Have you developed an interest in reading famous manga such as One Piece, Naruto or Dragon Ball Z? Perhaps your friends have been trying to get you into their favorite series? Whatever the reason, if you want to truly dive into the world of manga, then the Japanese weekly manga anthology ‘Weekly Shonen Jump’ is something that you need to know about! Many of the world’s most popular manga series have gotten their start by being distributed through Weekly Shonen Jump.
A Short Timeline of Weekly Shonen Jump
- Shonen Jump is established in 1968 as a bimonthly anthology. In 1969 it is renamed to Weekly Shonen Jump and changed to a weekly format.
- In 2016, the long-running manga series KochiKame: Tokyo Beat Cops ends after 40 years, being the longest-running young boy’s manga series. The issue of Weekly Shonen Jump that the final chapter was featured in sells out in 5 days.
- From January to March 2017, the issue distribution amount (excluding digital versions) broke the record established in 1978, reaching over 2 million copies. In addition, a Weekly Shonen Jump Exhibition commemorating the 50th anniversary of the first issue was held three times in 2018, and a special “Reprinted Weekly Shonen Jump” was released.
- In March 2020, as a measure to prevent the spread of the new coronavirus, elementary and junior high schools in Japan were asked to close for a month. In response, the Weekly Shonen Jump issues 1-13 for 2020 were made free to read online until the end of March.
Popular Weekly Shonen Jump Series
One Piece
One Piece is often considered, along with Naruto, to be one of Weekly Shonen Jump’s flagship series. It is also extremely popular outside of Japan! Translated versions are sold in more than 42 countries, and the cumulative total circulation has exceeded 460 million copies as of December 2019.
Dragon Ball
The Dragon Ball series hardly needs an introduction! A hugely influential manga that inspired countless other artists, Dragon Ball is published worldwide, and has become one of those facets of pop culture that even people who do not normally care about Japanese franchises will know about!
Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba
This manga series has been in circulation since its premiere in 2016, and has quickly become one of the top-selling series worldwide, with over 40 million copies sold as of January 28, 2020. Volume 19 released on this February, and sales of the first edition have already exceeded 1.5 million copies! We previously wrote a blog post that went into greater detail on the Demon Slayer backstory, and we recommend that you check it out via the link below!
Adventure manga like the ones featured in this article that are published in Weekly Shonen Jump are very popular worldwide! As you read more manga and develop an interest in collecting fan merchandise, we recommend that you do your searching on some of the large stores available on Buyee! Figures and other manga series-related goods are sold secondhand on stores like Mercari and Yahoo! JAPAN Shopping.