so soon after the chapter two obligatory one should be a good sign that this series is being well received by JP readers…but Tamura has been down this exact road before. Seems like his series is middle of the road before ranking, gets something that shows a good sign of survival, and then just plummets before dying a slow death. The more time goes on, the more it feels like Beelzebub was a giant fluke. Shark is basically just Oga except not as relatable since he’s a mid-twenties man instead of a kid just starting high school. A guy that’s out of school doing all this crazy crap and also being his own straight man just isn’t doing it for me. All this series has done is make Chako be adorable, which okay, she is. I would even dare say she’s the second most precious character in Jump right now (behind Mutsumi Yozakura). But I need more than that. There’s no direction for this series, it feels like the humor is just random for the sake of random (which I usually HATE), the characters aren’t anywhere near as charming as they were in Beelzebub or even Hungry Marie, why should I care about this series?  


I’ll admit, I don’t really care about Chainsaw Man, so it definitely is impacting part of this but, is it just me or does it feel like it’s rushing towards an ending? It’s obviously not since Shueisha would be really dumb to rush this series out of all of them to end, but…it just feels like Fujimoto decided that he wanted everyone to die. It probably will go somewhere but, I don’t know, it seems like this part of the series is really impactful if you liked the characters. As someone who didn’t like the series for like two thirds of its run so far and the remaining third, I find less bad than other series I hate in Jump, it’s really not doing anything for me. I’m just confused again.


Speaking of confusion…we have AGRAVITY BOYS. I legitimately don’t have any idea what’s the point of the manga and something tells me Atsushi Nakamura doesn’t either. What feels like a natural conclusion direction for the past like, seven chapters (last chapter was even called THE JOURNEY CONTINUES and a parody that screams WE’RE ENDING NOW), suddenly went out the window and now it looks like the series is lost again. I’m assuming that it got a final chance at life because of Tsugi Manga awards and a certain other series ending unexpectedly and well, I don’t think this is a bright start to that final chance. The problem has always been, I only like two of the characters. So instead of trying to make me like the rest of the cast, he introduces a mascot character and I’m supposed to just like Geralt because he was tsundere for the otter. Like, there was a point that I thought there was going to be direction early on in the series and it found itself. Then it completely abandoned the time machine plotline it seemed and we’re just stuck in a constant limbo of meandering chapters with every once in a while we get an amazing chapter (which usually revolves around Chris and has NOTHING to do with the rest of the AGRAVITY BOYS). Just…why does this still exist? I can guarantee you that save some Kimetsu no Yaiba level explosion, its October sales are not saving it, so why are we dealing the inevitable?


Weekly Shonen Jump isn’t the only publication that Shueisha has under its belt. It publishes a myriad of other magazines and has various online platforms not including Jump where it publishes original manga. This section is meant to be a generally minimal spoilerish look at series from said areas and maybe introduce people to hidden gems.


Alright, before we get into this, I’ll be real. I’m running out of series to recommend. So if this segment isn’t around for a bit, it’s because I’m struggling to come up with a series I want to talk about.

Anyway, people always want to read the next series that reinvents the wheel. They want to read something that becomes a trendsetter or they think completely turns a genre on its head. With that mindset, it’s only natural then that Aka Akasaka’s Kaguya-sama: Love is War garnered attention. Originally starting as a monthly manga back in 2015, it eventually moved over to Weekly Young Jump and became weekly in early 2016 for I’m assuming really good reception or something. And the reception was great from the start, selling good right from the start and even getting licensed by Viz Media fairly quick compared to most manga they do, getting announced only one year after the swap to weekly chapters. It’s put on a pedestal as one of the best romcoms post Nisekoi and seems to be the internet darling of the three big ones (We Never Learn, The Quintessential Quintuplets, and this). Kaguya memes are everywhere, from Kaguya’s trademark “how cute” face, to the Chika dance, to the openings be recognizable to most anime fans based on the first note alone. Everyone constantly talks about how the series changed the game for romcoms forever and how its one of the smartest written manga out there currently. Does it live up to that though?

So I think the most common comparison I’ve seen for this series is that it’s the Death Note of romcoms and well…yeah, that’s mostly true. It’s nowhere near as serious as Death Note obviously, but I think the main premise of two geniuses clashing with mental battles to prove they are superior to their opponent is similar enough. You can compare the main cast being the student council to the main characters of DN being part of the force. The supporting cast has some strong characters and some pretty bad ones. And, this might get me killed, but, I think both series get significantly weaker after THE MAJOR turning point of the series that transitions to the second half of the series. They’re for different reasons, but the main similarity between the two there is that I feel like they both sort of lose focus on what made the first half of the series so good. They’re both genius and innovative in the first half, but it feels like they got complacent after the MAJOR turning point occurs in their respective series.

Now that I got that off my chest, let me go over what makes the series good, because there is a lot that does. The main cast is probably one of the best I’ve seen in a romcom. One of the hardest parts of a romcom is making your main cast feel like they’re on similar footing. The best friend character for instance, is usually just a tool that helps the MC when they’re challenged when it comes to romance. Ishigami here though, has his own character arc going on that has spanned the entire story and he’s continuously developed from a complete loser to a dependable student that is so close to finding love. Iino started off as an insufferable “rules are absolute” kind of female dog, but we see multiple sides of her that explains why she’s the way she is and that she’s slowly changing. Kaguya and Shirogane are probably the most well-developed main pairing in a romcom that I’ve read in a while. And then Fujiwara…is memes. Yeah, I won’t front, I don’t like Fujiwara at all. But that’s okay! She’s not bad or anything, just not my type of character.

Another thing that is so well done here is that everything (and I mean EVERYTHING) in this manga means something. Whether it become a serious plot point or a punchline for a joke way later down the road, there is no throwaway line, it WILL come up again. Aka always has an eye for detail, making sure everything done has meaning and that every single thing is accounted for while making a storyline play out. He also is always current. Zoom is on the rise, so he has characters in a Zoom call. He was playing Apex Legends a lot, Ishigami is seen playing Apex Legends (or a ripoff) in the manga. He makes jokes about streamer culture.

He just gets teenagers. The most impressive thing Aka has done is make all these characters believable. The setting of the story is a rich kid high school, and most of the major cast act like they’re spoiled rich kids even if they aren’t inherently bad people. We got some horny kids here. Sometimes, high school kids just suck though. Shirogane is a realistic portrayal of “genius on the top of the mountain” even if some of the traits are exaggerated.

Overall, I think this is a really good romcom series that offers something different. Even if it has fallen off a little, it’s still a solid read. You can buy the official release on Viz.


September is here now, which means it’s time for Japan to release new volumes for Weekly Shonen Jump series! This time around the manga that were released on September 4th are: My Hero Academia volume 28, DR. STONE volume 17, Yuuna and the Haunted Hot Springs volume 23, and Undead Unluck volume 3 from WSJ, and the flagship of Jump+ has another release with volume 5 of SPY x FAMILY. One Piece volume 98 was delayed to September 16. Guardian of the Witch volume 3 is also a September release, but there’s only 3 days for the first week and we all know it’s not going to do well so I figured it’d be more interesting to look at SxF. Apologies if you were curious about GotW, and I know I said it wouldn’t be fair if I skipped it, but it literally only managed 2 days out of six in August, so it would be pointless to actually track it.

Since Oricon volume sales isn’t going to be out till Thursday/Friday, I’ll just give Shoseki estimates for every series and their Shoseki daily and weekly rankings for week 1 instead. It isn’t going to be exactly accurate since the highest estimate Shoseki gives is top 30 and we know that MHA, DS, and SxF are going to be way higher than 30, but blame my lack of foresight. I’ll also include Honto rankings but again, they don’t mean a whole lot.


Been a bit, but we got some quick points to go through. Another Jujutsu Kaisen PV was released recently! The series starts acting October 2nd. Looks really solid all things considered! MAPPA is behind this, and after a good showing with God of High School, this should be good. Haikyu!! season 4 part 2 is also 10/2! I also forgot to mention, Burn the Witch’s movie is coming out on Crunchyroll starting 10/2 as well! Things are looking packed for Jump Fall 2020.

For some fun, we’re going to have a question every week that revolves around Jump. Be warned though, unlike the rest of Making the Jump, this trivia question can be about any series that ran in Jump! So without further ado –

Just a simple question this time since I'm already running late with this edition. What's Naruto's JAPANESE end date? I don't want when it ended in English WSJ because that's a later date. I want to know when it ended officially.

Last Week's answer:

Next time, we get to see the last of our new series of this batch debut. This was the one I was looking forward to the most, so let’s see how it goes. Till then, remember: support the official release!

Our bloody path through Jump continues as the final new series of four for now debuts in issue #41 of Weekly Shonen Jump, released 9/13/20. It’s time to Make the Jump!


The first thing to examine is this week’s Jump’s Table of Contents. As you know, a table of contents is a list of what to expect inside whatever literature you’re currently reading, and Jump’s no different. It gives us the order of how series appear in that week’s Jump issue, what series received a center color page (or CP for short), among other things. This isn’t an exact representation of a series standing in Shonen Jump, but it can give us a close look at how Shueisha views a series based on patterns and the like. That’s generally why people view the TOC as a ranking of sort.

A series “rank” is just where they appear in the magazine (for example, a series that ranked 4th that week means it’s the fourth series to appear in that week’s Jump, excluding CPs). It’s the closest approximation we can get on a series’ popularity before its first volume is released. While readers in Japan can vote on their top 3 series for a week, ultimately it is up to the editors to decide the order of the TOC (though those viewer votes obviously have a huge factor in the editors’ decision making). New series aren’t “ranked” right away. We don’t know how far back TOC’s are made or how many weeks back they’re meant to reflect a series status, but it is a general rule of thumb that a new series doesn’t start “ranking” until its 8th chapter (or the first chapter where it does not receive a CP if chapter 8 receives one).

Here is the TOC for Issue #41 of Weekly Shonen Jump (released 9/13/2020) [NOTE: If there’s two names next to an author avatar, the top italicized name is the one who uses the avatar]

*Will fix later*

Next Issue Preview:

And so we have another “what the…” kind of TOC. I guess the biggest point to talk about is Chainsaw Man’s “climax”. We aren’t sure if it means climax as in “end of arc” climax, or “end of series” climax. The language they used wasn’t what they normally do for ending series, but Kimetsu no Yaiba didn’t have that either when it was in the preview before its last chapter so we have no way of knowing. On top of this, CSM is at a point where it could honestly go either way. We’ll just have to wait and see.

Me and Roboco got 4th place after its fifth place last week…which was the only series out of its batch to actually increase in rank after its first placement. I don’t know if that means anything but it’s weird how that’s the one that improved performance. I don’t think this is going to translate to sales, but it’s worth looking at. This is also worth noting but Dolphin’s Color Page is lower than the average one. It might be because there’s 4 in this issue, but I do think that Dolphin isn’t out of danger just yet. I wouldn’t be shocked if the “color page vet curse” hits this series hard and it starts ranking below Magu-chan soon. Mashle is in the bottom 5 for the first time ever I think, but that’s probably just a fluke. They’d be dumb to let Mashle go at this point. Undead came back to its barely above bottom 5 position just like I predicted it would. The TOC is becoming more and more meaningless for anything post volume 1 release it seems.

One last thing though, Burn the Witch has ended…for now. A season 2 has been confirmed to be coming “soon”. So I guess we have a new miniseries in the lineup. “Soon” is probably December or early 2021, and I don’t know how long season 2 will be, but this should be nice for Jump in the short term at least while they look for their next big hit. When it comes back, I’ll probably treat it like a new series, aka give it eight chapters before its placements start mattering (and we’ll repeat the process again if season 2 ends before 8 chapters and we get a season 3).

And now let’s shine some light on the most recent chapter of some series currently featured in Weekly Shonen Jump. These aren’t my top five chapters of a week necessarily, but they are ones that I want to highlight and talk about a little.


Mashle has been a serious battle manga for I think ten chapters at this point and I think without a doubt this has been the weakest part of the series. What made the series great and what I assume what people fell in love with was that it was a parody of a serious battle series that wasn’t afraid to make fun of tropes. Now though, we’re just getting the same tropes it made fun of previously, but played straight. Combine that with the fact that the world is so underdeveloped in a setting where we NEED to know about said world, the villains are all lame and played straight, and now they’re doing things like having a main character being the younger sibling of the ace of their class/dorm/year like so many other series before it, and it just feels like Komoto-sensei lost his way somewhere. I think it’ll get better once this arc ends, but this definitely showed off Komoto-sensei’s weaknesses as a rookie writer and what he needs to work on.


Man, it’s a good thing we got a season 2 confirmed because whoa boy would this have been a frustrating way to end a four-chapter miniseries. The world of Burn the Witch is slowly settling in, the characters that are more than just background figures right now are starting to form their own identities and stand out, and Kubo is just showing off at this point with his art. We now have a goal of sorts for Noel and Ninny to fight towards, a rival(?), and Balgo even has more going for him now. I wonder if we’re getting seven seasons and where we’re going from here. I’m excited for this series again now that I know that there’s a lot more to come.  


Now that we know that Moriking is a dead series walking, it just sort of feels like this is dragging. I also don’t know if it’s because I know this isn’t long for the world, or if I’m just now noticing it, but the jokes in Moriking are feeling repetitious. The first time Moriking wore the sumo outfit, came out of nowhere and I got a chuckle out of it, now though it feels like this is the fifth time in five chapters he’s done this joke and it lost all of its luster (and I’m not even sure if it actually was that frequent).The horn joke is way overused at this point. The only thing Moriking has at this point is that he’s an ikemen, which fine, but I need more to care. I guess Hasegawa gave up and is just having fun before the serialization ends, but it’s a shame because Moriking could have been a cool comedy series. Now though, it just feels monotonous.


The reason why I didn’t talk about this series last week was because I wanted to sit on it and see if it was just a bad first impression or if I genuinely hate it and well…my opinion definitely hasn’t changed for the better this week. The jokes feel incredibly forced to me. I get it, his entire family is in the same high school as him, and he’s embarrassed by it. Stop running that joke to the ground. I also get that the family don’t find it weird that they all want to go to high school despite not being the age for it. Come up with a different joke already. None of these jokes hit for me. It’s not the worst comedy Jump’s got at the moment (you can probably figure out what I think the worst one is), but I definitely would have dropped this manga if I didn’t go out of my way to read every Jump series for completion’s sake.


I decided to do something a little different for first chapters of new series. Instead of posting one panel, I’ll post their PV instead, so you get a clearer picture of what they’re about.

My first impressions of Our Blood Path is that you can tell that this is Kazu Kazaku’s first series. There were interesting ideas and concepts for the series in this first chapter, but they felt compact and didn’t have a chance to breathe. Not only that, but the big climatic moment of the chapter, I thought felt cluttered and too busy to really convey what it was trying to. That being said, I did think it was pretty good in the sense that I’m interested to see what’s next and if Kazaku-sensei can grow from here. Kimetsu no Yaiba for example, screamed like Gotouge-sensei’s first series when it debuted, and it was able to grow into a phenomenon. I obviously don’t believe Our Blood Path is going to blow up to that level, but I do think that there’s a lot here that shows that it can become a great series over time if given the chance and if the mangaka doesn’t drop the ball.


One of my favorite periods in Jump’s fiscal year is the Golden Future Cup. A competition between upcoming mangaka, some bright talents have graced the magazine through this contest. You might be able to see young artists Jump has faith will be a future pillar of their magazine, legends before they were completely confident and blew up, or artists you wish would get a series but still are waiting (I will wait forever for you, Masaoki Shindou! Your art is too good to not get a series in the biggest manga magazine in Japan! Plus you won that GFC and are owed a series still.) I’m always a little sad when Jump doesn’t do it in their year and wished that more people would give these one-shots love (including you Viz and Manga+!) So, for the next month or two, instead of giving some time for Shueisha series outside Jump, I decided that I would give focus to this year’s Golden Future Cup entries. Of course, they aren’t going to be as popular as certain series, so who knows if I’ll find an English translation for any of these. This is going to be more of a “first impression” kind of segment and if I’d be interested in it as a full series or if the author made a series in general. And if I can’t even find raws, well… we’ll make this a retrospective series instead and go over old GFC entries that didn’t become full series. I’m going to tell you now though, boy are these things hard to find so let’s hope I’m not forced to do that! Also, the GFC is going to be on break for a few weeks in between entry 2 or 3, so I’ll do entries for old contests during those weeks.
This is what this section will look like next week:


Impressions/short summary

Rating: (Hate, Dislike, Neutral, Like, Love)
Would I Want it as a Series?:
Would I Want the Author/Artist to make a Series?:


For some fun, we’re going to have a question every week that revolves around Jump. Be warned though, unlike the rest of Making the Jump, this trivia question can be about any series that ran in Jump! So without further ado –

Since the Golden Future Cup is coming back, why not ask a question about it. As mentioned before, Masaoki Shindou won a GFC but hasn’t gotten a series yet. When did he win it and what mangaka from his competition DID get a series? HINT: The person who got the series didn’t get a regular magazine series; it was an online exclusive miniseries that ran in early 2020.

Last Week's Answer:

Now we look forward to the future to see how this newest batch of series establish themselves. Jump comes out 9/18 this week, but I'll be back sometime next week since I don't want to do two issues in the same week.

A golden opportunity has commenced with the dawn of the Golden Future Cup (2020 edition)! So let’s Make the Jump for the 42nd issue of Weekly Shonen Jump, released 9/18/20.


The first thing to examine is this week’s Jump’s Table of Contents. As you know, a table of contents is a list of what to expect inside whatever literature you’re currently reading, and Jump’s no different. It gives us the order of how series appear in that week’s Jump issue, what series received a center color page (or CP for short), among other things. This isn’t an exact representation of a series standing in Shonen Jump, but it can give us a close look at how Shueisha views a series based on patterns and the like. That’s generally why people view the TOC as a ranking of sort.

A series “rank” is just where they appear in the magazine (for example, a series that ranked 4th that week means it’s the fourth series to appear in that week’s Jump, excluding CPs). It’s the closest approximation we can get on a series’ popularity before its first volume is released. While readers in Japan can vote on their top 3 series for a week, ultimately it is up to the editors to decide the order of the TOC (though those viewer votes obviously have a huge factor in the editors’ decision making). New series aren’t “ranked” right away. We don’t know how far back TOC’s are made or how many weeks back they’re meant to reflect a series status, but it is a general rule of thumb that a new series doesn’t start “ranking” until its 8th chapter (or the first chapter where it does not receive a CP if chapter 8 receives one).

Here is the TOC for Issue #42 of Weekly Shonen Jump (released 9/28/2020) [NOTE: If there’s two names next to an author avatar, the top italicized name is the one who uses the avatar]

*Will fix later*

Next Issue Preview:

Yet again we have a pretty standard TOC. Me and Roboco is still pretty consistent I guess, but it has to prove it in November with volume sales that it actually is this strong. Moriking and Bone Collection both started pretty strong, and then collapsed so I’m not going to write this down as a success yet. Dolphin isn’t quite bottom 3 like I said it would be last week, but yeah, I predicted the “Color Page Veteran Curse” applying here. We’re at “wait for volume sales to actually see where it stands” mode for it, but I wouldn’t get my hopes up that it’ll pull a Yozakura or something. Magu-chan on the other hand, depresses me because this is probably a sign that magazine wise at least, it isn’t really that popular. It’s just been going down every week after it’s good first placement. I’ll hope that volume sales are good in November, but I think this ride might be short. It’s really a shame too because I think it’s easily been the best series to debut in 2020 for Jump. Oh well, I’ll pray for a miracle and mourn if it doesn’t happen appropriately. I think Ayakashi is the safest one of its batch. It’s been getting consistently good placements, it fulfills a niche in Jump that nothing else can at the moment, it’s getting a color page, and pre sales data points to it doing pretty good (like, around Mashle’s current sales level good). Anything can happen still, but I think it’s the one of these four least in danger at the moment.


And now let’s shine some light on the most recent chapter of some series currently featured in Weekly Shonen Jump. These aren’t my top five chapters of a week necessarily, but they are ones that I want to highlight and talk about a little.


This is probably the strangest series I’ve read in Jump in a long while. Objectively, I don’t think it’s in a good place. There’s no way it’s a good idea to go from a chapter 1 that establishes a lot of things to a fillerish chapter 2 that is mainly designed just to give character to the little brother (who I’m assuming isn’t the main character or protagonist). Yet at the same time…this chapter compelled me. It for some reason got me more interested in the series and I want to read more of it. I actively look forward to it now. I really don’t know how it did either. It reminds me of a cancelled series from 2019 called Hell Warden Higuma. The first two chapters were way too slow realistically to hook a reader…yet it somehow got me. Our Blood Path still has a long way to go, and I’m not going to even pretend like it’s likelier for it to be successful than cancelled in under 19 chapters (to be fair though, I’ve already seen fanart of it so it’s not like it is completely ignored). If it continues this herky jerk kind of pacing…then yeah, it’s dead. I can say though, if it is crashing down, it’s a series I’m going to probably enjoy as it happens.


Oh, Magu-chan, how I hope you are long for this world still. This chapter was as funny as usual, but it actually did a lot beyond its usual humorous antics surprisingly enough. We established a backbone for the series: the main cast are part of a school club now so their boundaries and escapades can go beyond the town (though I hope that isn’t something that’s done a lot). Magu-chan is meeting a lot more people now so his legion is growing. It’s building its world while being true to itself. The new characters, while some aren’t as great as earlier ones, are still enjoyable enough. We have no short term goal, but the overarching plot of the series is still prevalent every chapter. It just it doesn’t seem like Japan cares. Shame, but that’s how it goes sometimes.  


And so this mini arc ends and…I still have no idea what Tamura is trying to do here. This felt completely pointless other than MAYBE introducing future allies (which, as evidenced in Beelzebub or Hungry Marie, they’re probably barely going to appear until an arc requires more than 3 people to fight). We still have no idea about the cult that Shark was supposedly called to the island to track down. We have no idea about what the goal even is for the police. Orphie has a powerful right hand, but it doesn’t really mean much. I still don’t really like or care about any of the characters aside from Chako since she’s smug and funny. We don’t have any hint to what’s next. Just, this feels like a mess that’s not going to be satisfying unless it’s really successful in November.


This was a good setup chapter for what’s to come with Black Clover. Admittedly, I wasn’t big on having our characters train AGAIN so soon after a six month timeskip whose entire point was to increase the base power level of our heroes because the enemy was way stronger than them at that point, but I also get it, these seem like endgame enemies, the rest of the cast needs to catch up somehow. It wasn’t completely pointless though. We get to see some character growth from Noelle when she admits they’re all weak right now. In the past, she wouldn’t have been able to openly admit that she wants to save someone or even be so honest with herself as to call them her friend. Asta has definitely brushed off on her. We also got to see some neat factoids about the fate of elf characters. I wonder how this dynamic is going to go. The series is picking up steam again and the payoff is going to be really solid. I wonder if this is going to be the final arc though. It probably won’t get cancelled, but it really does seem hard to imagine what’s next once these devils are defeated.


It’s series like these and Our Blood Path that make me feel like I’m being a contrarian sometimes even though I’m really not trying to be one. Most people tend to lean towards this one being okay to good while OBP is unremarkable and doesn’t know what it wants to do…which is exactly how I feel about Phantom Seer four chapters in. It’s completely unremarkable and doesn’t know what it wants to be. It’s still doing those faces that completely clash with the serious nature of the series just for comedy, the characters I still have no reason to care about any of them (they even introduce a new one who isn’t really pleasant either). There is still no plot direction other than “Iori wants to be a normal kid” or hint at what we’re actually going to end facing in terms of antagonist. It’s more of just “MC is cool so like him” instead of actually making him likeable. I’m not going to be shocked if it dies or live for at least a year, but right now, I’m not seeing its path to success.


One of my favorite periods in Jump’s fiscal year is the Golden Future Cup. A competition between upcoming mangaka, some bright talents have graced the magazine through this contest. You might be able to see young artists Jump has faith will be a future pillar of their magazine, legends before they were completely confident and blew up, or artists you wish would get a series but still are waiting. So, let’s go ahead and take a look at this year’s first entry.


I don’t have an English translation so my plot/story opinion is not going to be in depth really, but from what I could pick up on, it seemed like a hunting manga. Maybe the MC has to kill this wolf because it’s a danger to the village, or he needs to get food or else the village will starve? I don’t think it’s anything special without understanding what’s going on. Can’t say I’ve read much of those, so I can’t tell if this is generic or not, but I don’t hate the idea of one. I thought the way that the one-shot portrayed action was unique, yet easy to follow. The art definitely stands out and it has an interesting hook, from what I can tell visually anyway. I think this was an enjoyable skim, but I don’t think it was enough for me to actively hope it gets translated or made into a series. I wouldn’t be shocked if it won the GFC, but I also wouldn’t be shocked if something else topped it (assuming the other entries are of at least some quality).

Rating: Like
Would I Want it as a Series?: Maybe? Probably Not
Would I Want the Author/Artist to make a Series?: Yes


Let’s check in with our September releases. One Piece volume 98 is out now so let’s look at its first week of Shoseki rankings and Oricon numbers. To catch up on the other series, last week:

[spoiler="Last Week (Week 2) Sales Numbers"]ORICON
Spy x Family did 214k
DR. STONE did 65k
MHA did 184k

*Will fix later*

Not much to say other than One Piece did One Piece things. Still declining, but not awful. I’m happy to see DR. STONE still going strong. It’s crazy to believe that when it first started, it struggled to make it to three weeks and 200k before leaving the Oricon charts and now it seems like it’s going to get it done comfortably. Just good vibes all around.


Jujutsu Kaisen’s premiere date is fast approaching! Toho streamed the entire first episode on their Youtube and I got to say, it looked really solid! If it keeps up that quality, Kaisen is in good hands. They also released another PV with a sample of I believe the ED (it might be the OP, but I think they played the OP at the end of episode 1 and it wasn’t the song in this video).


For some fun, we’re going to have a question every week that revolves around Jump. Be warned though, unlike the rest of Making the Jump, this trivia question can be about any series that ran in Jump! So without further ado –

Jujutsu Kaisen is fast approaching its anime airdate (which you can watch officially on Crunchyroll!). It took 85 chapters for it to be announced to get an anime, which I think is average time to wait for that. So riddle me this fellow readers, what is the shortest amount of chapters between a Jump manga starting and getting an anime for it announced. Bonus points if you can name the series. HINT: I’ll accept two answers. One’s a technicality and the other is a traditional answer.

Last Week's Answer:

Apologies for the delay! Last week had two issues of Jump and I figured I might as well wait for Oricon numbers since this edition was going to be late already. I never had a concrete schedule, but always tried for Monday/Tuesday releases. Would you mind if I moved it back to Thursdays though? I’ve been busier lately and I figure I might as well move it back a bit to account for Oricon. Whatever you decide, I’ll see you next week all the same. Remember: support the official release!

I hope you’re ready for this weekly BOOST to your Shonen Jump knowledge. For Issue 43 of 2020, let’s…Make the Jump!

The first thing to examine is this week’s Jump’s Table of Contents. As you know, a table of contents is a list of what to expect inside whatever literature you’re currently reading, and Jump’s no different. It gives us the order of how series appear in that week’s Jump issue, what series received a center color page (or CP for short), among other things. This isn’t an exact representation of a series standing in Shonen Jump, but it can give us a close look at how Shueisha views a series based on patterns and the like. That’s generally why people view the TOC as a ranking of sort.

A series “rank” is just where they appear in the magazine (for example, a series that ranked 4th that week means it’s the fourth series to appear in that week’s Jump, excluding CPs). It’s the closest approximation we can get on a series’ popularity before its first volume is released. While readers in Japan can vote on their top 3 series for a week, ultimately it is up to the editors to decide the order of the TOC (though those viewer votes obviously have a huge factor in the editors’ decision making). New series aren’t “ranked” right away. We don’t know how far back TOC’s are made or how many weeks back they’re meant to reflect a series status, but it is a general rule of thumb that a new series doesn’t start “ranking” until its 8th chapter (or the first chapter where it does not receive a CP if chapter 8 receives one).

Here is the TOC for Issue #43 of Weekly Shonen Jump (released 9/27/2020) [NOTE: If there’s two names next to an author avatar, the top italicized name is the one who uses the avatar]

*Will fix later*

Next Issue Preview:

Well, there’s one thing I want to start with, Mission: Yozakura Family is fourth this week! It makes me happy every time to see it ranked this high, even if there’s a 95% chance it’s going to drop to bottom five next week because Shueisha can’t push this series for whatever reason (more on that later!). While I still lean more towards it probably won’t last, I think this time there is a better chance that this is the turn that makes it consistent. If you’ve been keeping track back home with the “eight week” rule (it’s probably not true, but the general concept I think does apply), this placement would reflect the start of the latest arc, chapter 44. While I don’t think the eight-week rule is one to one, I do think that generally, these “rankings” reflect general reception for what happened recently in a series. For example, We Never Learn was down in the bottom 3 consistently and even got last place once when Sleeping Beauty of the Literary Forest was running. A lot of people would say that was the best arc the series has done in the past year. The arc before that was Thumbelina Supercomputer which a lot of people thought was garbage and the worst arc in the entire series. So SBLF’s placements reflected the reception of TS, and now this current arc of Tomorrow Night’s Pixie’s placements reflects SBLF’s reception, which is why We Never Learn is back in the middle of the TOCs with only occasional dips in the bottom. So if we apply that Yozakura, I think in theory, the next few TOC placements should be good (plus, it should get a Color Page soon to announce the results of a fan submission contest they did for the first anniversary).

It’s sad, but I think we reached the “pray it sells well and that it’s not too late” phase of Magu-chan’s run. The bottom 3 has been established at this point to be AGRAVITY BOYS, Moriking, and it. The “saving grace” for it is that it hasn’t been literal last place yet, but I mean…that doesn’t really mean much since Mitama didn’t make it to last place until like chapter 35 and look what happened. November is a ways off still so I don’t want to completely write it off yet…but it just isn’t looking good. As for the other two members of the bottom 3, Jump has ad pages for their upcoming October releases that reveal their covers. They had a lot of stuff releasing in October, so stuff didn’t make the cut: We Never Learn, Mitama, Time Paradox Ghostwriter, AGRAVITY BOYS, and Moriking. I don’t think it’s end of the world especially since WNL was left off too, but I do think it’s telling that they picked to advertise Burn the Witch volume 1 and Ayakashi Triangle volume 1 over those two despite the fact they’ve been around longer than both. I think there’s basically no debate: Moriking and AGRAVITY BOYS are the next two casualties once a new batch of series begins.

Alright, let’s talk about the big thing for next issue. Yep, Undead Unluck is getting the cover and lead color pages for something called the “Jump BOOST” campaign. I think the name is self-explanatory. It’s also obvious that another series is part of this, so don’t be shocked if Magic Saitama graces the cover of Jump soon as well. Which leads us to the speculative part of this. This was advertised as part 1 of this campaign. Part 1 could refer to these two series getting Lead Color Pages and Covers, and then other stuff later down the road. However, most people seem to think that part 2 refers to more newer series getting Lead Color Pages and Covers down the line. For me, the obvious candidates for a part 2 would be: Yozakura and Ayakashi. One’s not quite on the level of the other two but still a rising series while the other is honestly just unproven but all the signs point to it being a hit. I wouldn’t be shocked if both of them got more love later down the line, but I’d also be shocked that they actually gave Yozakura some non-obligatory love. As for other candidates, I think Me and Roboco and Dolphin have decent chances, but would more peg them for a part 3 (if there is one and “part” is referring to series and not just phases for Undead push) alongside one of Phantom Seer, High School Family, or Our Blood Oath (if any of them prove to be popular). I wonder how this BOOST is going to work, times are a getting interestin’ again.
     

And now let’s shine some light on the most recent chapter of some series currently featured in Weekly Shonen Jump. These aren’t my top five chapters of a week necessarily, but they are ones that I want to highlight and talk about a little.


It seems like Yozakura has finally found its stride when it comes to its mini arcs/episodic chapters. The biggest fear I saw when it was concluding the last serious arc from people was that it would just go back to pointless filler escapades and be lost again but that is definitely not the case here. We’ve been getting more focus on the rest of the family and just fun times between them, even if Taiyo or Mutsumi are the most important part of the chapter. Every chapter since the conclusion of the Tanpopo invasion has served some purpose for the story while mixing the chill gag nature of the family really well. Gondaira-sensei has been incorporating more unique panel layouts too, so things feel fresh. It feels like Yozakura is finally turning that corner for people that couldn’t get too into it at first.


Yes, the title is as lewd as you think it is. Move on. So this chapter actually advanced the plot of the series. We learn more about what an Ayakashi medium actually is and possible abilities Suzu can learn later on to be a part of battles. We learn about painter boy and Shirogane’s relationship a little bit. That wasn’t the part I really cared about though. My favorite thing in Ayakashi is Matsuri and Suzu’s relationship so getting some insight on that was the highlight for me. I think Suzu’s brother is a fine enough addition to the cast, I just hope they don’t overplay the “he’s a pervert” card too much.


Once more, DR. STONE shines as the most consistent of Jump’s current lineup with another solid chapter. I think it was an interesting contrast that the villain gave his life changing monologue about his goals and trying to be inspiring, and then Chrome goes around with a one sentence retort that is also inspiring. We got to see people aside from Senku shine again which is always cool. It was a little confusing at times, but I think it’s still a fun and satisfying kind of confusing. It didn’t annoy me like some other series did. Keep going STONE!


…Man, I don’t even know what it is happening anymore. Okay, to be fair, I’ve been lost for at least 80% of the series, but like 10 chapters ago I was able to follow what was going on but now I’m completely lost again. That first half of the chapter I felt was completely pointless. I think it was meant to show that there’s still some of Denji inside of the Chainsaw Devil still, locked up somewhere, but that could have been done in a way better manner. It humiliated Komeni even more so I guess there’s that too. The second half I felt just completely jumped the shark. I won’t spoil the twist but like, doesn’t it completely contradict everything that Makina established about the Chainsaw Devil like two chapters ago? Whatever, I’ll probably understand one chapter twenty issues from now, think CSM turned the corner, and then not get anything that happens after it, like always.  


It’s been awhile, but I think this was a great showcase for Kugisaki. We got to see her use her brain and come up with a strategy to fight Mahito before slowly realizing what’s going on. I also like how this chapter portrays Itadori and Kugisaki working together to beat the same foe without them realizing that’s what they’re doing. It shows them as near equals at the moment as well as the fact that they are good enough to work together without seeing each other. I’m really liking the arc at the moment, but with Megumi’s fighter earlier in the arc, getting really worried about Kugisaki at the moment…

One of my favorite periods in Jump’s fiscal year is the Golden Future Cup. A competition between upcoming mangaka, some bright talents have graced the magazine through this contest. You might be able to see young artists Jump has faith will be a future pillar of their magazine, legends before they were completely confident and blew up, or artists you wish would get a series but still are waiting.
So, let’s go ahead and take a look at this year’s second entry.


Again, no English translation yet…so we’re doing this based on my impressions of the raws again. Artwise…I’ll be honest, I’m not feeling it. It’s really stylized, but it reminds me of Chainsaw Man’s stylization, which I am not all that fond of. It’s unique, I’ll give it that. I also think that Fujimoto, even if I don’t like how CSM looks normally, still can convey action in a cool and easy to understand way. Here though? I was completely lost and it just looked like random scribbles when things were happening. It’s way too busy. Character design wise, I did actually really like it. I couldn’t understand what was happening, but when characters got their mask…spirit…thing, they really stood out and looked really ferocious and great. It oozes character and I’m sure things would have crazy explanations if I could actually read what people were saying. As for what I could guess was happening plot wise…I’m assuming its an exorcist series since the MC’s mom or sister or something was wearing a miko shrine outfit. Maybe spirits possess people and cause them to transform to do battle? It seemed similar to Shaman King to me in how it worked visually at least. It was a generic “girl goes wild after being possessed, guy must save her using his own powers” story, which is exorcist series 101. The only real twist is that the ending it seems like the girl might team up with the MC directly instead of just fading away and being a background supporter of them.

I think to best sum up my view, and keep in mind that this is based on me not knowing what’s going on plot wise, I believe Iwakura Tomohiro has a great idea for a series. I would like to read what he has going on in his head…but I don’t think he can do the series justice with his art right now. He’s not bad, way more talented at drawing then I will ever be. However, I feel like his art style is style for the sake of style rather than it using his unique style to help tell his story. In a one shot competition, I think that’s fine, right now I would say he’s the favorite to win the GFC (there’s still 3 people though, so that could change) because it stands out and I think it would catch the attention of someone that doesn’t read Jump religiously and may only be checking the issue out because they wanted Jujutsu Kaisen anime news. The problem comes if he wants to make BLADE KID a full series. I don’t know if this art style has long term appeal. I absolutely think the ideas here could be good though, which is why I think he could potentially be a good writer. Imagine the BLADE KID world with Kento Matsuura’s (Phantom Seer) art style. That I think would be a future hit…assuming the story is actually good and not just a case of it looks interesting without being able to understand it but is actually shallow.

Right now, I would say BLADE KID is better than Red Hood, but my personal pick to win would be Entry #5: Popo by Momose Nao still. However, I would not be surprised or mad if BLADE KID won.

Rating: Neutral
Would I Want it as A Series: Yes – if it’s the only exorcist series in its batch and its been awhile since an exorcist manga debuted in Jump.
Would I Want the Mangaka to Make a Series: Yes, as a writer

Next week starts our trip down memory lane. The 2020 GFC won’t start up again till Issue #47 of WSJ, so we’ll do some retro GFC reviews! I’m keeping it a secret what old GFC entry I’ll be checking out, but just know that I did find an English translation of it, so we’ll be more in depth. Hope you look forward to it!


For some fun, we’re going to have a question every week that revolves around Jump. Be warned though, unlike the rest of Making the Jump, this trivia question can be about any series that ran in Jump! So without further ado –

*Will fix later*

HINT: You Avatar the Last Airbender fans might have seen a character that looks really similar to him before

Last Week's answer:

Another month gone, another one forward! Next time, we’re looking at October’s releases and how they did. There’s a lot of them so get psyched. Till then, remember: support the official release!

Okay…I might have mixed up my intros and last week’s was meant for this one…whatever, Making the Jump for Issue #44 of Weekly Shonen Jump.


The first thing to examine is this week’s Jump’s Table of Contents. As you know, a table of contents is a list of what to expect inside whatever literature you’re currently reading, and Jump’s no different. It gives us the order of how series appear in that week’s Jump issue, what series received a center color page (or CP for short), among other things. This isn’t an exact representation of a series standing in Shonen Jump, but it can give us a look at how Shueisha views a series based on patterns and the like. That’s generally why people view the TOC as a ranking of sort.

A series “rank” is just where they appear in the magazine (for example, a series that ranked 4th that week means it’s the fourth series to appear in that week’s Jump, excluding CPs). It’s the closest approximation we can get on a series’ popularity before its first volume is released. While readers in Japan can vote on their top 3 series for a week, ultimately it is up to the editors to decide the order of the TOC (though those viewer votes obviously have a huge factor in the editors’ decision making). New series aren’t “ranked” right away. We don’t know how far back TOC’s are made or how many weeks back they’re meant to reflect a series status, but it is a general rule of thumb that a new series doesn’t start “ranking” until its 8th chapter (or the first chapter where it does not receive a CP if chapter 8 receives one).

Here is the TOC for Issue #44 of Weekly Shonen Jump (released 10/4/2020) [NOTE: If there’s two names next to an author avatar, the top italicized name is the one who uses the avatar]

*Will fix later*

Next Issue(s) Preview:

Well, let’s start with what isn’t there. If you recall, One Piece wasn’t listed as absent for the preview of this issue last week, meaning it was meant to be in this issue. Since it’s not anymore and they had to get another one shot to replace it last minute, something came up on Oda’s end. I’ve heard that it’s health related, so let’s hope it’s nothing serious and he’s fine by the time he comes back October 16th.

Yozakura is still in the top 5! I think that’s the first time it got a top 5 placement without dropping back down to bottom 5 or three since its first rankings. It’s getting a color page next week too! With all that plus some other news of a possible official Twitter account for either the series or Gondaira-sensei himself popping up (I also heard about maybe an official LINE, but I’ll admit to not knowing how LINE works at all so can’t really confirm if that one has any credibility), the seemingly better reception online now, very very VERY early sales data for volume 5 being pretty good this far out; maybe, just maybe, the push is finally happening. I really hope if Jump BOOST has a part 2, Yozakura is part of it.

That’s an…interesting…bottom 3. I wasn’t expecting Ayakashi to be the one that suffered from the “Veteran Color Page Curse” I’ve been talking about lately. Granted, I’m assuming it’s not going to be a long stay in the bottom 3 since it seems to be doing pretty good according to pre-sale data (higher than Mashle on both Amazon and Rakuten at the moment, did better than it first three days of Shoseki) but I do wonder if we’re getting to the point where the ecchi is going to make Ayakashi lower than it should be. Moriking’s exit from the bottom 3 probably isn’t a permanent thing. Wouldn’t be shocked if it was last next week. AGRAVITY is still just space. It’s probably going to end in a month bar some miraculous turnaround sales wise…which is definitely not coming. Which leads us to Magu-chan. Man…makes me want to cry. I can hope that the sales are amazing come November…but nothing leads me to believe that it will be. Of the three debuting series, it actually seems to have the best performance presale wise (it seems to be Magu-chan <= Roboco <<< Dolphin), but it’s not a big enough gap where you can say it was the clear success of the trio and deserves to live over them. My last hope is the volume cover (so you know I’m desperate at this point) can appeal to people that don’t read Jump…but the weakest part of the series is without a doubt the color pages so I’m not sure if that’s the ticket. I think it’s time I start making peace with the fact that this ride is ending soon…ish, who knows maybe Jump is in no rush to end this. They really only seem to be rushing the really bad series these days.

I guess the last thing to talk about is Me and Roboco. This is the lowest it’s ever been, but I’m honestly not sure if it was a fluke or not. The fact that it’s been consistent (and even now, 7 isn’t exactly horrible) and not even bottom 5 once yet makes me think this is nothing to think about…but the same thing happened to Moriking. It was pretty high, got a color page, then started hanging around the dead middle before a random bottom 4, and then plummeting after volume one came out. Not to mention, both Dolphin and Ayakashi from its batch got color pages already, so I feel like if it was truly popular and there was nothing to fear (before volume releases at least), it would have gotten one by now. If it gets one in the next few issues, then obviously its fine and just a lack of space of color pages that caused a delay…but if they’re expecting it to be a hit or success, shouldn’t they start pushing it more before the volume release? I don’t know at this point. I wouldn’t be shocked if this is another Mitama/Moriking situation of popular in the magazine, won’t do well outside it.  


And now let’s shine some light on the most recent chapter of some series currently featured in Weekly Shonen Jump. These aren’t my top five chapters of a week necessarily, but they are ones that I want to highlight and talk about a little.


The more time goes on, the more people question why chapter 2 happened when it did. This seems like the kind of chapter that works as a second chapter. It still accomplishes the idea of developing Ko, introduces another vampire (remember when that was the premise for the series?), explains and shows more about how the world works, and Shin doesn’t just disappear for an entire chapter. The only thing I think was off was that Ayakashi did a “weapon’s shop” chapter this week too, so that was a weird coincidence. Ultimately, I don’t think this chapter does much for your opinion of the series. If you liked it already, you’ll probably find the same enjoyment. If you didn’t like it, you probably didn’t get swayed by it. The cliffhanger is interesting though, I wonder what an arc for the series will look like.  


You know, I never thought I’d read an actually wholesome hot springs chapter in manga, but here we are, Yozakura delivers as always. It was nice to see a subversion to the hot springs fanservice trope as it shows how pure these two dorks are as well as how close their relationship really is. They truly do love each other and depend on one another when they have no idea what to do next. This chapter also dropped some unexpected story beats and future plot possibilities. Not only do we learn that Mutsumi now knows that her father is still alive, but we also learn more about that incident that caused her hair to turn white. It was a Tanpopo incident, so now they’re confirmed to be the main antagonists of the series instead of just an arc. The father was involved somehow and rescued Mutsumi before Kyoichiro showed up. We set up a goal for our heroes: meeting Mr. Yozakura. Another thing it does is open up so many possibilities. Originally, we thought both the parents were dead, but Papa turned out to be alive. This chapter we learned that he saved Mutsumi before going off to see the Mom. So is Mama Yozakura actually dead? Did he manage to save her? Does Tanpopo have her? And now that we have these doubts, is it possible other characters we thought dead are actually still alive? I honestly think Taiyo’s brother is still alive somehow since Yozakura does tend to use generic Shonen tropes, and the brother thought to be dead but is actually now on the villains’ side is one as old as time that I think would open up a lot of potential developments for Taiyo or even other family members (is it just me, or does his brother look like Nanao’s real form). I want to say there’s nowhere to go but up for Yozakura now…but it's possible that it’s back in the bottom five of the TOC after the color page next week cause Shueisha. Still though, plot wise, the future is really bright.  


AGRAVITY has reached the “please end my misery” phase for me. It’s so obvious that it is still going on only because other series do worse than it and can’t figure out a way to do something satisfying without going to the ending. It’s just throwing stuff at the wall because nothing is saving it at this point (spoilers for the Sales section, it’s not growing) and waiting till Nakamura-sensei gets the cancellation notice to wrap things up. The only joke that still hits is the live streamer Chris one, but even then, it gets less impactful every time he does it. The villain introduced last chapter was beaten and reformed in only one chapter, and they’re throwing two at the bois next time, so something tells me we aren’t dwelling on this plot for long and are on the verge of speeding towards the time machine (I don’t even remember why they want to make a time machine btw. I think it was so they can go back in time before the black hole that destroyed Earth comes around…but not sure why they would do that when they would just die in that scenario. Then again, they are idiots so it would be in character). There’s 5 chapters before volume 5 is filled (if AGRAVITY is the traditional 9 chapters per volume series. It’s a gag manga though, so it might be like 11 chapters per volume instead), and the way this series goes, it could definitely wrap up that quickly. Let’s see how it goes.  


I feel like Phantom Seer and Our Blood Oath are going to be linked forever in my spotlight descriptions of both. I complained about OBO’s chapter 2 not really being something you should do for a new series chapter 2, and now I’m going to do the same for PS’s chapter 6. This kind of breather and explaining how the MC lives seems like the kind of chapter you do in between arcs after it’s been brought up by another character. These first volume chapters (and if you’re keeping track, this would be the penultimate chapter of volume 1) are some of the most important chapters of a series so it can’t afford to be wasting time…and I feel like that’s what this chapter did. At least with OBO’s second chapter, it was trying to develop Ko. I have no idea what this chapter was meant to do for Phantom Seer. The name of this chapter was called Their Relationship for example. I have no idea what that is actually referring to. Is it talking about Iori and Riku’s? Iori and his sister? Iori and the new exorcist I don’t remember the name of? Dolphin did a breather chapter this week too, but I understood that (a little) because they concluded an arc and they needed to transition to something else smoothly. This was literally just the first actual mission for Phantom Seer, we didn’t need a breather chapter. What we needed was something that actually gave the series direction. SOMETHING to work towards to. This is reminding me of Tokyo Shinobi Squad more and more as time goes on; cool aesthetic and chapter 1 had an idea, but then they waste too much time actually establishing something concrete.


My struggle with talking about My Hero is that the series is at such a high point that I don’t want to spoil people. Even if I’m personally not as high on it as most fans, this is definitely a really important arc, raised the stakes successfully, and deserves to be read through unsoiled. Then I see the chapter trending on Twitter before the official release is even out every week and realize that you probably are getting spoiled still. Anyway…Horikoshi is just unfair man. How is this art from a weekly manga? (well, he does take breaks occasionally, but you get what I mean) Every week it consistently looks amazing and there is so much detail in every picture.

However, the art is really the only thing I liked about this chapter. My problem since basically…well I guess it’s always been a thing since chapter 2 but it really becomes apparent after the Class 1A vs 1B training exercise arc, has been that Deku has been losing everything that really made him stand out and appealing. I think he was great to root for in the beginning because he was an underdog even though he had All Might’s power. He was technically special, but it never really felt like he was because he still had heavy drawbacks whenever he used his power and that it didn’t make him top tier right away. He had to claw his way up and figure out ways to use his quirk without killing himself. Ever since that arc and especially now though…it just felt like Deku is being given everything now that the plot had hammered that he wasn’t close to being a top hero. This culminated with this chapter with that twist of whatever is going on with One For All’s previous users doing something to Deku. Just…I know people love this arc and think it’s been the best since the Kamino Ward or even Hideout Raid arc…but I haven’t really liked this arc all that much honestly. Everyone doing things is cool and we’re seeing people step up…but I just don’t care about most of it. I hope I can care at some point, but I don’t think that’s happening if Deku continues developing the way he has been.


One of my favorite periods in Jump’s fiscal year is the Golden Future Cup. A competition between upcoming mangaka, some bright talents have graced the magazine through this contest. You might be able to see young artists Jump has faith will be a future pillar of their magazine, legends before they were completely confident and blew up, or artists you wish would get a series but still are waiting.

The GFC is on break for a bit, so let’s take a trip down memory lane. For our first retro look, let’s explore the previous GFC. Apollo was done by Fusai Naba, who would go on to make a mini series for Jump earlier this year.


This was my favorite entry from the 2018 edition of the GFC (yes, even more than Hono Mieru Shonen, the one that won this edition) and it might be one of my favorite one shots to come from a GFC in general. It’s really weird because in essence, it’s just another exorcist series and I think I’ve made it pretty clear throughout my time doing Making the Jump that I’m sick of exorcist series at this point. However, maybe back in 2018 I was fine with them because the only ones I read at that point were Jujutsu Kaisen (which wasn’t even being consistently translated at the time) and Blue Exorcist (which I’m in and out of reading constantly) so I didn’t notice the oversaturation of the genre yet. What stood out to me though, was the style. The spirits being exorcised in the one shot were ghosts, which, to be honest, I think BLEACH is the only series where the “spirit” being fought are ghosts, and well, they kind of dropped that part once everything started happening in Soul Society instead of Earth. It seemed really fresh to me and the rest of the artwork popped immediately. Character designs were unique, battle scenes looked nice. The story, if I remember right, was that the MC needed to help someone exorcise a house of evil spirits or something like that. It wasn’t anything amazing, but it served as a fine premise for a one shot that could easily develop into a series. I think Apollo was the kind of character that didn’t seem impressive at first, but got serious and showed off once he had to actually fight. The characters weren’t anything special, but it was serviceable enough. Honestly, after having the entirety of Jujutsu Kaisen, Kimetsu no Yaiba, and even some flops like Hell Warden Higuma under my belt since reading it, I don’t know if Apollo would be great or something I love in 2020. It does have a soft spot in my heart though which is why I still rate it so highly. I haven’t read Naba-sensei’s miniseries yet (at least, I don’t think I did. I’m pretty sure I read Raven Burai from that set), but based on this, I definitely think he has a lot of potential.    

Rating: Love
Would I Want it as A Series: Yes
Would I Want the Mangaka to Make a Series: Yes

Next time, we’re going even further back, to a time before we were blessed with series like Kimetsu no Yaiba or Jujutsu Kaisen from GFC mangaka.


October is here now, which means it’s time for Japan to release new volumes for Weekly Shonen Jump series! This time around the manga that were released on 10/2/20 are: Kimetsu no Yaiba volume 22 (plus a Special Edition), The Promised Neverland volume 19, Time Paradox Ghostwriter volume 2, and Burn the Witch volume 1 from our completed (for now) series. For our ongoing series, we have Black Clover volume 26, We Never Learn volume 19, Jujutsu Kaisen volume 13, Mashle volume 3, AGRAVITY BOYS volume 3, Moriking volume 2, and the first volume of Ayakashi Triangle. Mitama Security volume 5 (the final volume) is also releasing this day, but since realistically it wasn’t charting in 3 days and we already have like 10 other series to follow, I excluded it from the chart. Apologies if you wanted to know how it did, but I can assure you that it wasn’t pretty.

*Will fix later*

Let’s start with the stars of the show, the series that are getting anime this season. I think the big talking point is obviously going to be Burn the Witch. Did it live up to expectations or is Kubo-sensei the next in a long line of vets who followed their successful series with a flop? Well, let’s keep in mind that this was originally going to be a four chapter mini series that he did for fun, as opposed to Samurai 8 being the next foundation for Shonen manga only to not even do as well as Mashle did with its first volume. The expectations were obviously not as high. That being said, it seems like Kubo-sensei still got the touch. Not every day does a volume one do as well as Black Clover. Sure, BC isn’t quite at its peak anymore, but still, it isn’t like it only sells around 30k now like Yuuna or something. That’s a really strong start for Burn the Witch, especially since this is only accounting for 3 days’ worth of sales. As for our new upcoming pillar of Jump…let’s talk about backlog first. Usually something gets a boost for the entire series when the anime premieres (and it’s actually hyped, not kind of forgotten about like We Never Learn or Hinomaru Sumo’s anime were) and it looks like we’re starting to see that with Jujutsu Kaisen. I don’t think its affected Oricon yet, but Kaisen is already creating a wall with Yaiba on Shoseki so don’t be shocked if series numbers start getting bigger soon. This is 3k down from last volume’s, but that had 3 more days so I think that’s generally fine. The long term number is the important thing to keep track of here.  

Ayakashi Triangle and Mashle I expected to be battling each other eventually, but I didn’t think it would be this far apart or Ayakashi favored as soon as the first volume. I know Yabuki-sensei’s got his loyal fans that stick by him no matter what he does, but it’s always nice to see when a mangaka’s fanbase actually show up and support them still. Ayakashi is by far the most successful newbie since Chainsaw Man now so…hope you don’t mind ecchi! It actually did better than Chainsaw volume 1 too (CSM had the rare 7-day first week and managed 22-25k I think. Ayakashi destroyed that in three). As a matter of fact, that’s even better than Jujutsu Kaisen’s first volume (I think that got 27-30k, don’t remember the exact number). Also, quick note, like Burn the Witch, since this is volume 1, technically those are also series numbers too. I just didn’t realize that until after I finished the chart; that number should be pink. As for Mashle…I hope it hasn’t stagnated already. We need to see how it does over the month…but right now its first week (which admittedly is half the time volume 2 got) is looking like on par with its previous volume. For a series that constantly gets color pages, is part of a BOOST campaign, and is getting pushed by Shueisha more than any other new series, that’s not a great look. I wasn’t expecting like 80k or anything crazy (then again, Burn the Witch…) …but I don’t think around 25k in a 3 day fw is asking for much at this point in a “hit’s” life. Again, we’ll need to see overtime how it does…but it’s definitely one step back after this first week. Don’t get me wrong though, that’s still pretty good overall and Ayakashi is distracting me from that fact…but I still feel like this is an underachievement.  

Kimetsu no Yaiba is a scary manga. The movie comes out in two weeks in Japan. I don’t want to imagine how that’s going to boost the sales. I don’t want to imagine December when it releases its last volume.  

We Never Learn and Black Clover are as solid as always. Still decently ahead of upcoming stars but still pretty decently apart from the top of Jump. I’m not expecting much change for this volume compared to last. They are in decline though, which is bad...but WNL has one volume left and Black Clover isn't dropping off a cliff yet so it's not gloom and doom at the moment.

And so finally, we come to the bottom of the pack…I’m so sorry, Mitama. I either underestimated you, or overestimated Moriking. I genuinely didn’t think you would actually do better than it despite the fact you were already cancelled and Moriking was theoretically still an ongoing manga. It managed 2,120 copies according to Shoseki…so sorry for not including you on the chart! And…this is downright pathetic of Moriking. It started off almost twice as bad as its volume 1 despite not actually being cancelled yet, and it almost fell off the top 500 after only one day and lasted for two days total. Just…I can’t believe we live in a world where Mitama Security, a series I don’t even like that only did maybe 4k first week, actually got ROBBED by a series I DO like and I’m upset about it…just, Hasegawa has got to have dirt on the editor in chief of Jump or something. This is the second time now that his series has outlived series that deserved to go on longer than his. As for the others, yeah, the miracle isn’t happening. AGRAVITY BOYS isn’t growing despite the fact it finished SIXTH in the Tsugi Manga Awards and got reprints for both of its volumes. Okay, TECHNICALLY it did grow; it managed another 100 copies in one less day according to Shoseki weekly estimates. Good job. Shueisha is probably rinsing their hands of this series in a month after the GFC ends. It’s funny about TPGW; the ending of the series is such a mess that on the cover for volume 2, there’s a character that wasn’t in the ENTIRETY of the manga featured in a prominent spot. I’m assuming she’s going to be in an extra chapter exclusive to the volume or something, but wow this ending stretch was so poorly thought out. Oh well, it did about as well as I thought a cancelled manga would do.



Alright well, visual wise…Jujutsu Kaisen absolutely stole the spotlight. HOLY GOD DID THAT OP LOOK AMAZING! I think objectively speaking, that was the most impressive opening to an anime I’ve ever seen. I don’t think it’s the best or my favorite (Naruto Shippuden OP 16 is the perfect storm of everything), but it definitely catches your eye and makes you pay attention. The series was trending in the US on Twitter too and the first episode was a marvel of animation…I think we’re gonna see a big boost for the series from this. It felt like everything for Kimetsu no Yaiba on its first episode…except no LiSA, which to be fair, is part of the reason why the series blew up, but Eve is a big artist too and the song (hot take I think) is almost as good as Gurenge.

Not to say Haikyu!!’s wasn’t good. It was great in its own right. It reminded me a lot of season 3’s opening, which I guess makes sense because this entire cour is going to be about one match (spoilers I guess, but come on, all the advertising made it clear that this was THE event of the entire season, let alone cour). It doesn’t have quite the epic feel of it, but I also get that for spoiler reasons. ED wise, I’ll be real, I’ve only liked one in the entire series (season 3’s because it’s basically a Durarara!! ending), and I don’t think this is the one that’s going to change that. I liked the idea of it, and they even got SPYAIR to do it (not sure why they didn’t get them to do the opening though if they could get them)! It’s just…I don’t know, the fact that it was almost entirely stillshots and not in a stylized way like season 3’s ED makes it not stand out, and I think SPYAIR has done some better work with Haikyu!! then this song.

As for Burn the Witch, you can watch the entire thing right now. Gotta say, I should have expected it a little since it’s a movie originally and CR just split it into episodes to make it more digestible I assume, but man is this thing a beauty! It looked really good art wise, animations were pretty fluid, sounded great, distinct art direction that made the world feel alive, all around an amazing adaptation of the manga. It honestly raised my enjoyment of the series by an entire point (and I really liked the manga despite some of the problems I talked about). Definitely would recommend checking it out.



For some fun, we’re going to have a question every week that revolves around Jump. Be warned though, unlike the rest of Making the Jump, this trivia question can be about any series that ran in Jump! So without further ado –
Let’s keep it simple this week. What volume was Kimetsu no Yaiba at when the anime was released. Not announced but released. HINT: The anime aired Spring 2019.

Last Week's Answer:

The BOOST continues on with Mashle and the sales continue on with less fodder on the chart. Till next time, remember: support the official release!

The boost continues with Magic Saitama bursting his way to the cover of #45 of Weekly Shonen Jump. It’s time we…Make the Jump!


The first thing to examine is this week’s Jump’s Table of Contents. As you know, a table of contents is a list of what to expect inside whatever literature you’re currently reading, and Jump’s no different. It gives us the order of how series appear in that week’s Jump issue, what series received a center color page (or CP for short), among other things. This isn’t an exact representation of a series standing in Shonen Jump, but it can give us a close look at how Shueisha views a series based on patterns and the like. That’s generally why people view the TOC as a ranking of sort.

A series “rank” is just where they appear in the magazine (for example, a series that ranked 4th that week means it’s the fourth series to appear in that week’s Jump, excluding CPs). It’s the closest approximation we can get on a series’ popularity before its first volume is released. While readers in Japan can vote on their top 3 series for a week, ultimately it is up to the editors to decide the order of the TOC (though those viewer votes obviously have a huge factor in the editors’ decision making). New series aren’t “ranked” right away. We don’t know how far back TOC’s are made or how many weeks back they’re meant to reflect a series status, but it is a general rule of thumb that a new series doesn’t start “ranking” until its 8th chapter (or the first chapter where it does not receive a CP if chapter 8 receives one).

Here is the TOC for Issue #45 of Weekly Shonen Jump (released 10/11/2020) [NOTE: If there’s two names next to an author avatar, the top italicized name is the one who uses the avatar]

*Will fix later*

Next Issue Preview:

…¯\_(ツ)_/¯

There isn’t much to talk about with this week’s TOC. Ayakashi came back from the bottom 3 as expected, and after the success of volume 1, I’m expecting some kind of push for it to start soon. This is the first time in months Black Clover was that high and Chainsaw Man got first, but I’m never really surprised when that happens even though it isn’t common. Undead is still in that dead middle spot of the TOC. The Yozakura color page mentions an official Twitter account for the series, so finally my pleas have been answered! Now just give me that cover please!

Yeah, that’s all I got so let’s talk about the actual thing that matters, the color pages for next week.

To say that this group of series getting color pages all at once is the biggest plot twist of 2020 for Jump…is wrong because the biggest plot twist of 2020 is still Yozakura surviving and destroying Mitama . All jokes aside, yeah, your eyes aren’t lying, those are the series that are getting the color pages for next issue. For We Never Learn, it isn’t really thhaaattt shocking. It’s the start of the final route, and save for Senpai, all the routes started with a color page. Plus, it’s the Sensei route, and (for whatever reason) she is by far the most popular character in the series, so of course she was going to get at least this level of love (I’m honestly shocked that she didn’t get the cover, but hey, she still has 7 more chances!). There’s 9 chapters left for this ride. Keep that in mind because that’s going to be important for later.

AGRAVITY BOYS getting a second color page after all this time was quite frankly one of the biggest shocks I’ve experienced since I started following the TOC. A series that seemed so dead finally got recognition in some way by the magazine, it’s astonishing. Now granted, I wouldn’t put TOO much stock into it. They might have been banking on volume 3 doing significantly better when they let Nakamura-sensei do the color page, but since it didn’t, it’s still probably a dead series walking, I would even say it’s still top 3 likeliest series to get cut next batch. It’s just something we’ll keep in mind down the line.

Is this what hope looks like? Magu-chan is actually getting a color page! And there’s some kind of special project coming along with it. Now, the last time a series that seemed like it was dying got a special project announced, it ended up being an anime so this could be literally anything. Now, I don’t think it’s actually that because as far as I know, Japan isn’t currently researching Cthulhu or his merry band of monsters or want to encourage children to partake in rituals to summon them. Which leads me to believe its one of two things: 1) it’s part of the Jump BOOST Campaign and they’re just being coy with it (not that likely because they probably would have given it the cover if it was popular enough to even be part of it) or 2) There’s going to be a “design your own pillar” contest to decide some of them which I think is pretty plausible. It’s something to gauge interest in the series (worked out pretty well when Yozakura did it), and helps them see if its worth investing in it despite whatever sales may say in November or to give up prematurely. Plus, it gets eyes on the series to hopefully give it a push before volume 1 is out.

Actually, it’s just “the story so far” kind of thing most new series get nowadays (in fact, Our Blood Oath is getting the same thing next issue). Basically, it’s just getting extra pages. Oh well, the color page is nice at least!

AT THIS POINT, THIS IS ALL JUST THEORY CRAFTING ABOUT THE NEXT BATCH OF NEW SERIES AND WHAT’S IN DANGER. FEEL FREE TO SKIP THIS IF YOU DON’T WANT TO READ MY OWN PERSONAL THEORIES ABOUT WHAT’S NEXT.

So now let’s look at the future of Jump for the rest of 2020 (isn’t it crazy how this cursed year is finally almost over). For a quick recap, we have I would say, 9 series that are either guaranteed or almost guaranteed to make it to 2021 (the calendar year, not the publication year): One Piece, My Hero Academia, Black Clover, DR. STONE, Jujutsu Kaisen, Mission: Yozakura Family, Undead Unluck, Mashle, and Ayakashi Triangle (plus season 2 of Burn the Witch unless it comes out in 2020, and Hunter x Hunter which is still technically an ongoing series). Everything else, is up in the air. We have no clue when the next batch of new series will be, but I think we can possibly deduce it. We Never Learn, has nine chapters left. That is the only hard deadline we know. We don’t know if that would be the first or last series needed to end to make room (I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t do something random like make WNL the second of four series to end unless the series directly taking its spot is also a romcom). So with the assumption it’s either the first or last series to end, we basically now have a timeframe to work with. If it is the first series to end, then that means nothing is ending for at least 9 issues (a whole volume’s worth of chapters), but it has at most 15 chapters left (there was a batch of six series once, but I’m not expecting that because they advertised that batch as basically “once in a life time.” A realistic cutoff point would be 13 chapters. If it’s the last series to end that batch, then that means the other series have at most 8 chapters left (since they normally don’t end multiple series in the same issue. The last time two series ended the same week was not planned at all and because of outside circumstances, if you catch my drift). With that knowledge, let’s look at the standings for the remaining series:

Chainsaw Man- Genuinely, who knows. It could end next chapter and I wouldn’t think it got rushed. Fujimoto is that out there. However, it would need 9 chapters to fill a new volume. If we’re sticking with We Never Learn being either first or last, it can’t be it. I will also say however, that of the series that are possibly ending, it is the only one that would probably be able to justify having a noticeably different chapter count for its final volume (like 5-6 or 11-12 as opposed to the usual 9) so theoretically it COULD still be part of it. However, I imagine CSM is big enough where it would get the spotlight of its ending batch so I think its end is early 2021.

AGRAVITY BOYS- a week ago, this was obviously the first or second place candidate for ending soon. However, that color page really throws things off, don’t it? Well, it means one of two things. Either they gave it to the boys as a “last hurrah” for the loyal fans of it (because those people are definitely loyal) and still plan on ending it really soon, or the next batch is small enough where they can get away with ending two series only (there’s currently a free spot in Jump since Act-age is gone and Burn the Witch is only a mini) and are giving it its final final push that won’t work (they tried this with Mitama, and it never worked) before ending it. Another thing to keep in mind…AGRAVITY’s one-year anniversary is actually in December. I think if they were going to end it to make room for a big batch, they would have to do it basically now, otherwise they would have to acknowledge it (that’s probably the only reason why Mitama ended when it did. They’d be kind of stuck with it for a while longer if they let it go till September). That leads me to believe that the next batch of series is actually not a four batch like they’ve been doing essentially all year. I would definitely say this is one of the next three series to end and probably will end in 2020, but instead of 1st or 2nd, I would say it’s a comfortable third and could make it to 2021. Barely, but still making it nonetheless.

Moriking- And so we have a new prime candidate for the axe. Almost always bottom 3, MASSIVE flop sales wise, no buzz online, I would say no color page in sight but you saw the next issue preview, it could come out of literally nowhere. As for timeline, let’s see…they introduced the last Forest King Candidate, the other three stood unified with Moriking against him, and it’s clear we aren’t getting a serious climatic battle between Moriking and the guy, so they could wrap that up in under a volume. The chapter this week is 23. A normal Jump volume 3 is 16-25, but Moriking is a gag manga with less pages, so it might get an extra few. It is definitely in the We Never Learn ending range because of that. There is no escaping it. Moriking is the likeliest series to end in 2020 after WNL now.

Magu-chan- What was once completely lost is now looking like a beacon of hope shining down. Chapter 16 would be the end of volume 2 for Magu-chan, so it was in the range if We Never Learn is the last series to end in its batch. However, this “special project” and color page to me, basically means they’re willing to wait for volume 2 sales at least. I don’t think it’s out of danger quite yet, but I do believe that it’s no longer on the hot seat anymore.

Hardboiled Cop and Dolphin- Which leads us to the series that IS on the hot seat now. What was once pretty safe is now on the edge of a cliff. That color page feels like it was ages ago and aside from its first placement and said color page, the rankings for Dolphin have not been great. It’s been bottom 3 a few times and usually its fourth from last. Like Magu-chan, it’s in the WNL ending range. Unlike Magu-chan, the presales data (which again, take with a grain of salt) are not looking good (it’s the lowest of the three and its by quite a distance) so I’m not expecting it to do pretty well. Honestly, it feels like Hungry Marie all over again, except this time they aren’t going to waste time in delaying the inevitable. The plot has still gone nowhere and it doesn’t seem like Tamura is interested in doing something with his world. No one talks about this series online. Everything about AGRAVITY and Magu-chan leads me to believe that this is the one that’s in danger next to Moriking if it’s not AGRAVITY.
 
Me and Roboco- The more time goes on, the more I feel like Roboco’s placements are a case of the editors trying to force something rather than this being genuine. The TOC placements should lead to it getting a color page at some point, but not only now would it be the last of the four to get one, constant bottom 3 dweller Magu-chan got it despite the bad placements, leading me to believe Roboco isn’t as popular as people think. Not only that, but there is no actual point to it existing if it’s not popular. High School Family is looking like the end of magazine gag series, we now have successful comedies, so they don’t need to be so desperate to find one, it’s not like this idea is really fresh. It’s become expendable if it’s not popular. However, I’m assuming this gets 10-11 chapters per volume, so it’s not quite in the WNL range.

Phantom Seer, High School Family, Our Blood Oath- They’re all basically in the same boat as too new to be likely early axes alongside WNL, but it’s possible, more so HSF and OBO. I have not seen anyone in Japan talk about either series, and people in the West do not like OBO. They don’t come across as popular to me at all and would not be shocked if they do end in under 19 chapters. It’s just, if we have a small batch, none of them need to die. As for Phantom Seer, I’ve seen people talk about it and really like it in the West and Japan. Obviously not on the level of established series, but I definitely think it’s not in anywhere near as in danger as the other two.

With all that in mind, I think the most likely outcome is that we don’t get a new batch of series until December 2020. It doesn’t seem like it will be a big batch since they have interest in pushing some of the lowest tiered series at the moment, so they have room. The probable amount of new series debuting in said batch is three, and we say goodbye to We Never Learn and Moriking. It’s possible its four series and if that is the case, Dolphin is the likeliest third series cut if we get to December and nothing has ended yet, otherwise its AGRAVITY.

From that point, what’s in danger are: Dolphin/AGRAVITY, Roboco and Magu-chan if they don’t sell well, High School Family and Our Blood Oath if they don’t show signs of life in the TOC, and then potentially Phantom Seer if it does poorly in December.

Of course, this is all just my personal conjecture, but I don’t think anything I said is crazy.
 
And now let’s shine some light on the most recent chapter of some series currently featured in Weekly Shonen Jump. These aren’t my top five chapters of a week necessarily, but they are ones that I want to highlight and talk about a little.


And so, Tomorrow Night’s Pixie has become Today’s Fairy Tale Ending. Overall, I think this is easily a top 2 route for We Never Learn and I can get why someone would say this is their favorite ending of the five girls (bear in mind that as of this writing, we’re still waiting on one…), even if for me personally I would still put Fumino’s route above Senpai’s. This did something different from the other routes and made itself distinct. The reason why I can’t put it first though is because while it told a great story and was a good romance…I can’t really say it was a great We Never Learn arc. It feels too different to me from the other routes and the feel of the series. Rizu’s arc was complete garbage, but it at least felt like something that went along with earlier arcs, even if it was awful quality wise. This route, tone wise at least…it honestly did feel like a different manga. Just look at this chapter. The ending between Asumi and Nariyuki, it feels out of place if you compare them to the other endings, even if the logical conclusion for the other three so far would be what we got here. I realize for some people, that isn’t a bad thing and like I said, it makes this route stand out from the rest, which my biggest fearing heading into this if you remember was that this wouldn’t stand on equal footing with the previous three since Asumi isn’t as popular or the mascot of the series. For me though, I like it, but it wasn’t for any of the reasons I really like We Never Learn in the first place.

I also said that it should be interesting to see how this goes without the rest of the cast and…all that did really was make this feel like a different series. The trademark banter and camaraderie the girls had with each other was basically not there at all. Even Rizu’s arc, which was almost as distant, had Sejiro there to keep that feel in the series (plus the one-chapter appearance of Fumino). This route suffers the same issue Uraka’s does for me: basically nothing from the chapters before the route start actually impacted this one. Uraka’s “victory” was justified with flashbacks we never saw before her route, her actual development throughout the series had no hand in Nariyuki picking her. Here, Senpai’s feelings are there from before this route began, but everything that makes her want to act or made her realize those feelings came from this route’s chapters too. The thing that tied them together is something only this route revealed (their dads were best friends and Nariyuki’s dad wanted Asumi’s dad to operate on him, but couldn’t and so Asumi’s dad feels guilty around Nariyuki…despite not showing the slightest hint of that in the main series).

Again though, that’s more of a me problem. If the fact that it doesn’t feel like a We Never Learn arc doesn’t bother you, more power to you! Even if I have that issue, I can still say that it’s better than Uraka’s and definitely better than Rizu’s. There’s one route left now and it’s definitely going to be the most polarizing one. Let’s see how it goes.


I hate Nacht. I cannot stand characters like him where they’re jerks for no real good reason and they act all high and mighty when called out on it, and last chapter was the epitome of that. This one also didn’t really help with him just yelling at Asta. I get he can’t exactly help him overcome his inner devil because that defeats the point of this training, but in these instances, silence is better than being a jerk. I’m going to assume that Nacht was not the plan for the Black Bulls vice-captain originally, and if he was, I’d be insanely disappointed in Tabata-sensei because he’s hyped the VC up since 2016 or 17 as this awesome game changing character and…I’m sorry Nacht just isn’t that. He’s important to the plot, but he doesn’t feel like this hyped up figure who deserved that buildup.

Aside from that, this was a good chapter. I liked the Devil Asta has to fight, reminds me of when Ichigo fought his inner Hollow or Naruto finally fighting Kurama. I’m not sure I really like the “Asta is reincarnation/reminds Devil of the one person that treated him decent” plot that’s probably going to happen next chapter, but I guess he needs some way to beat the Devil since he’s down one arm at the moment.


We have crossed the point of no return. This is definitely the last arc for Moriking. I have no feelings positive or negative about this. I just want it over with at this point. The main villain was a huge disappointment and Hasegawa decided to double down on this bad direction for the last villain. I hope the other candidates get something cool or memorable but since the name of the series is Moriking, and not Royal Candidates for Forest King, I’m not holding my breath. What a waste. It’s like Hasegawa ran out of funny jokes and then instead of fleshing out the series outside of gags, he decided that bad jokes that are overdone, random, and don’t fit with the rest of the series before hand, was the way to go.


Magu-chan had a great heartwarming chapter about the mascot character taking in a pet before it leaves their life at the end. The reason why I bring that up is because Dolphin did the same thing for this week’s chapter, except not anywhere near as good. It was still fine, but I don’t think it was really great like other people are saying. First, there is a chunibyo in this series (the eye patch dude). That automatically makes the series lose points for me since that is my least favorite archetype in all of fiction (and boy do I hate tsunderes!) and since he’s a side character that’s not quite important enough to get development but not minor enough for me to just ignore, that means we’re dealing with the chuni for the entire series.

Okay, now that we moved past that, let’s go to the actual problems I had with this chapter. I don’t think Chako works as the character in this series who gets attached to a pet and cries when it leaves. It might seem like the natural fit for one, since you know, little kid, but there are a couple things that don’t make it work with her. One, the entire point of Chako is that she’s a ball of sunshine and excitement. It isn’t as quite of a contrast as Magu-chan being an incarnation of evil caring for a cute dog so it isn’t inherently as funny or heartwarming, and it still made sense for him because he’s trying to recruit servants while Chako just does whatever she wants. So to me, it didn’t feel like a big deal or moment that Chako took something in and wanted to raise it. Second, the chapter was about Ruri’s, Magu-chan’s, and BS’s relationship, while here, Chako and Uminyan felt secondary and the chapter was actually about how everyone else reacted to Uminyan curing people. The relationship wasn’t nearly as built up in Dolphin, so Uminyan “dying” doesn’t feel as heartbreaking because it doesn’t feel like Chako and him formed a real bond. Finally, this series doesn’t really make death/leaving feel impactful. In Magu-chan, BS leaving could have meant that was it forever, and it was just good luck that he showed up again. Here, the tone is so all over the place that I wouldn’t be shocked if Uminyan came back in the opening of next chapter or if Chako flat out forgets him. I understand there needs to be drama in Dolphin, but this kind doesn’t really work for the series because the beginning basically establishes that these characters basically live on a whim, so nothing is permanent. Anything can be reversed at any second. I think the idea for this chapter was great, just it doesn’t work with Dolphin.  


That’s an alright cover and lead color. I haven’t really loved most of the color pages for Mashle, and it becomes even more jarring when STONE and Yozakura have one of if not their best color pages in their entire series the same issue. As for the chapter itself, it was fine. I’ve already said enough times that I think this serious battle mixed with gag arc doesn’t really work for me. I will say though that the girl who’s name I forget is really annoying and I’m glad we’re wrapping things up here just so I don’t have to hear her anymore. The Mash is OP joke got old for me 10 chapters ago. I hope the next arc is better than this one, but still though, it’s cool to see Mashle get recognition for its popularity with this cover and lead color page.


One of my favorite periods in Jump’s fiscal year is the Golden Future Cup. A competition between upcoming mangaka, some bright talents have graced the magazine through this contest. You might be able to see young artists Jump has faith will be a future pillar of their magazine, legends before they were completely confident and blew up, or artists you wish would get a series but still are waiting.

The GFC is on break for a bit, so let’s take a trip down memory lane. This go around, we’re going back to a time before Kimetsu no Yaiba graced Jump, before Black Clover was the next “Naruto”, before My Hero Academia was a global franchise, and when we still had Bleach, Assassination Classroom, Toriko, Nisekoi, Haikyu!!, World Trigger, Food Wars (when it was good), and The Disastrous Life of Saiki K. running in Weekly Shonen Jump (…huh, saying that out loud made me really sad and feel really old). This GFC was different from more recent ones, as unlike the previous 3, there were seven total entries. Among these seven was an aspiring mangaka named Hitsuji Gondaira. He defied the odds and stood atop as the winner of the 2015 Golden Future Cup.    


It’s interesting going back and reading this. You can tell that Gondaira-sensei took a lot of ideas for both of his series from this one shot. It’s also interesting looking at how different his art is when doing something completely sci-fi as opposed to still rooted in reality for the most part Yozakura. There’s some flashes of his reaction faces, but it feels different from later works. This one shot is also different because I feel like this world was way more fleshed out than either Poro or Yozakura was at their start. We know about Mythological Creatures right away and he gives us how they work in the real world right away instead of spreading it across chapters or flat out ignoring it. He explains about diseases and gives a premise if it were to be extended into a full series. The characters are as zany as ever but there’s a charm to them that just makes me really like it. The plot was simple, MC has a disease, Toteku is a doctor for Mythological Creatures that treated him, turns out MC has a different disease, Toteku saves him. I noticed that this seems to be a theme for Gondaira-sensei: the premise of the story is MC is lonely and in trouble at first, gets dragged into a new situation, there’s a second person that acts as their support in their weird situation, and the work goes on with developing that relationship.

I genuinely do wonder why this was never made a series. Did they feel it was too limiting? Was there a similar series to it coming out that made them go back to the drawing board (the only manga that’s sort of close I found was BEASTARS, and that didn’t come out till September of 2016, way after Poro ended)? Whatever the reason, ultimately, I do think it’s good that this wasn’t made into one. I feel like it would have been in the middle of Poro and Yozakura, ie a thirty-chapter series. If that was Gondaira-sensei’s first series instead of the incredible failure that was Poro, I honestly don’t think he would have been capable of Yozakura. Poro seemed to be a reality check for Gondaira-sensei, and he fixed a lot of his issues from previous works with Yozakura and is definitely playing to his strengths now.

As for this one shot, I can see why it won the GFC. It stood out with its art, honestly Galaxy Gang was the only other entry from that year that I would even argue is good, and the premise was pretty unique and offered something new to Jump. I’m glad that Gondaira-sensei found success eventually, but I definitely think that this not becoming a series was a blessing in disguise.

Rating: Like
Would I Want it as A Series: No
Would I Want the Mangaka to Make a Series: He did already and he’s one for two for me (love Mission: Yozakura Family | hate Demon Prince Poro’s Diaries)

For our grand conclusion of this retro trilogy, it’s a look at a mangaka who really deserves his due at this point. I think it’s the only way to end this detour before going back to the 2020 entries.


Let’s continue our October introspective on sales. Part of the field is gone now, but the ones that remain are still doing impressive numbers.

*Will fix later*

Most of this was expected outcomes. TPGW and Mitama are dead. Moriking is about to be dead. AGRAVITY is back to that 9k before falling off Shoseki grind. We Never Learn and Black Clover do nice but not quite on the level of their upper peers. So let’s get to our big hitters.

Ayakashi made it a second week on top 50 (granted, it was 50th place…but hey, a win’s a win) and solidified itself as the best newbie since at least Kaisen. Burn the Witch continues to do wonders and I’m going to be shocked if this doesn’t get a volume each for the seven dragons based on fairy tales bare minimum. Mashle didn’t make Oricon, but that’s still a pretty good number for a second week. Kimetsu no Yaiba exists and continues to make my life harder. The Promised Neverland still doing really great. Which leads us to the big one…

That’s the first time Jujutsu Kaisen as a series made it to 300,000 sales in a week. That second week total (as in week 1 plus 2, not second week alone) is 30k more than the last volume’s second week totals, and that had three more days in its week one! The anime boost is real and it doesn’t look like its stopping soon. Kaisen might actually reach the MHA/TPN/Haikyu!! tier of sales really soon. Oricon Top 50 doesn’t have a wall of Kaisen yet, but some of it made it to the bottom 10 and I’m expecting more volumes to pop up eventually. I’m glad for the series to get this level of success. Absolutely deserves it.
   
Let’s continue the good Jujutsu Kaisen vibes with the first look at its ED! I also forgot that old Jump series Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Dai was also coming out on Jump day so let’s check out the OP and ED for this weekly series!


While I don’t like it as much as the OP, I think Kaisen’s ED is pretty good overall. They went with a unique style to stand out over impressive animation that might go unnoticed because a lot less people watch endings and I can respect that. I can tell though, this ending is definitely getting a ton of memes if Kaisen blows up in the West (which I think it can). I wonder if they did the ending this way specifically so it could go viral. Great song too.

I’m not huge on Dragon Quest in the slightest, but these songs are boppin’! As for the anime itself, it seems like it was a faithful update to the original version. I think mixing CG and 2D here with the monsters actually doesn’t look awful, the art style blends well together. This should be a fun weekly ride.


For some fun, we’re going to have a question every week that revolves around Jump. Be warned though, unlike the rest of Making the Jump, this trivia question can be about any series that ran in Jump! So without further ado –

Q: In the publication year 2019, what was the first series to debut? HINT: It’s still ongoing as of today.

Last Week's Answer:

 

Jump’s early next issue (as in, it’s already out by the time I release this!) so hope you check out the chapters. Remember: support the official release!

…I got nothing for this week. Let’s just get into #46 of Weekly Shonen Jump. It’s time we…Make the Jump!


The first thing to examine is this week’s Jump’s Table of Contents. As you know, a table of contents is a list of what to expect inside whatever literature you’re currently reading, and Jump’s no different. It gives us the order of how series appear in that week’s Jump issue, what series received a center color page (or CP for short), among other things. This isn’t an exact representation of a series standing in Shonen Jump, but it can give us a close look at how Shueisha views a series based on patterns and the like. That’s generally why people view the TOC as a ranking of sort.

A series “rank” is just where they appear in the magazine (for example, a series that ranked 4th that week means it’s the fourth series to appear in that week’s Jump, excluding CPs). It’s the closest approximation we can get on a series’ popularity before its first volume is released. While readers in Japan can vote on their top 3 series for a week, ultimately it is up to the editors to decide the order of the TOC (though those viewer votes obviously have a huge factor in the editors’ decision making). New series aren’t “ranked” right away. We don’t know how far back TOC’s are made or how many weeks back they’re meant to reflect a series status, but it is a general rule of thumb that a new series doesn’t start “ranking” until its 8th chapter (or the first chapter where it does not receive a CP if chapter 8 receives one).

Here is the TOC for Issue #46 of Weekly Shonen Jump (released 10/16/2020) [NOTE: If there’s two names next to an author avatar, the top italicized name is the one who uses the avatar]

*Will fix later*

Next Issue Preview:

Some interesting stuff here. Let’s kick things off with the newest addition to the TOC. Phantom Seer got a respectable seventh for its first ranking. It looks kind of lame in comparison to previous newbies which managed top 5 in their debut placement, but seventh is still pretty good, especially since it still beat out notable names like Mashle, Undead, and Roboco. I know I always stress consistency, but for Seer more than anything, that consistency is vital. It got its first placement a week without two bottom dwellers and WNL which is a wild card, it needs to keep this placement bare minimum with them included to still be great. That is a bit of an uphill battle though because as I always say, it’s easier to go down than up on the TOC, and also because I think chapter 1 was the most impactful chapter in the series so far. Nothing else really made it stand out from the crowd which is arguably worse than it being really bad like most people would say Our Blood Oath’s later chapters are (though in OBO’s specific case, it being called bad isn’t really helping it get noticed…).

I wasn’t kidding when I said Dolphin was in the hot seat last week, but I didn’t think it’d go downhill that fast LUL. Granted, AGRAVITY BOYS and Magu-chan aren’t ranked this issue, so it’s probable that it’s not going to be permanently last now, but look at how quickly the later and Dolphin flipped in status, and something tells me that the reason why that happened was because of presales data. I’m not going to act like Rakuten and Amazon are the be all end all, but consistently I’ve seen Magu-chan ahead of Dolphin by a mile. Again, I don’t think that it’s the confirmed final result because Yozakura is far behind Roboco and Magu-chan and behind Dolphin on Amazon, and falls off daily ranking on Rakuten sometimes (though when it appears, it’s usually quite a bit ahead of the three). Yozakura is not getting outsold that badly by those three come November and I doubt Roboco and especially Dolphin even outsell it at all. However, what this is telling me is that Dolphin is probably flopping. Shueisha probably have a much more accurate way to determine if something’s going to sell or not than I do, but based on the info I have access to, everything tells me it’s going to do worse than the other two new series. The fact that it’s so far behind the other two is what’s concerning. Roboco and Magu-chan are close enough where I could believe that one is ahead in online retailers and the other closes the gap with physical sales, but Dolphin is significantly behind. If it was even something like 10k behind in the rankings I’d think it’s too close to call, but the gaps are usually like 20k on Amazon and not getting ranked at all on Rakuten. Again, really early data so not really accurate…but at the same time I did this for Moriking, Bone Collection, and TPGW’s first volumes and it manifested pretty closely to what I observed. Anyway, this is probably reflective of Dolphin’s first serious arc and if it’s this low for it…yeah, not a good look for Tamura. Unfortunately, I don’t think it’s got a good chance of recovering from this anytime soon either because new series are ranking now, and its not like later chapters of this arc are way better than the earlier ones. I really think Dolphin saved AGRAVITY’s life for now.

Look at that, another top part of the TOC for Yozakura! I’m really happy that they’re finally giving it consistent rankings. I thought that the color page curse would strike right away like it always does, but nope, it didn’t sink yet. It’s really weird, but if you actually look at November’s lineup, Yozakura is the fourth biggest title that Jump’s got releasing a volume (third if you’re only counting ongoing series because Haikyu!!’s last volume is in November), so I could actually see it get a PV for its new volume as a way to advertise it as this is probably its best chance at making Oricon Top 50 yet. Not only that, but on JP Twitter, I saw a tweet of a panel from the most recent chapter get 69k likes and 14k retweets in 3 days and then another tweet with a different panel from the same chapter in that thread get 6k likes, so it seems like Yozakura is getting looked at currently. So with Yozakura’s prominence in the TOC, a Color Page, the start of the official Twitter account, it possibly getting more people checking it out after a joke from it got popular, and it actually being an important series releasing in November…it may be bias but I’m going to say it, I think there’s a good chance that Yozakura gets a cover and lead color page before 2020 ends. They seem interested in making it popular at least a little so I think it’s time they take advantage of this perfect storm.

Ayakashi I’m confident at this point gets not as good placements because its ecchi. There’s no way after its first two weeks of sales for it to be bottom three otherwise, and it’s also evident by the fact that it’s already getting another color page so soon after its first one. They even bothered to include it in the Jump Giga Winter 2020 edition preview image (guess what isn’t there! Shueisha I swear sometimes…) so clearly they know that its popular. I wouldn’t worry about its future for a while…unless volume 2 sells less than volume 1, but that isn’t coming out till December so it should be good for now. Roboco on the other hand…I don’t know, I know the evidence shows that it’s this low mainly because Magu-chan and AGRAVITY have color pages this week but something just tells me there’s more to it than that. I don’t think Mashle dropped to bottom 5 this early in its run, they didn’t drop Ayakashi to bottom 3 until right before the volume came out (for some reason), even Moriking didn’t make bottom 4 until like the week before the volume came out and it got a color page before that happened. It still has no signs of a color page either and it only has one chance left before the first volume releases now. This might be a fluke, but I also think this might be the start of an actual fall. Just need to wait now.  

Which leaves us to next issue. It’s the Halloween edition and the series they picked for the color pages and cover are fitting. As mentioned, Ayakashi is getting another color page already. That’s probably a sign that they’re sticking with this for the long haul, and when it did better than Jujutsu Kaisen’s first volume, that’s a great idea! Speaking of Kaisen, it’s already getting cover and lead colors again. They’re going all in on it now, and with the way the backlog exploded and Japan is talking about it now, I don’t blame them. Just please don’t make Oricon Top 50 and Shoseki useless with your backlog combining with KnY’s to form a great wall! Chainsaw is getting colors for circulation numbers for an oddly specific milestone. You clever fellas if it’s that number for what I think it’s for. Finally, High School Family is getting an extra chapter next week. I don’t know if that’s good or not. The last series that did that was Mitama, and well…it seemed popular and then February 2020 came. I’m going to guess that the second chapter is the last series on the TOC that week, so I’m only counting the first chapter for its ranking.


And now let’s shine some light on the most recent chapter of some series currently featured in Weekly Shonen Jump. These aren’t my top five chapters of a week necessarily, but they are ones that I want to highlight and talk about a little.


Wow, this entire time, Sensei’s fairy tale was Frozen! What a twist! (If you don’t get it, the route chapter titles or imagery of the girl have all been inspired by a fairy tale: Uruka = Little Mermaid, Rizu = Tinkerbell/Peter Pan, Fumino = Snow White/Sleeping Beauty, Asumi = Fairies in general/Tinkerbell/Cinderella (at least I think she’s Cinderella), and I think Sensei’s actually meant to be Alice in Wonderland. It’s just funny that she actually fits perfectly with Elsa and Frozen and she’s by far the most popular character in her series too).      

The last route has finally begun. It’s hard to believe that the series is actually going to end soon (Tsutsui-sensei, please don’t do something like hidden routes revealed: 5/8 plz. I want you to move on and do another great thing soon). I’ll be upfront, other than Rizu, this was the route I was looking forward to the least. I don’t like Sensei, I think her fanbase is the worst part about the series (that doesn’t mean I think lower of the series because of them, but god they make it hard sometimes), and I’m going to eyeroll when they call for Tsutsui-sensei to never draw manga again when it inevitably doesn’t live up to their expectations.

Which leads us to this first chapter…it’s basically Asumi’s route which we JUST DID. The premise is almost exactly the same, time skip to when Nariyuki is an aspiring teacher and thus already an adult, he moves into a new apartment when PLOT TWIST the route’s love interest is his next door neighbor and he’s embarrassed when he sees them in a compromising situation, the thing that connects the two is something that we only see in this specific route because if it was in the common one that would have pushed him towards Sensei (I’ll be a little more generous though; apparently the fact that she knew Nariyuki as a little kid was hinted at in the main story and even if it wasn’t, that could be a reasonable assumption made based on her being a close student to Nariyuki’s dad). The only notable difference this time around is that Nariyuki is the newbie getting experience in his field instead of Senpai.

Now that all five routes’ first chapter are done, I’ll be frank: I’m pretty annoyed that 4/5 routes relied on a time skip in some way and the only reason the one that didn’t (Fumino’s) was because it ended with the love confession and kiss rather than what comes after that. I and other fans wanted to see the struggle of Nariyuki and his partner struggling to balance a relationship and pursuing their dreams and how far they would go for each other’s happiness because the entire main series was preaching that both is possible, so show it. But it looks like we aren’t getting that here since every route either ends before the hard part of the relationship comes up or we’re assured that everything’s going to be fine anyway.

Also, for what people were hyping up to be “THE BESTEST ROUTE EVER”, “THE MOST UNIQUE ONE BECAUSE SENSEI NEVER WINS” and “THE OBVIOUSLY CANON ONE” that would destroy the others in terms of quality…it sure is falling into being just another average route. Since Nariyuki’s an adult here, the student-teacher relationship taboo is out the window now, the premise is almost the exact same as the previous one, the sense of maturity this route would bring since Sensei is already an adult was taken by Asumi already or thrown out the window when the first chapter focused on fanservice instead of establishing ANY kind of conflict for EITHER character, and we’re relying on Sensei being the “older sister like figure I admired became the one I love most” direction to make this a romantic relationship (a dynamic that definitely wasn’t hinted at in the main series btw, even if her knowing Nariyuki might have been). Let’s see how this goes, but I can already tell that there’s no way this route is going to be so ahead of the others in terms of canonicity or quality unless you’re incredibly biased to Sensei (which, to be fair, is a lot of people).

In hindsight, they definitely ordered the route releases wrong. It should have gone: Fumino -> Sensei -> Asumi -> Rizu -> Uruka. Fumino’s works best as the natural conclusion of the “main” route and if he changed it slightly, would have worked best as the one that tricks readers into thinking there’s only one route before the reveal. It’s the only one that relies completely on elements in the main path, happens while feeling completely connected to the main path, and still captures the spirit of the series even after we reach the point where Nariyuki has to choose someone. In other words, it feels the least what if (that includes Uruka’s, and that was the one that Tsutsui-sensei tried to make us believe was the only route) out of all of them. Then doing Sensei’s sets the tone for the what if’s while still riding on the high of the “original” ending. Asumi keeps the momentum up with a really solid written route, Rizu is the cooldown route and probably starts tanking the series TOC and sales, but Uruka is the only one affected here instead of the two most popular girls and Asumi. Uruka’s being last is still ending on a high note too because it’s the “ultimate underdog” ending and the most feels good ending of the five, Tsutsui introducing the “factors that only happen in this one route to get her a win” don’t feel as out of nowhere since Sensei and Asumi already happen so people won’t get as mad reading it weekly, and Uruka’s still really popular so the sales shouldn’t completely crater even after Rizu’s arc. It would be the most satisfying way to end the entire series since Sensei’s is bound to disappoint a lot of fans if it continues like this, and while I think Fumino’s is the best route, it would make a pretty bad final one especially after the other four go beyond the scope of high school and explore past the common route.    


I’ll give them some credit; they seem to be addressing the main critique of the series so far by trying to make Riku useful. I say seem to be because I realize that the writer is different this time, but a similar thing happened in Tokyo Shinobi Squad: the partner for the MC realized they’re useless and vowed to not be a burden any longer, but that doesn’t actually come into fruition until the last chapter during the epilogue scene after the series was cancelled. Now that I brought TSS up, I’m getting huge vibes from this in general. The early stages of both series have been mainly focusing on how the MC is really cool and showing off their powers rather than trying to actually do something within the world (to Phantom Seer’s credit though, at the very least we do have SOME worldbuilding so far where as hell if I know what TSS was trying to do long term post chapter 1), they introduce one ally’s power early but it wasn’t really a strong showcase for it, we don’t have any long term goal/villain to fight (sorry, just saying they fight evil spirits isn’t enough. TSS got killed for only doing other squads as enemies so it’s only fair that we call this series out on it too), I haven’t been given a reason to carry about anyone other than “Wow they’re cool! Look at how strong they are!”, the first arc separates the MC and partner and thus ignores the main dynamic of the series (and before a chance for the partner to really develop comes up). The only real thing this series has going for it seems like the art. It needs to do set up for the long-term future now, or else this decent first placement becomes meaningless and it goes lower on the TOC.


I don’t know how, but Magu-chan gets me every week despite doing something really different from the last every time. After a heartwarming dog watching experience, Magu-chan is tasked with helping around the house and being of use to Ruru after she got sick with a cold. I generally think Magu-chan is really funny, but these past chapters have been showing that Kei Kamiki knows how to do emotional stories really well. It’s really subtle, but you can tell that there’s more to Magu-chan helping Ruru than she’s just his servant. You can see that deep down, he does genuinely care about her wellbeing, even if he doesn’t really show he. He wants to do these tasks not just to flaunt his superiority, but because he wants to make Ruru’s life easier (which makes the ending funnier). He’s willing to use others and inconvenience himself just to help her get better. It’s a great development to their dynamic. I hope that this color page is a sign of things turning around for the series because it’s really good and doesn’t deserve to die right away.    


STONE comes with another solid chapter, as always. It was a bit of a breather chapter after the emotional sendoff last issue, but I think it was fine to do that now. We’re gearing up for the final phases of the manga, whenever that happens, and I can’t wait for that. Things are slowing down for a bit but it’s bound to be interesting. STONE continues to be consistent and absolutely worth the read week in and out.  
 


So if you’ve noticed, I don’t ever talk about certain series and tend to only say the bare minimum when things about them come up that I have to address. It was probably obvious, but that’s because I don’t like those series at all and I’m not going to force myself to say positive things for something I hate. I may be hard on certain series like Phantom Seer or AGRAVITY and rag them endlessly, but it’s from a place where I know deep down, I do like them and I want them to do better because I know they’re capable of it and want them to realize it. That’s essentially the reason why it took me this long to get to One Piece. I love the series from the bottom of my heart, I really do…but god damn has Wano been testing me. It’s really hard for me to talk about it because there’s a lot I do like, but so much that I really dislike as well and I don’t want to come across as I hate One Piece when that could not be further from the truth.

Anyway, let’s get into the chapter…yeah I didn’t like it. Oda used to be really good at paneling and making things seem active yet not constricted. Now everything feels so cramped and there is so much crap going on that it’s basically impossible to keep track, both plot wise and within the art. I think the story here would be more impactful and hype if you cared about the arc or characters, but I don’t care about the Scabbards at all and know there’s no way they actually beat Kaido, so them finally making Kaido get hurt badly does nothing for me. I’m just waiting for either the actual fights to begin or for an interlude talking about outside events because everything outside Wano like Reverie, the Marines, Yonko, Warlords now being hunted, Revolutionaries, even stuff we know little about that’s AT Wano like SWORD are infinitely more interesting than what’s happening in Wano. If this is meant to make Marineford look cute…sorry, not seeing how since NO one has died or gotten seriously wounded yet and this battle part has been going on for like 20 chapters at this point. Even if this act is meant to be the Impel Down part and not the actual war…Impel Down has felt way more urgent and desperate.    

One of my favorite periods in Jump’s fiscal year is the Golden Future Cup. A competition between upcoming mangaka, some bright talents have graced the magazine through this contest. You might be able to see young artists Jump has faith will be a future pillar of their magazine, legends before they were completely confident and blew up, or artists you wish would get a series but still are waiting.

The GFC is on break for a bit, so let’s take a trip down memory lane. For our last entry before we go back to the current Golden Future Cup, let’s look back at the magical year of 2017. Jump was in this weird transition period with them losing Assassination Classroom, BLEACH, Toriko, Nisekoi, and even the legendary Kochikame the previous year and then The Disastrous Life of Saiki K, Gintama and Isobe Isobee Monogatari were on their way out, so we down a lot of big series or about to be (hmm, sounds really familiar). In addition, DR. STONE and We Never Learn weren’t big hits yet (I think when the GFC started, WNL’s first volume just came out and was doing better than expected), Kimetsu no Yaiba didn’t explode yet, The Promised Neverland was still viewed as a promising rookie instead of a pillar of the magazine, and we didn’t even have Jujutsu Kaisen yet (this is sounding really familiar but I can’t put my finger on why ). Off the heels of a legendary batch of 6 new series… with only 3 looking like they had any long term promise and two being cancelled really quick, this GFC started and Masaoki Shindou wowed people with his amazing artwork. In a time where people were worried with Jump was heading with so many big series ending at once, this mangaka came down and showed that the future would be bright…except he hasn’t gotten his series yet despite winning the GFC THREE YEARS AGO. At this point, I wouldn’t be shocked if whoever wins the 2020 GFC got a series before him. Anyway, this is probably the most hyped up entry in the GFC I’ve seen since I started paying attention to Jump so let’s see if it lives up to it.


Right away, the art does not disappoint. I’ve sort of been unintentionally hyping this guy up whenever I bring up the GFC, but man does Masaoki Shindou know how to draw. It might just be me since he’s my favorite character in all of anime/manga, but the first thing I think of when I see the main villains have ice powers, the main protagonist has fire powers, and a girl with half white half dark hair with something wrong with the right side of her face, is Todoroki from MHA which you know, I’m more than okay with because of previously mentioned reasons. I thought the premise for this was interesting enough, main problem being that again its about demons and is basically an exorcist series, but I’ll give it some slack here, this was before KnY completely blew up and Jujutsu Kaisen, so we hadn’t reached the point of complete domination of exorcist manga yet.

I think a close translation of the title would be “The Promise of Joreishi Rentarou” and yeah, that’s a pretty basic title for the one shot. Joreishi is the group Rentarou’s part of and the plot of the one shot was fulfilling a promise he made with the female MC four years ago to save her. It’s a pretty basic story and the only real character I liked at was the female MC, but it was still good enough and I think executed well. The main thing that stuck out was that the art kind of does carry the one shot. Nothing else about it was particularly strong or stood out enough for me to say it deserved to win the GFC based on reading this alone (for all I know, the other entries in this GFC were complete garbage). I think ultimately this would end up a lot like Hono Mieru Shonen if it became a full series. A lot would have to be changed to make this work as a serialization and I’m not confident that Shindou-sensei could change it up completely while still having what makes it unique. I think he could do a really great series if he ever does get his own eventually, but this isn’t going to be his big hit.

Rating: Neutral
Would I Want it as A Series: No
Would I Want the Mangaka to Make a Series: Yes because he is owed one for winning the GFC

Next week we go back to the 2020 GFC with Akuryou no Night Safari by Uemura Taishin. Will the three-issue break be worth it? Let’s find out next then!

And so from eight, we now only have 4 series on Oricon, they’re all big hitters though (well, five but I’m done listing the SE of Yaiba. You get the point; it sells ridiculously as well, especially for a SE).  

*Will fix later*

Shoseki Estimates:

Sometimes we plead for the inevitable to not happen, but it’s meaningless and it happens anyway. That’s why, you know, they’re inevitable. My worst fears have been realized: Kimetsu no Yaiba and Jujutsu Kaisen have formed a wall on sales charts and ruined everything I’m really happy that Kaisen is getting this kind of love, but now my job just got way harder. Stupid movie boom. Anyway, yeah, Kaisen’s rise continues and my pain of tracking other series’ sales aside, I couldn’t be happier for it. I was sold from the very beginning and hoped that it would become big and it looks like it finally has. Let’s go Kaisen! Become the new pillar you were destined to be.

Well, that backlog is going to cause a lot of annoyances and the first casualty of that is Black Clover. What normally would have had an easy spot in week 3 of Oricon is now out. What we did see from the first two weeks though was that it continues to decline. It’s not gigantic, but it is starting to get noticeable. I wouldn’t be shocked if this turns out to be the final arc, but I also wouldn’t be shocked if a new one is announced sometime in 2021. It’s in that Soma/Yuuna limbo where you can kind of tell that its on borrowed time, but you don’t quite know when it’s going to actually end.

Mashle beat out Ayakashi this week and is now on track to beat volume 2 and Yuuna’s latest volume pretty soundly. So yeah, in the end it was a good run for the volume, but I wonder how much more it can go up before peaking. I hope this isn’t a one volume fluke for Ayakashi too. Robot x Laserbeam and even Samurai 8 had good…ish starts (Robot’s start is actually the best start for a newbie since like, 2012 actually) but what ultimately killed them is that they never grew. 50k first month is solid for a newbie, but it can’t go down to 30 or 40k in December when volume 2 comes out.


For some fun, we’re going to have a question every week that revolves around Jump. Be warned though, unlike the rest of Making the Jump, this trivia question can be about any series that ran in Jump! So without further ado –

Q: What ongoing series has the most covers this year? I’m asking about publication year, though it doesn’t really matter because of the 2020 publication year issues released in 2019, only one of them has a non-debuting ongoing series for the cover. Also, I’m only counting SINGLE series covers. The covers where every series in the magazine are on it don’t count.

Last Week's answer:

We slowly approach the end of the publication year. What’s in store? Who knows! Let’s find out together. Till next time, remember: support the official release!

Boys and girls of every age, wouldn’t you like to see something strange?! Well…nothing strange here for the Halloween edition, #47 of Weekly Shonen Jump! It’s time we…Make the Jump!


The first thing to examine is this week’s Jump’s Table of Contents. As you know, a table of contents is a list of what to expect inside whatever literature you’re currently reading, and Jump’s no different. It gives us the order of how series appear in that week’s Jump issue, what series received a center color page (or CP for short), among other things. This isn’t an exact representation of a series standing in Shonen Jump, but it can give us a close look at how Shueisha views a series based on patterns and the like. That’s generally why people view the TOC as a ranking of sort.

A series “rank” is just where they appear in the magazine (for example, a series that ranked 4th that week means it’s the fourth series to appear in that week’s Jump, excluding CPs). It’s the closest approximation we can get on a series’ popularity before its first volume is released. While readers in Japan can vote on their top 3 series for a week, ultimately it is up to the editors to decide the order of the TOC (though those viewer votes obviously have a huge factor in the editors’ decision making). New series aren’t “ranked” right away. We don’t know how far back TOC’s are made or how many weeks back they’re meant to reflect a series status, but it is a general rule of thumb that a new series doesn’t start “ranking” until its 8th chapter (or the first chapter where it does not receive a CP if chapter 8 receives one).

Here is the TOC for Issue #47 of Weekly Shonen Jump (released 10/25/2020) [NOTE: If there’s two names next to an author avatar, the top italicized name is the one who uses the avatar]

*Will fix later*

Next Issue Preview:

Yozakura top 3! Yozakura actually made it all the way to the top 3! That is the highest it’s ever been on the TOC and continues to show that the last arc was really well received and Yozakura is on a roll now. Now all we need is that cover and hopefully an increase in sales.

Also, just to address something I’ve seen on Twitter that annoys me a lot: there are people saying that Yozakura is only getting these good rankings because Jump is weak right now or because everything that would be above it gets color pages or isn’t there that issue. This issue for example, My Hero is absent and Jujutsu Kaisen is the lead color and cover. That’s two series only, and even if both were “ranking” that would mean Yozakura is still fifth this week and like…how is top 5 not impressive? Black Clover ranked lower than Yozakura this week and it’s also been on a roll lately, Yozakura has been above “rising stars” Mashle and Undead for like the past month, it still is above gatekeeper WNL pretty consistently, and been going toe to toe with CSM TOC wise for a long time, and none of the new series (Phantom Seer on) has beaten it once on the TOC yet. And the “Jump is weak” argument. Yeah, that’s true, but wouldn’t that also mean that it’s harder for it to be consistently high like this unless it’s been growing in popularity? If the magazine is so weak that a series like Yozakura can get high rankings consistently, couldn’t you also say that series like AGRAVITY or Dolphin should be getting outside the bottom 3 or 5 way more often than they actually do? If it’s really that weak, then the bottom shouldn’t be so clear-cut every week. Who cares if two or three series that would be above Yozakura didn’t rank these past few weeks? It’s still been having a good run through the TOC and I did not see these excuses when Undead or Mashle did/do the same thing. Can’t we just be happy for the Yozakura fans that are finally getting SOME appreciation from Shueisha?

As for what else we have here, the “harder to go up than down” principle is in full swing for Phantom Seer. It only went down two “spots” this week, but it’s already one spot away from the bottom 5. And well…it gets harder from here. This is usually the point where we see if a series’ good initial placements are genuine good reception or just a honeymoon phase. This is the make or break point and well…I would say that chapters 3-5 or more break than make for Phantom Seer. We have to wait and see, but maybe my confidence that Seer was safer than the other two was a little too early.

Speaking of, High School Family also got seventh for its initial ranking…yeah, I’ll be frank I have no clue what the future holds for this series. There’s a contest already due to “popularity”, but after so many new series got “something” for early popularity and ended up not producing results, I’m not buying it till I see it. I still think this is probably the end of magazine gag series that’s been missing for two years now, but it could easily change. On a similar note, Me and Roboco is finally getting its color page which normally would alleviate my doubts…but I’ll keep it hundred with you; I’m going full conspiracy theory on it at this point. They waited till the issue RIGHT BEFORE the first volume comes out to give it one, the same exact thing they did for Mitama and very similar to what they did for Moriking. That, to me, is a sign that they’re doing a desperate push to get people to buy it because they aren’t confident it’ll sell but are aware magazine readers like it. If it got the color page around when Ayakashi got its first one, I’d say nothing’s up…but this timing is too sus for me to just write off. I know I’ve been saying online presale data looks good for it…but that stuff also always looked good for Mitama, Moriking and AGRAVITY and bad for Yozakura, so they aren’t be all end all.

Finally, Our Blood Oath is finally going to start ranking next week. Yeah, I have no idea what to expect. To say its been all over the place is an understatement. I could see it being the next Bone Collection, or the next Black Clover, or the next Zipman!! really easily. I like the series and think it can be great once Kakazu-sensei figures out what he wants to do, so naturally I would like a good placement, but I’m not going to be too upset if it doesn’t do well.  I actually think that extra page is a bad sign though. If you get one early on, it’s generally fine. It’s when you get two or three that things get bad because that’s a sign that readers aren’t connecting with the series and are confused. TPGW for example, got two before ranking (not counting the longer first two chapters every Jump series gets) and we all know how that ended. I think Guardian of the Witch also got two before ranking and it lasted 19 chapters.



And now let’s shine some light on the most recent chapter of some series currently featured in Weekly Shonen Jump. These aren’t my top five chapters of a week necessarily, but they are ones that I want to highlight and talk about a little.


The Phoenix of Jump continues to rise from the ashes and prove why it deserves to still be here. I know the Haikyu!! editor was the one in charge of Yozakura for a while, but I didn’t realize that he was still the guy helping Gondaira-sensei. If he is, then yeah, he’s working wonders for the series because opinions on it seem to have turned around completely.

The more time goes on, the more I realize that Taiyo is probably inspired by Sasuke from Naruto and you know what, I think that’s fine. Sasuke (hot take) is a cool character, and he’s clearly just inspired from Sasuke rather than flat out a copy. I didn’t have that in my head when I said his brother is probably still alive and a villain, but now that I made that connection, I’m convinced that Taiyo’s brother is one of the top dogs of Tanpopo at this point.

This chapter actually brought up some interesting themes for the series that we didn’t think about before. Originally, we sort of assumed that Tanpopo was just completely evil and wrong. With Hakujya though, they’re shown in a different light now. For some people, they are a sign of genuine hope and give them a chance at life that they wouldn’t have had originally. I think it brings up a bunch of potential plotlines down the line such as: Will the Yozakuras still be viewed positively if Tanpopo goes public with their “humanitarian” efforts? What are Tanpopo actually trying to do? Is it something that Momo actually supports because he thinks they can bring back his wife? Are there secret supporters to this?

And let’s talk about the art. It’s evolved a lot since the first chapter and my man has been on absolute fire since the first anniversary. Ever since he’s started actually using double spreads, the art has felt so alive and dynamic. That panel I used for the preview image might be my favorite in the entire series so far. The last time I got that hyped seeing a panel like I did that one…was probably Bokuto overcoming his inner demons in Haikyu!! It’s right up there with my favorite moments in Jump honestly. Let’s continue this roll with hopefully a cover and continuous higher TOC placements and increasing sales.  


…I don’t know. On the one hand, it’s nice that this world is actually getting fleshed out and we have a multi chapter arc going on right now. On the other hand, Sosuke kind of freaks me out and I’m not really sure if he’s who I wanted as the first real antagonist of the series. It’s a post To Love Ru Yabuki series, so I should have figured that this kind of character was coming, but he still freaks me out. Doesn’t really help that we aren’t even twenty chapters in and we already have a dude that can apparently beat the main villain of the series even when he was at full strength. I know Shirogane is essentially a joke, but he is meant to be the ultimate Ayakashi in this story, so him already being lower on the totem pole doesn’t sit right for me.
I also don’t like the precedence that this sets. Right before this, it seemed like the development was going to be Suzu learning to control her powers so she wouldn’t be helpless if an Ayakashi comes for her like what would probably happen since she’s a medium. That could happen still…but this also might mean that Suzu is always going to be a damsel in distress even if she does become stronger and just a set up for fanservice. We’re in the long haul of it now, so I really hope Yabuki does something more than fanservice since even Darkness did something interesting story wise under its outrageous fanservice.


We’re slowly solving all the mysteries in the world that have long been questions before this. We have Yuno’s backstory, we learned about the devil in Asta’s grimoire, the other kingdoms are being expanded on. Honestly, the only things we have left that can even be explored after this arc are: the Diamond Kingdom possibly being in a civil war, the dwarves, and Asta’s complete backstory (since it’s assumed that he’s related to his grimoire demon’s human mother). Honestly, all that is either something that’s going to happen in this arc, or something we don’t need so it’s becoming more likely to me that this is the final arc (though it might be going on for a long while still).
As for the chapter itself, I think this is Black Clover to a T. Screaming and Asta using friendship as inspiration to overcome adversity. It was cool to see Asta not giving in to the demon despite all the adversity. Glad that this isn’t being dragged out. I’m really hyped for the fight against the Spade Demons coming up.


Well I’ll be, OBO actually is doing something to go towards a direction. It introduced some kind of antagonist group and they already made an impact with the brutal murder of that bully guy. I’m really curious to see where things go with them. Do they work for the guy that killed Ko and Shin’s parents? Will this lead to a more defined relationship between vampires and humans? We saw from our main protags side of the chapter that not all vampires are like Ko; if anything, he’s the weird one. We might have more side characters now since the guy the brothers helped last week is still hanging around them and learning more about vampire society. We are learning a little about the world and the day to day storytelling is beginning to matter to the big picture, unlike Phantom Seer.

Is it too late? Who knows? JP readers are pretty picky and impatient so if the first chapters didn’t grab them, they probably wouldn’t make it to this point and see the potential the series clearly does have. What I do know, is that I’m interested in seeing Kakazu-sensei grow as a mangaka. This probably won’t be his big break series, but I genuinely think he’s capable of doing one done the line.  
 


I’m completely back on the Kaisen train now. After a feeling of burnout and slow down in like, the mid-twenties of this arc (Jesus Akutami-sensei needs to come up with actual chapter names soon), the series has picked up again and Itadori has shined brilliantly through this part. Especially with the anime kind of highlighting it, Itadori for a long time hasn’t really been challenged by his ideology. The last time his mental fortitude felt threatened was during the Junpei arc. So seeing him on the ground and doubt himself felt powerful and impactful. Todo is a treat every time he shows up and really helps complete Itadori. I worry for his safety, but I think he’s safer since two major characters “died” already. I don’t think it would happen a third time.


One of my favorite periods in Jump’s fiscal year is the Golden Future Cup. A competition between upcoming mangaka, some bright talents have graced the magazine through this contest. You might be able to see young artists Jump has faith will be a future pillar of their magazine, legends before they were completely confident and blew up, or artists you wish would get a series but still are waiting.


I’ll be real, I wasn’t vibing with this one at all. To be fair, something tells me that this is more of a story based one shot, so not being able to understand what was going on hurt it a lot in my opinion, but there was still a lot I didn’t really jive with despite that. The art I felt was not refined in the slightest and flat out bad, unlike something like BLADE KID where it wasn’t refined, but definitely had a style at the very least. None of the characters really stood out to me even in a first impression kind of way. I assume the idea here is that people are having bad dreams that affect their reality and the MC is supposed to deal with those problems for some reason…which is basically another exorcist series…Kimetu no Yaiba’s explosion was both a blessing and a curse. I really don’t have much to say here because it just seemed like a lot of walking and dialogue in this one, and without a translation, I obviously can’t see what makes it unique. However, it didn’t seem appealing at all and a good series can get you attracted even without being able to understand the story or what they’re saying, there’s SOMETHING about it that gets eyes on it. This one though…yeah, nothing really. I think this is definitely the weakest of the three entries we got so far.
 
Rating: Dislike
Would I Want it as A Series: No
Would I Want the Mangaka to Make a Series: No

Next week is our sport entry of the contest with Counter Attack Shuttle by Kou Kimura. Will this be the start of the sports manga resurgence in Jump? Let’s find out next time!


For some fun, we’re going to have a question every week that revolves around Jump. Be warned though, unlike the rest of Making the Jump, this trivia question can be about any series that ran in Jump! So without further ado –

Q: Kimetsu no Yaiba recently released the results of its second popularity poll. So, my question this time is: Who was the character that got the most votes in a SINGLE Jump popularity poll? Not what character has the most votes out of every poll ever done in Jump, but their vote count in a SINGLE poll (i.e. character A got 1,000,000 votes in the third popularity poll of series A). HINT: The series they’re from is fairly obvious. Just think about the most successful Jump series of all time.

Last Week's Answer:

We slowly approach the end of the publication year. What’s in store? Who knows! Let’s find out together. Till next time, remember: support the official release!

Boys and girls of every age, wouldn’t you like to see something strange?! Well…nothing strange here for the Halloween edition, #48 of Weekly Shonen Jump! It’s time we…Make the Jump!


The first thing to examine is this week’s Jump’s Table of Contents. As you know, a table of contents is a list of what to expect inside whatever literature you’re currently reading, and Jump’s no different. It gives us the order of how series appear in that week’s Jump issue, what series received a center color page (or CP for short), among other things. This isn’t an exact representation of a series standing in Shonen Jump, but it can give us a close look at how Shueisha views a series based on patterns and the like. That’s generally why people view the TOC as a ranking of sort.

A series “rank” is just where they appear in the magazine (for example, a series that ranked 4th that week means it’s the fourth series to appear in that week’s Jump, excluding CPs). It’s the closest approximation we can get on a series’ popularity before its first volume is released. While readers in Japan can vote on their top 3 series for a week, ultimately it is up to the editors to decide the order of the TOC (though those viewer votes obviously have a huge factor in the editors’ decision making). New series aren’t “ranked” right away. We don’t know how far back TOC’s are made or how many weeks back they’re meant to reflect a series status, but it is a general rule of thumb that a new series doesn’t start “ranking” until its 8th chapter (or the first chapter where it does not receive a CP if chapter 8 receives one).

Here is the TOC for Issue #48 of Weekly Shonen Jump (released 11/1/2020) [NOTE: If there’s two names next to an author avatar, the top italicized name is the one who uses the avatar]

*Will fix later*

Unranked: Hunter x Hunter

Next Issue Preview:

Ah, it feels good to be back home, don’t it AGRAVITY? Right back at the last spot, sort of feels like where it belongs. Despite that though, it might have actually escaped death, but more on that later. Moriking is as low as ever and I hope this torture is over soon. A series with a lot of potential ended up buckling the moment it faced adversity. And rounding out are bottom three is…Phantom Seer? Ouch, I did not see that coming. I know I always say it’s harder to go up than down, but I thought it wouldn’t reach the bottom three until at least the week before volume 1 is set to release (December if you didn’t know). It always came off as the most popular of the three new series to me, so seeing it this low already definitely set my expectations back a little. At the same time though, this isn’t some mind-blowing revelation or anything. I always thought it would struggle in the TOC and I doubt it’s a perma bottom 3 series yet, but that doesn’t look promising for later chapters. Let’s see how it goes over the next weeks though.

In a similar boat but also in a different world is High School Family. Two placements in and it already is bottom four. For most series, I would say that’s a death sentence, but it’s different here. First, as the next issue preview shows, the series is getting double chapters again. This is still by a veteran (and a successful one at that), so it probably has some leeway compared to a completely new series a la OBO. And it seems destined to be the end of magazine gag series so like, do low rankings this early actually matter? I really don’t know, and the worst part is, if this series is getting a volume release, it’s not until February at least so we can’t even use sales to judge its popularity.

Dolphin has gotten a reprise from the bottom 5, but I don’t know, this could just be like Moriking and AGRAVITY’s bimonthly rise for a week before going right back down. I don’t think the series is going to do well next week sales chart or TOC wise, especially now that Kimetsu no Kaisen wall exists. Magu-chan also seems to have risen from bottom 3 dweller to bottom 5 dweller for now, so I think it’s back to “sales might save it” territory and unlike the other two series, I do think it’ll do good week 1. It’s been pretty consistently ahead out of the three and got good presales numbers before the normal bump I expect when people start ordering on Amazon and Rakuten, and when the number gets to around 10,000 on Amazon and 1,000 on Rakuten is generally what I consider the most consistent way to see what’s going to sell based on presale data. Granted, exceptions like Mitama and AGRAVITY exist, but that more tells me that Magu-chan is more likely to be bare minimum in the 6-7k ballpark as opposed to say 3-4k.

Finally for this issue, OBO started at ninth. Lower than its two compatriots, but still alright all things considered. I’m expecting a crash chapter two since most reception of chapter 2 I saw called it a mess, but who knows! I’ve seen crazier things happen on the TOC. Now that all three series from this batch are “ranked”, I guess I can say that expectations are a bit lower for them. Phantom Seer got sent out in December when Kimetsu no Yaiba is releasing its final volume, so it’s just going to get eaten alive, and OBO’s first volume is set for January, which is…uh, loaded to say the least. I guess I can say I should have seen that coming because they basically did the same thing they did with Samurai 8’s batch that they did here (poor Matsuura-sensei), and I did say that Burn the Witch was the clear main attraction of the batch the moment it got revealed. But we still need to see what happens sales wise. Maybe the future can still be changed.

So next week is an interesting situation. Black Clover gets the cover but Chainsaw Man is getting the Lead Color Pages. It’s been awhile since they did that (I believe the last time was Samurai 8 got the Lead Color Pages while One Piece was the cover in like, July of 2019) and if I had to guess, it’s because CSM just got the cover like 5 issues ago and has something really major to announce that can’t wait. In the preview for next issue, CSM is listed as entering a “Super Climax”, which was really similar if not the exact language Kimetsu no Yaiba used when it entered its final chapters. In addition, Fujimoto is known for liking and doing shorter series (Fire Punch for example, is only 8 volumes), the way the plot is going it can definitely end within the next six chapters while being satisfying/good, and this definitely seems like the kind of series that can either get an anime after it finished publishing in manga form or just never get an anime because studios can’t do it justice. So yeah, it’s looking more and more likely that CSM joins the list of established series that end in 2020.

(WARNING: THIS IS THEORYCRAFTING. Tl;dr is that CSM ending = filling the lineup gap with smaller series with potential and the blatant Mashle and Undead push is to replace CSM’s spot as an important series in the lineup)

If you keep that in mind, some things start making more sense:

1. Ain’t it crazy how Yozakura went from nearly dead at the start of the year to the sixth oldest series currently in Jump (not counting Hunter x Hunter) at the end of it if CSM does end. Ain’t it crazy how it went from near the lower middle of the TOC to consistently in the top 5 and even above new pillar Jujutsu Kaisen this week seemingly out of nowhere (well, not out of nowhere per say. Most people would agree that this has been the best arc of the series)? Ain’t it crazy how now they decide to give it a Twitter so it can get some kind of online presence? Well if CSM is actually ending and we know WNL is almost over, this suddenly makes sense. They want to make series they currently have as popular as possible since after those two, they have 5 or 6 (depending on if you count Mashle as on the same level of the five series that remain that began before 2019 already) big names. They want to bring other series to that level and it’s easier to do that with series that seem like have futures than new series that they don’t even know will be successful or not. That would also explain the Magu-chan and AGRAVITY color pages. They’re picking the series that seem like have potential (even if AGRAVITY’s was way lower compared to these two) and giving them a subtle push.

2. I know Undead and Mashle are really popular. Most people that look at Jump at beyond a casual level can see that. However, this is the most blatant push I have ever seen Jump do, and I was around when they tried making campaigns before series even RELEASED. I remember Kaisen being part of Jump Rising before the third series of that group released and being on subway station walls after CHAPTER 1 was released (that third series was Ziga btw. Gigantic flop and before TPGW, was the biggest what?! ending of a Jump manga I’ve ever heard/seen). I remember Chainsaw Man ushering in the Dark Hero Generation of Jump BEFORE CHAPTER 1 WAS RELEASED (the other two series in it were neO;lation and my beloved Hell Warden Higuma. Both of which made it to 19 chapters before getting axed) and then they immediately switched tones by the time of the next batch. I remember Samurai 8 being anointed as the next evolution of Shonen MONTHS before it came out. The thing is, most of those series ended up proving that they deserved being pushed or the reason made sense (I don’t care how much you hate it, you are pushing the next series of the guy that made NARUTO even if they pushed it far too much). I don’t think no matter how much they increase sales that Mashle or Undead will end up becoming pillars of Jump or big enough that they were justified to rush the release of the series outside of Japan (most Jump series tend to have 4-6 volumes out in Japan before Viz brings them over. Act-age took 8. Mashle and Undead took 3). They aren’t big enough to get cover or lead color pages way before their first anniversary (even Kaisen took like 28 chapters to get its second cover, and that had like 250,000 copies in circulation by volume 2 or something crazy like that). However, if CSM is gone, the BOOST campaign makes way more sense. They need SOMETHING to step up and take CSM’s spot which is something I CAN see Undead or Mashle reach soonish.

3. If I’m being real, Magu-chan and Dolphin probably should have ended by now if CSM was going to be here long term. They KILLED Bone Collection and TPGW when they thought Act-age was going to last, yet the 2019 going nowhere trio of Double Taisei, Beast Children, and Tokyo Shinobi Squad made it to 30 because they came after Soma concluded basically (chapter 3 of TSS was the same week Soma ended) and the next big name to end…was Kimetsu no Yaiba in MAY of 2020 I’m pretty sure. Clearly they only give things the brutal axe if nothing of note is ending nowadays. You can argue WNL is the major series that marks their demise, but you can also argue that WNL’s ending is when they kill Moriking/AGRAVITY. In this scenario, I guess it just depends on what ends first between WNL and CSM.

4. Kaisen and CSM seemed pretty equal in advertising and marketing for Jump for a long while. Then right before the anime started airing (I’d say around June), Jump suddenly seemed to care more about Kaisen. Now, you can say that’s because it was right before the anime was going to air so they wanted to focus on that…but that really hasn’t ever really stop a series getting pushed before. Yaiba’s pre anime push didn’t really stop them from establishing The Promised Neverland as a pillar at the same time. So why would they pump the break on CSM? Well, if it’s ending soon, then yeah, it doesn’t need as big of a push especially since it clearly has a fanbase. Kaisen’s here for the long term, so it makes more sense to go to the mooooonnnn for that and maybe get a new MHA/TPN level success then divide the attention to that and a series in its twilight to continue being in the 200k sales tier. Plus, by all accounts, mangaka give a far in advance head notice to Jump that they plan on ending the manga if they’re a success (like CSM). Six months was Gintama’s original notice, Soma’s was six months, TPN was like a year. So if they knew since at least, that sudden slump in the TOC and not as much push as Kaisen would make way more sense.
5. For a series as popular as CSM, it’s taking way longer to get an anime announced than it should. Kaisen got it at chapter 85, while we’re at 90 for CSM with none in sight (barring Jump Festa). Pre anime announcement, these two were neck and neck and maybe even a little CSM-leaning. So logically they should have gotten them at around the same time. Before you ask, Act-age was definitely rising, but it was clearly behind those two, so it made sense why it was taking so long for…an anime that isn’t ever coming now to get announced…but it doesn’t make sense how CSM is this far behind…unless it’s ending soon and the big announcement for a Jump Festa/ final volume wraparound ad is that they’re doing the entire series…which it honestly needs. I couldn’t even begin to grasp what the hell is going on if I had to take a year break and forgot what the first season of the show did if I was anime only for CSM. The only possibilities for why it’s this late is because they were looking for the right studio to do it justice (possible I guess, but everyone and their grandma seems to want to do CSM. They probably could have gotten the right offer by now and announce it if that was the reason) or waiting for it to finish so the studio can just do everything.  

So yeah, there was a lot of strangeness going on, but if CSM actually is ending within say, the next six chapters (how many it would take to fill volume 11 if that was the last volume) it suddenly makes way more sense.

THEORY CRAFTING ENDS HERE.

 
And now let’s shine some light on the most recent chapter of some series currently featured in Weekly Shonen Jump. These aren’t my top five chapters of a week necessarily, but they are ones that I want to highlight and talk about a little.


The Yozakura roll just keeps on coming. This was a great showcase of Taiyo’s new sword abilities and Gondaira-sensei is just showing off with his art right now. He’s definitely one of the best at Jump right now. This also did a good job of establishing how evil coco is. Tanpopo is up in the air about whether or not they’re evil or not still, but coco is a devil through and through. He’s unsettling and someone I hope gets his justice whenever Taiyo catches up to him. The series has slowed down a lot since it’s been basically established that we’re going to be here for a while and it’s helped so much. Keep the good vibes going.  


So the big talking point over the weekend was if Chainsaw Man was approaching its conclusion. Most people were saying yeah before the fan scans came out and then the question was being debated again. After reading the chapter officially on viz.com and mangaplus.jp, I have come to the conclusion…that those people are in denial and this series is definitely wrapping up by volume 12 at the latest (and I think it’s more likely that it’s volume 11 and that one is just bigger than normal). Let’s start with the big part: the promise between Power and Denji. People were saying that Denji HAS to reunite with the Blood Devil, bring back Power once everything is over and befriend her again. Well, first off, this is Fujimoto. Happy endings like that definitely aren’t likely, let alone the foregone conclusion. It’s very easily possible that the ending is that Denji gets annihilated by Ms. Main Villain and the reunion never happens. Second of all…why does that have to be a long arc? Do you know how many series feature a promise between two major characters and it got relegated to a one-chapter, final panel epilogue thing? Hell, it literally happened this year with The Promised Neverland and Haikyu!! already.

Next up, the ending of the chapter. It’s a parallel to chapter 1 where Denji was in the dumpster and was wallowing about life sucking before rising up thanks to Pochita. People were saying that it was symbolic of his change since meeting Aki and Power, and how this time he can rise with confidence instead of in fear that he lost his one friend because he won’t lose them now. That’s all true…but again, how does that imply a long journey? He accepts that he’s Denji now and he’s going to go out there and beat Ms. Main Villain. Not only is it likely that he just gets wasted by her, but again, that’s something that Fujimoto of all people can do in five chapters if he wants.
Finally, there’s so much worldbuilding and questions about devils and characters that were brought back that need to be answered…if this series was about the world, yeah, maybe. This has been character driven from the start though. It’s always been about Denji growing as a person and learning what it means to find fulfillment in life. Everyone around him has always worked or acted to develop him. Denji’s character arc is basically complete at this point and will be completely done once his fight with Ms. Main Villain is over. There’s no point in dwelling on a series once its main purpose is over, otherwise you get Hunter x Hunter that probably will never have a satisfying conclusion now that Togashi decided that we needed more crap after Gon found his dad (btw, HxH is the PERFECT example of what happens when a character driven story turns into a world driven one midway through; a dragged out mess that lost everything that made it what it was. Hell, I think the same thing is happening in One Piece right now too). I think the best thing is to end CSM soon on a high note and be grateful that it stayed true to itself to the end (for better or worse).  


For a series that’s extremely chill while reading it, these characters have no chill themselves LOL. I thought it was cute that they did a Halloween theme chapter this week, but man some of these costumes are scarring. I like the dynamic we have between everyone here and how things are between our Occult Club group and the third pillar’s group. The main difference of why this hasn’t gotten old yet compared to say AGRAVITY is because Kamiki-sensei keeps the dynamics mostly the same while switching things up a little. It never feels drastic or like he’s trying to hard to do something. Meanwhile, AGRAVITY is just nonsense and throwing whatever at the wall in hopes that it sticks. It never actually builds on anything established and when it does make a callback to something from long ago, it feels more like he just remembered about it and threw it in instead of it being cleverly built up to or he had a plan all along. Magu-chan continues to be itself despite the bad TOC placements and I hope this pays off in sales.


Man, Tamura, if only you did something like this way sooner. Now it’s probably too late. I really don’t know what Dolphin wants to be at this point. Does it want to be a serious thriller with the occasional joke? Does it want to be a drama? Does it want to be a mostly fun gag manga that can get serious? I really don’t know. If I’m being honest, I still think this manga might end really soon. We learn more about the cult and if it does well, yeah, this is an obvious hook to expand on more. This is also the kind of thing you do if you’re about to get axed so you can have a somewhat satisfying ending while tackling one of your key plot points before going. If this was like, chapter 12, I’d be all in and say we’re here long term now, but at this point, when it’s already done bad TOC wise and isn’t looking amazing presales wise (compared to the other two or even Yozakura), I’d say it’s more likely the end is coming.
 


It is interesting how this late in the game, they aren’t afraid of introducing new characters to the story. I personally don’t care about geography girl so far, but I don’t think her introduction ruins the flow of the story or makes things worse. We’re slowly approaching a climax of sorts, but I don’t know when exactly said climax is going to happen. I’m always hyped when I see the roadmap to an invention and this time was no exception. Just another solid as always chapter. I still don’t remember the last time STONE did something I flat out didn’t like, even if I feel like this arc isn’t as good as previous ones.


There are two reasons why I decided to talk about six series this week. First, I noticed that the five series I picked this week originally were the November releases so I figured I might as well include this one since it would be the only one missing otherwise. The second reason is because of the panel I’m showing here. No joke, that is the other reason. This is one of those moments where a series perfectly captures your feelings on it in one moment. Take away the referential humor and the only thing left is a completely unfunny, unappealing, gag manga that tries WAAAYYYYY too hard to be funny and random. If this series didn’t reference My Hero Academia, or Jujutsu Kaisen, or Undead Unluck, or some other Jump series EVERY DAMN CHAPTER, no one would care about this series. Literally no one. Everything original about this manga is god awful. It’s random for the sake of random, beats you down with unfunny jokes, doesn’t have a single interesting or likeable character beyond their jokes, and looks so dated art wise. I don’t care if this is meant for younger kids; it’s crap.

Very rarely will I say a series doesn’t “deserve” anything. Saying something DOES deserve something, yeah, I’ll say it a lot because basically every manga has merit in some way (some way more than others). This is one of those times I will say a series doesn’t deserve anything it’s gotten. It does not deserve the constant good TOC placements, or the decent sales it’ll probably get, or the color page it has gotten, or the stupid push it will get if it turns out to be successful. ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about its own merit deserves it. Even for the volume release, they are advertising this as the work of the guy who did The Promised Neverland spinoff gag manga. They aren’t advertising Tamura’s previous works (which is MILES more successful than that spinoff), they didn’t reference Fire Punch when CSM came out, they didn’t reference Poro for Yozakura’s first volume, nor Nura or Illegal Rare when Yui Kamio was releasing in volume form. The ONLY thing this series has going for it is riding the coattails of other actually successful series. So, if it does good, I’ll be upfront, I’m going to be MAD. Call me a hater or biased or whatever, I don’t care. At least now you know why I never sound happy when I’m forced to talk about Me and Roboco.  


One of my favorite periods in Jump’s fiscal year is the Golden Future Cup. A competition between upcoming mangaka, some bright talents have graced the magazine through this contest. You might be able to see young artists Jump has faith will be a future pillar of their magazine, legends before they were completely confident and blew up, or artists you wish would get a series but still are waiting.


I love sports series. I really do. If I listed my top 20 manga series, Haikyu!!, Slam Dunk, Kuroko no Basket, Eyeshield 21, would all be there. My favorite weekly manga in general right now is probably Blue Lock. The two biggest robberies since I started following Jump I felt were sports series (Straighten Up! and Shoodan! Though to be fair, they were by the same mangaka so maybe I just like him more than it being about sports). Whenever a new batch of series comes out, three of my top four requests are a surfing manga, a soccer manga that will last, or a basketball manga (the other one is a romcom that I will love as much as Nisekoi or Quints). So, it pains me that I have nothing positive to say about this one shot at all.

I’ll be fair, I don’t like the sport. Hanebado! was an interesting story, but I think it failed as a badminton series so I didn’t really end up like badminton by the end of it. You need to be Haikyu!! levels of amazing or passionate to get me to change my opinion on a sport I hate and that isn’t fair to expect from a one shot by a rookie…but it doesn’t even try to make the sport appealing. I can’t read the raws, but based on what I saw, or in this case what I didn’t see, they were assuming you just knew the rules and intricacies since there were barely any panels explaining how things work. That is the absolute worst thing a sports series can do. If you can’t get me to at least give me the idea that I understand what’s going on during a match/game, you fail as a sports series. Even the over the top style stuff like Kuroko or Eyeshield made it so non followers of their sport could get what was happening in between the crazy stuff like Phantom Drive or Devil 4th Dimension (and American football barely existed in Japan before Eyeshield!).

Again, I can’t understand the dialogue, but I do know sports series tropes and I can promise you that there was not a single original idea here. MC sucks at the sport at first, they have a friend/partner that’s fiery and hypes them up, they have a sibling/relative that acts as a source of inspiration for them, they’re a fan of Jump, their first opponent is a prodigy/top talent type character that they get destroyed by for most of the match, but something clicks in them so they pull out the comeback. It follows the duo formula where the MC needs his partner to unlock his potential. There is absolutely nothing here that makes this one shot appealing enough to make me want to stick by the formula it would go through as a series. Aside from that, the art’s nothing special and no character stands out, the other most important thing for a sports series.

Rating: Hate
Would I Want it as A Series: No
Would I Want the Mangaka to Make a Series: No

Next week is the final entry of the GFC with Popo by Momose Nao. I predicted this would win when I first saw the GFC was coming back this year, but will it live up to my expectations? Let’s find out next time!

For some fun, we’re going to have a question every week that revolves around Jump. Be warned though, unlike the rest of Making the Jump, this trivia question can be about any series that ran in Jump! So without further ado –

Q: Jump doesn’t really give ending series the cover for their final chapters since they want to look towards the future instead of dwelling on the past, but they have given a few series this honor. Can you name one of them? HINT: One of them I’ve mentioned a lot in the GFC review section over the past few weeks

Last Week's Answer:

The November series get release next we meet. How many of them will actually make Oricon now that the Kimetsu no Kaisen wall exists? Who knows! Till next time, remember: support the official release!

No intro this time, #49 of Weekly Shonen Jump, time we…Make the Jump!


The first thing to examine is this week’s Jump’s Table of Contents. As you know, a table of contents is a list of what to expect inside whatever literature you’re currently reading, and Jump’s no different. It gives us the order of how series appear in that week’s Jump issue, what series received a center color page (or CP for short), among other things. This isn’t an exact representation of a series standing in Shonen Jump, but it can give us a close look at how Shueisha views a series based on patterns and the like. That’s generally why people view the TOC as a ranking of sort.

A series “rank” is just where they appear in the magazine (for example, a series that ranked 4th that week means it’s the fourth series to appear in that week’s Jump, excluding CPs). It’s the closest approximation we can get on a series’ popularity before its first volume is released. While readers in Japan can vote on their top 3 series for a week, ultimately it is up to the editors to decide the order of the TOC (though those viewer votes obviously have a huge factor in the editors’ decision making). New series aren’t “ranked” right away. We don’t know how far back TOC’s are made or how many weeks back they’re meant to reflect a series status, but it is a general rule of thumb that a new series doesn’t start “ranking” until its 8th chapter (or the first chapter where it does not receive a CP if chapter 8 receives one).

Here is the TOC for Issue #49 of Weekly Shonen Jump (released 11/8/2020) [NOTE: If there’s two names next to an author avatar, the top italicized name is the one who uses the avatar]

*Will fix later*

Unranked: Second High School Family chapter, Hunter x Hunter

Next Issue(s) Preview:

Next Issue(s) Preview:

The big news of this issue seems to be…Moriking in last place! Whoever saw that coming?! :0

Just kidding, the actual big news is that we have a new batch of series coming. Shimabukuro has finally returned to Jump after doing a one shot for Build King back in 2017 and…I’m not excited at all. I didn’t think Build King was anything special back then (it was funny how he made Minecraft into a battle manga though and predicted Fortnite), never liked his artstyle, and it’s gotten WORSE since then somehow. At least the MC looked unique back in the one shot. This is literally Komatsu if he was cosplaying Chrome from DR. STONE. This feels like a relic of an era long pass that I don’t want to revisit. That being said, it’ll probably do decent and I’ll still probably like it…but this is part of the last batch of the year? This is based on a one shot from 2017 that he said would make into a series if it was popular. It happened…but three years later. Is that really a sign that the one shot was really popular? I don’t know. I was hoping for something more. Oh well, Shimabukuro was basically the last big mangaka from the 2012-2016 era that didn’t come back yet that I don’t care about. Komi-sensei (Nisekoi), Matsui-sensei (Assassination Classroom), Asou-sensei (The Disastrous Life of Saiki K.), even Soma team if you do that exorcist one shot as a full series, I’m waiting! Also, I think it’s beyond stupid to bring back Shimabukuro so soon after the Act-age debacle (look up Shimabukuro if you want to know why. I’m not saying he’s scum or innocent, I genuinely don’t think I can make a conclusion because so many details are “he-said, she-said”, but it’s definitely not smart to bring him back during a time where people are mad at Shueisha for not looking that much into he who shall not be named).

As for SAKAMOTO DAYS, honestly, I’m working with nothing here. This might be the first time since like 2018 that I’m completely clueless on a mangaka. I at least knew Hajime Komoto was a complete rookie when he did Mashle, I knew of Kei Kamiki’s one shot version of Magu-chan; this one I have no clue about. He apparently did a one shot for this, so I gave it a look and my first impression was…yeah, CSM is definitely done really soon. It’s got the gritty artstyle, it’s pretty brutal, seems really dark, emanates “not a WSJ series” energy, this just screams CSM successor. I don’t believe it’s taking CSM’s spot in the magazine directly though. I think Moriking is the only series that’s going to end since we’re only getting two new series (probably. I guess they could still do one in #52, but they probably would have advertised that too if they were) and we had a free space in the lineup already. In a way I was right when I did my state of rest of 2020 predictions because I did say the last batch of 2020 would be smaller (I said three, but there’s only two), Moriking is gone, and AGRAVITY might sneak by.

Where that puts us though, for the start of Jump’s 2021… is basically the same spot, I think. Dolphin’s probably a goner, AGRAVITY might sneak by but could die still. CSM is probably ending there. Magu-chan and Roboco depend on sales. Honestly the only difference is that Phantom Seer isn’t as safe as I thought it was…or is it?!

After barely escaping the bottom 3 this week, Phantom Seer is getting its first color page next week. That’s a decent sign…but Moriking and Dolphin prove that early color pages don’t guarantee anything. I’d actually be more worried that they’re desperate to get people to like Seer by giving it one this early since this series is getting its first volume relatively earlier than most newbies (it comes out December. That’s a three-month turnaround since it started the last week of August. Undead had a similar turnaround, but that was because they made it earlier specifically because it was so in demand according to their twitter). It’s not as sus as Roboco or Mitama getting their first color pages the week RIGHT BEFORE their volume 1 release…but it is making me think.

That’s not the only series getting a color page though, and unlike Seer, I think is a really good sign for it. The roll keeps on going as Yozakura gets yet another color page! And unlike the previous two, there’s no apparent reason for this one (i.e. it’s not for an anniversary or contest), so this is probably a sign of commitment/popularity from Jump. That makes me really happy that this amazing arc is getting love and recognition! It’s not a cover, but there’s new series debuting so I’ll take it. Not only that, but Gondaira-sensei is the judge for November’s Jump World Treasure Award. That’s a one-shot competition that Jump holds for aspiring mangaka. This is notable because the last mangaka of a new series to be a judge was Fujimoto (CSM). They’ve been rotating their established mangaka since 2019. So, this is yet another sign that they view Yozakura as an established series now and probably not getting cut anytime soon. Let’s keep this ball rolling with a big increase in sales for volume 5! Also another top 4/5 (I tend to not count series that only get the cover in the placements, but I wouldn’t blame you if you do, so Yozakura is either 4 or 5 this week).

Nothing else really stands out other than OBO dropping to bottom 3. That happened to Phantom Seer and it’s getting a color page next week, so who knows if it’s bad sign or not. There’s just so much new crap ranking right now that being consistent is more important than peak placements in my opinion. In this newbie bowl, a good ranking might be a fluke. Good rankings week after week is a better sign of being actually popular than just a flavor of the month.    
 
And now let’s shine some light on the most recent chapter of some series currently featured in Weekly Shonen Jump. These aren’t my top five chapters of a week necessarily, but they are ones that I want to highlight and talk about a little.


End my and Nakamura’s misery already. The miracle isn’t coming and it’s just painful now. The worst part is that I know there’s a good chance we’re here for a while longer since the anniversary is right around the corner.


CSM is the most conflicting series in Jump for me right now. Some weeks I can get behind what Fujimoto’s doing and say I actually like it. Other weeks I’m mad because he wasted my time being nonsensical for a week just to tell me something he could have said in a meaningful or coherent way. This is one of those weeks where I feel he actually accomplished something and it was good. I know the meme of the entire series is that “Kobeni is suffering” and that she is basically always the butt of jokes…but she might be the most important character that makes it to the end of the series honestly. Denji finally set himself up for the conclusion of his character arc and I’m curious to see if he actually does get his happy ending.      


This screams “we’re ending really soon!” like you wouldn’t believe it. I’m assuming there’s like 4 chapters left. Just end this already and send Hasegawa to Jump+ or SQ or anything but the main magazine so he can find actual success.  


I’ve been reading the same chapter for the past 15 weeks. I haven’t liked the same chapter the past 8 weeks. It DESPERATELY needs to change it up. I’ve fallen off the Mashle train so much after these past 15 weeks. The villains are one of two characters, it always ends with Mash punching them in the face while cutting a funny one liner. Everyone else is essentially useless. It needs to shake these things up desperately. It dropped the ball so hard with this villain group reveal. It needs to recover after this draining arc. Please.  


I really hope Asta beats the crap out of Nacht. I think setting up that Liebe and Asta aren’t in sync right away and that they have to work for it is a good move and I’m glad we get to see Asta use Yami’s katana. This training is approaching an end and I’m really curious to see what the Devil Slashing Katana is actually capable of since he’s probably not going to kill Nacht’s demons right here. This battle against the Spade Kingdom is going to be really good I can already tell, but it’s still going to be a bit before we get there.


One of my favorite periods in Jump’s fiscal year is the Golden Future Cup. A competition between upcoming mangaka, some bright talents have graced the magazine through this contest. You might be able to see young artists Jump has faith will be a future pillar of their magazine, legends before they were completely confident and blew up, or artists you wish would get a series but still are waiting.


So, when the preview images first came out for the GFC entries, my prediction was that Popo probably was going to win this year’s contest. After reading this, I feel pretty much the same way. It was the only one that actually managed to feel different despite having a common premise (Red Hood tried at least). I think the artstyle was unique and actually accomplishes something, unlike Safari or BLADE KID. It still gave off vibes of other series (the two that come to mind are coco no Uta and Miss Koboyashi’s Dragon Maid), but it felt more like they were inspirations rather than just flat out trying to be them but better (and failing). There were interesting things here, like the dynamic between the main characters, that I would like to see expanded on in a full series. It offered some things I haven’t seen as much (a “demon” going to normal school isn’t unique, but it is uncommon I think). It seemed like it knew what kind of story it wants to tell and was able to get me interested in it despite not being able to read it. All in all, it gets my seal of approval. I think this should win.  

Rating: Like
Would I Want it as A Series: Yes
Would I Want the Mangaka to Make a Series:  Yes

And so ends this year’s Golden Future Cup! In the time between reviewing it originally and now, I was able to find an English translation for Red Hood and it definitely helped it stand out more! I definitely want the mangaka to get a full series sometime. It’s a little more generic than I thought and I probably wouldn’t like Red Hood itself if it was a long term series, but what he lacks in storytelling he makes up for in style. I think this is probably the favorite to win this year. I’d love to check out the others in English and see how it changes my opinion on them, so hopefully someone does them in the future! (I’m probably still going to hate Counter Attack Shuttle tho)


November is here now, and you know what that means! New volumes came out the fourth this month. These titles are: DR. STONE volume 18, Chainsaw Man volume 9, Mission: Yozakura Family volume 5, Magu-chan: God of Destruction, Hardboiled Cop and Dolphin, and Me and Roboco volume 1 from the current Jump lineup. Haikyu!! volume 45, the final volume also comes out today. And since you’re used to it by now, ‘Tis Time for “Torture”, Princess returns once more with volume 4.

*Will fix later*

I kind of dropped the ball last month, so I’ll clarify this now: since Magu-chan, Dolphin, and Roboco are new series, logically if they make Oricon’s Top 50 then that would also be their series number for that week since they don’t have any other volumes out there, even when none of them make the Oricon Top 10 sales by series. So if they make Oricon, their sales number will be in Pink instead of White like normal. Not like that matters though…alright let’s just get into it.

Talk about the most worthless first week of sales ever. These numbers actually say nothing for Roboco, Magu-chan, or Dolphin other than goodbye Moriking and AGRAVITY. They didn’t really get close to Yozakura so I wouldn’t say any of them are going to be here long long term now, if anything they took Yozakura’s spot of “safe until newbies pass me” which…8400 is definitely more beatable than 11k. I think these are all fine numbers for today’s standards…but I don’t know if any of them are “stable” or “established” now.

Those Yozakura numbers make me sad. Not because they’re bad; they’re actually quite good! It almost beat volume 3’s sales in a month in 5 days according to Shoseki so it’s still growing! No, what makes me sad is because if this was September, that probably would have been good enough to make Oricon top 50, but Kimetsu no Kaisen happened and now the rankings are essentially worthless I want Oricon Top 100 back or exclude backlogs from Top 50 or something because tracking sales is just a chore now that 38 of the 50 spots are taken up by two series. Still though, like I said, almost 20k in one week is pretty good for a series that a lot of people wrote off as axe fodder at the start of the year. Hope a push is coming soon. Also, I didn’t feel that well so I couldn’t get 'Tis Time for Torturem Princess exact numbers done. Yozakura was 71, Torture was 88, and Roboco was 115 in the weekly rankings. So basically the same thing as last volume, behind Yozakura by a decent amount, still above the debuting series it releases alongside with and the flopping old new series. Let’s see, next volume comes out January, as well as Yozakura, and there’s also Magu-chan, AGRAVITY, Moriking, and OBO’s first volume. Something tells me we’re doing this same dance come January.

Our three vets also saw a pretty big jump from their previous volumes. CSM had pretty good backlog sales (also a problem with Shoseki since it takes up essentially the 70-80 range, making it harder to see new series sales!) and a 40k bump despite having one last day. That ending hype must be picking up in Japan (and also anime hype because I think everyone expects it to get one at Jump Festa in December at this point). Haikyu!! got around 100k more copies in one less day! That’s really solid, not to mention pretty good backlog sales. That final volume bump must be real since this is Haikyu!!’s best first week since like volume 26. What a great sendoff for the series…too bad its getting eaten alive by Kimetsu hype week 2 it seems . Stupid movie.


For some fun, we’re going to have a question every week that revolves around Jump. Be warned though, unlike the rest of Making the Jump, this trivia question can be about any series that ran in Jump! So without further ado –

Q: Simple question this week. Excluding Beast Children and Tokyo Shinobi Squad, what was the first manga to end this year in the magazine. I’m not counting those two because they had one or two chapters only and isn’t really reflective of 2020 Jump manga. HINT: It was a series that debuted in 2020.

Last Week's answer(s):

Now we move on to new series land for a bit. Let’s see what it holds! Till next time, remember: support the official release!

Did the next generation of Shonen get built in #50 of Weekly Shonen Jump? Let’s find out as we…Make the Jump!

The first thing to examine is this week’s Jump’s Table of Contents. As you know, a table of contents is a list of what to expect inside whatever literature you’re currently reading, and Jump’s no different. It gives us the order of how series appear in that week’s Jump issue, what series received a center color page (or CP for short), among other things. This isn’t an exact representation of a series standing in Shonen Jump, but it can give us a close look at how Shueisha views a series based on patterns and the like. That’s generally why people view the TOC as a ranking of sort.

A series “rank” is just where they appear in the magazine (for example, a series that ranked 4th that week means it’s the fourth series to appear in that week’s Jump, excluding CPs). It’s the closest approximation we can get on a series’ popularity before its first volume is released. While readers in Japan can vote on their top 3 series for a week, ultimately it is up to the editors to decide the order of the TOC (though those viewer votes obviously have a huge factor in the editors’ decision making). New series aren’t “ranked” right away. We don’t know how far back TOC’s are made or how many weeks back they’re meant to reflect a series status, but it is a general rule of thumb that a new series doesn’t start “ranking” until its 8th chapter (or the first chapter where it does not receive a CP if chapter 8 receives one).

Here is the TOC for Issue #50 of Weekly Shonen Jump (released 11/15/2020) [NOTE: If there’s two names next to an author avatar, the top italicized name is the one who uses the avatar]

*Will Fix Later*

Unranked: Hunter x Hunter

Next Issue(s) Preview:

Next Issue(s) Preview:

The only special notes are Undead is bottom 5 and OBO is last. Neither shocking, but that happened. Moriking’s heading back to bottom 5 I guarantee and I’m a little more confident that High School Family might actually be struggling.      
 

And now let’s shine some light on the most recent chapter of some series currently featured in Weekly Shonen Jump. These aren’t my top five chapters of a week necessarily, but they are ones that I want to highlight and talk about a little.


It’s interesting how as time goes on and it feels more and more likely that Yozakura is sticking around long term, that Gondaira-sensei is comfortable incorporating elements from his previous works. This new hybrid of Ai reminds me so much of the hybrids in Toteku. I think she’s probably going to end up being an ally down the line but we’ll have to see. The other thing that stood out to me is that Rin has finally returned! The Hinagaku are finally getting involved with the story again and Sui is actually really popular, so I think it’s only a matter of time before he returns. The cast is expanding again and we’re finally bringing back old characters now that it seems like we’re here for the long run. I’m really excited to see the other dynamics we can explore now too after this chapter established that Rin and Futaba actually get along pretty well. I know we’re going to be on a bit of a break from the serious stuff for a while, but I’m excited about what’s to come.  


It’s chapters like these that make me question people who hate something just because it’s obvious. Yeah, this plot point was basically clear to anyone that actually thought about it for more than ten seconds, but it was executed greatly and it has benefited Dabi’s character so much. This is leading up to a great final match between Dabi and Todoroki as well as Endeavor’s final parts of his character arc. We’re seeing hero society fall apart completely and Best Jeanist is the last hope of it standing at all. We have to be approaching a conclusion of this arc, so I can’t wait to see what Horikoshi’s got planned for it.      


I honestly don’t think Goto knows what he’s doing. This felt like a rushed conclusion to Riku’s training arc and a rushed conclusion to Iori’s war with this spirit. I really don’t care what’s going on here. This feels like something you build up to rather than start with. I still don’t think Riku’s going to do much in the story. This feels like it’s hanging on by a thread despite the fact that it got a color page.



It’s a bad omen when I don’t even like the PV video for a new series, even the music screams generic as all get out. To be fair, I of all people shouldn’t be deducting points for something being generic, my favorite romcom of all time is Nisekoi after all…anyway, being generic is the least of Build King’s problems.

To be blunt, this series feels incredibly dated. Being a throwback isn’t inherently bad, but being a throwback also entails doing it well. Build King…does not call back to series of old in a good way I think. It was a pretty nothing first chapter with just introducing the main duo and having Tonkachi beating a mook. It was a 90s battle shonen intro where the hint was more to the world and how that’s interesting just stick with it…which is something I don’t think works anymore. Let’s look at all the recent successes in Jump: Undead, Mashle, Yozakura, Ayakashi, even Burn the Witch. They all focused on the characters for their first chapter and what makes them stick out or why you should stick around. They all survived a year at least (or will be here long term in BtW's case. Compare that to our flops since CSM: Guardian of the Witch, Zipman!, Samurai 8. They all did nothing to actually show off their main character; their main concern was making the world seem interesting. Even compare AGRAVITY vs Moriking. AGRAVITY focused on the characters first and the world second, Moriking was more focused on the world first then the characters second. There's a reason why one is making it to its second anniversary probably and the other has been dead for over 20 weeks and just waiting for a mercy kill. People just don’t want to read long epic world stories anymore. If the world is inhabited by cardboard cutouts, who cares if the world has a Minecraft obsession? This worked for Toriko back in 08, it doesn’t work now.

Another thing I don’t like is that this is a world of building! That aspect is supposed to be the thing that makes it stick out from the other shonen series. Building battles is probably how this sticks out in the sea of thriving battle manga…so what does it do? They make the MC a bad builder and make the build point moot. These feel like normal shonen battles with just weird creature design. It’s different from My Hero or Black Clover where they also struggle with their lack of the main gimmick of the world and that’s part of their development and it felt like it was part of the world. The MC here is fine with it and him being a builder is completely irrelevant to the story. If this story was about say, a world of bowlers, the story would be the same. The building thing feels superfluous.

So this is a me problem, but I do think this has to be addressed. This felt like Toriko again. If you like Toriko fine. I didn’t, but that’s not why I don’t like this first chapter. I am a big component of new works shouldn’t feel like your previous one if it’s not related to the series. Assassination Classroom was completely different from Neuro, and it’s my favorite series of all time and I still beg for Matsui-sensei to come back. Nisekoi is completely different from Double Arts. If a series is just the old one with new paint, what’s the point of reading the new one if the old one is still there?

This was a bad first impression for me. I think it can turn around, but if it’s just Toriko again…eh, not sure. Also considering how the current Editor in Chief of the magazine was Toriko’s editor when it was running, made Shimabukuro promise he’d make a new series while he was EiC, and…let’s just say “special push” early on, I’m pretty sure this is going to crash and burn.


*Will fix later*

Week two and it’s more of the same. Really strong growth for Haikyu!! and CSM. DR. STONE solid as always. Yozakura now passed its weekly estimates for volume 4 in the month of August in only 12 days. Let’s keep this going! The newbies are at 10k now, so bare minimum they should be in the AGRAVITY tier.

Also, if I need filler, I’ll do Kaisen’s series sales that week instead. We’re getting real close to Yaiba numbers here. 2021 should be a great year for it.


For some fun, we’re going to have a question every week that revolves around Jump. Be warned though, unlike the rest of Making the Jump, this trivia question can be about any series that ran in Jump! So without further ado –

Q: What series had the most color pages this year? Not counting Lead color, just regular ones. HINT: It’s still running today.

Last Week’s answer: Samurai 8 was the first casualty of 2020. So remember that hint from last week? Yeah…turns out I was wrong, whoops! For some reason, I thought Zipman! was cancelled before Samurai 8 but nope. Oh well.

Let’s see what SAKAMOTO DAYS gives us next week. It’s bound to be something to talk about. Till then, remember: support the official release!

hmmm alot of stuff is coming on out with the numbers to match.

A new days dawn as the next hit appears?! Let’s find out as we talk about #51 of Weekly Shonen Jump while we…Make the Jump!



The first thing to examine is this week’s Jump’s Table of Contents. As you know, a table of contents is a list of what to expect inside whatever literature you’re currently reading, and Jump’s no different. It gives us the order of how series appear in that week’s Jump issue, what series received a center color page (or CP for short), among other things. This isn’t an exact representation of a series standing in Shonen Jump, but it can give us a close look at how Shueisha views a series based on patterns and the like. That’s generally why people view the TOC as a ranking of sort.

A series “rank” is just where they appear in the magazine (for example, a series that ranked 4th that week means it’s the fourth series to appear in that week’s Jump, excluding CPs). It’s the closest approximation we can get on a series’ popularity before its first volume is released. While readers in Japan can vote on their top 3 series for a week, ultimately it is up to the editors to decide the order of the TOC (though those viewer votes obviously have a huge factor in the editors’ decision making). New series aren’t “ranked” right away. We don’t know how far back TOC’s are made or how many weeks back they’re meant to reflect a series status, but it is a general rule of thumb that a new series doesn’t start “ranking” until its 8th chapter (or the first chapter where it does not receive a CP if chapter 8 receives one).

Here is the TOC for Issue #51 of Weekly Shonen Jump (released 11/20/2020) [NOTE: If there’s two names next to an author avatar, the top italicized name is the one who uses the avatar]

*Will fix these later*

Unranked: Build King, Hunter x Hunter

Next Issue(s) Preview:

The Magu-chan redemption tour begins! After an eight placement last week, a sixth this week, and color page next week, plus sales that don’t spell gloom and doom, things are looking up for our cute God of Destruction. Ayakashi also seems to be still going strong with colors next week. I wonder if it’s actually growing or not, but we’ll see come December.

As one batch somehow rises from the ashes, another sinks into the abyss. Our bottom three this week is Phantom Seer, High School Family, and Our Blood Oath. Can’t say I’m shocked. HSF I really can’t tell what’s up, but the fact that it’s not funny, no one talks about it, and the fact it wasn’t ranking good before this drop makes me think that it probably is doing bad right now. Phantom Seer fell back to the bottom 3 after a color page. I guess the Veteran’s curse doesn’t discriminate. Those December sales better be good or else it’s curtains cause I can tell you now that the series placements probably aren’t recovering based on the content itself.    
 
And now let’s shine some light on the most recent chapter of some series currently featured in Weekly Shonen Jump. These aren’t my top five chapters of a week necessarily, but they are ones that I want to highlight and talk about a little.


This is the Final Phase of Chainsaw Man as confirmed by the editor. So like, I am pretty sure that this is it. There’s probably like 4 chapters at most and how this chapter was mainly just a brawl that ended with Ms. Villain destroying Denji, I’m pretty sure we aren’t getting a happy ending here. This ride will be wild no matter what. Let’s see what Fujimoto decides to actually do.


This was the first time in a long while that I cared about anything that’s happening. Law wanting to find out about the Ds? I’m here and it probably keeps him safe now which I’m cool with, he’s my second favorite character in the series. The problem is…the ending chapter soured me completely. This basically confirms that Sanji’s major “fight” of the arc is with Black Maria and…ugh. Look, I like Sanji. He used to be my favorite Straw Hat. I think these Zoro fans are way overblowing it and wiling. The one thing I agree with them though is that Sanji’s fights suck. They almost always do. The reason for that of course, is because he always fights female characters. I get it, his morals will never let Sanji fight a woman. That’s fine. I DON’T need to be reminded of that every arc! It causes his fights to always feel the same and lame because either someone else has to save the day or Sanji just stands there and gets beat up. He’s ALWAYS a pervert too. This is such a disappointment compared to what Sanji was hinted to facing earlier in the arc.      


So we’re in the “doing random stuff while we figure out if we’re canned or not” part of the series at the moment. Chako is definitely a star, but she can’t carry the manga herself. Tamura needs to do SOMETHING that actually feels thought out and planned cause I guarantee you that last arc was him making something up just in case he’s gone if volume 1 flops. The manga has always been more entertaining when Tamura has ignored the sea cult and the fish people…which is a huge problem because that’s the entire damn premise of the series. He NEEDS to figure out a way to make a compelling plot with the mystery.  


Remember when I just called this not Toriko? Yeah…it’s just not Toriko. Toriko is even in this manga! I assume Nana is different palette wise at least…but he’s literally just Toriko looks wise. The only thing that this story has going for it is its world…but man I don’t care about a world if the characters are garbage. He’s doing an awful job trying to sell me on something that most people don’t care about (architecture) and being zany for the sake of it rather than actually doing something with the wackiness. There’s a bunch of stupid jokes here like Toriko…man it’s just Toriko again, even down to the damn push.

You see, next week’s chapter is getting extra pages for what the editors claim as “EXTREME Popularity” (by the way, they typo’d the name as BUILD KIND in the ad for that popularity lol). The problem with that is even if we give the benefit of the doubt and that they didn’t compile everything for this issue weeks ago (before BUILD KING was even announced), that everything in #52 was worked on and completed in the week #51 was completed (definitely not true, but let’s pretend). They found out its “extreme popularity” in that week. It’s been one chapter. There is literally no way they knew chapter 1 was so popular, told Shimabukuro to extend chapter 3 to 29(!) pages after he probably submitted the chapter to editorial, AND saw that chapter 2 would keep up that excitement and hype IN ONE WEEK. It’s literally impossible. So they’re making up popularity for a series. Is good ole Build Kind actually that popular? Maybe! But you can’t say that it is in one week (in reality, they said that before chapter 1 even came out so it’s actually more like negative two weeks). I LOVE Naruto, and the Samurai 8 push annoyed me. You bet I’m going to be mad that the same thing is happening again for a mangaka I DON’T like.


It’s been a long year. A lot of series that debuted in 2020 alone have come and gone. Some started out good, some abysmally. I’ve seen the entire spectrum, so it is a little shocking how the last series to debut in 2020 is the one that had the best chapter 1 of the entire year. I’m being serious. SAKAMOTO DAYS, to me, was the strongest debut in 2020 and I think it might be top 5 since 2016. To be fair, that isn’t everything, I also think TPGW was a top 5 debut and look what happened. If this series can keep up the quality here, I think they got a keeper.

The premise of this series reminds me a lot of Assassination Classroom. There’s an invincible hitman that is just trying to live his nine-to-five average life and a bunch of people are going to try to kill him. He has a person that he takes under his wing and interacts with a lot. It’s mixing action and comedy beautifully. The hit man is just a cool guy you want to root for. The only difference is that SAKAMOTO DAYS is way more gory…which I probably will have to adjust to, but I think I can deal. There is so much charm in this series that I think it makes up for being bloodier than I would like it to be.

The only long-term problem I see here is how do you do an arc for this because I don’t think you can be episodic forever. The color page obviously hints at other assassins who might be important, so I don’t think cast is going to be a problem. The question is what exactly can we do for a multi chapter arc? Yozakura was episodic at the start, but the premise was open enough where that worked (all Taiyo had to do was protect Mutsumi from spies while learning to become a spy himself. He could do that at school, raid a hideout, etc.) Here, does Sakamoto have that? He’s just living his life and working at his store. Realistically, how much can he fight off assassins before we get sick of it?

All in all though, a really solid start and I’m looking forward to more. I hope Japan really enjoys it.

Sales Numbers:

I mean technically, volume 3 did it but it was so barely that it shouldn’t really count, but Yozakura has managed to rank in Shoseki for the third week in a row! Our newbies are gone now so they’ll probably end up around 10-12k for the monthly estimates. Yozakura though! It stands at 27k if you add up the weekly totals so maybe it can make it to 30k this month. This steady growth continues and I’m looking forward to January.

Other than that, the final showing for Haikyu! is still great, CSM is still doing great for the probable final push, and DR. STONE is as steady as ever. Kaisen is getting closer to Yaiba levels of hype sales wise…

For some fun, we’re going to have a question every week that revolves around Jump. Be warned though, unlike the rest of Making the Jump, this trivia question can be about any series that ran in Jump! So without further ado –

Actually...this segment is taking a break for a bit unfortunately I'm so behind on Making the Jump that I don't have time to think of questions. I promise it'll be back before the first double issues of 2021.  

Last Week's Answer:

The final issue of 2020 is next week (or right now by the time I posted this sorry!). Let's see what the future has in store for us. Till then remember, support the official release!