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The Mike Toole Show - Jump-ing Ship




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Triltaison



Joined: 03 Jul 2011
Posts: 717
PostPosted: Sun Dec 09, 2018 6:38 pm Reply with quote
I actually own the full print runs of Shonen Jump and Shojo Beat (including SB's preview issue), and was a big fan of both. While I bought a smattering of Animerica Extra and the like on occasion, it was nearly impossible to find any of the other manga magazines in my area consistently. Mixxzine in particular seemed to not exist anywhere so I just waited and got the trades. I was actually able to find and purchase SJ and SB, so I made sure to grab my copies of both every month.

Don't feel bad about being behind on One Piece, though. When Naruto was being published in SJ, they jumped ahead something like 8 books to catch up to the anime on TV and didn't publish those chapters in the magazine. I couldn't remember which volumes I needed to read to catch up to speed (they published them in rapid fire succession), so I just skipped reading Naruto until I could catch up. Aaaaaaaaand I still haven't done it. ^^;
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Eddy564



Joined: 14 Sep 2008
Posts: 340
PostPosted: Sun Dec 09, 2018 8:10 pm Reply with quote
I used to love getting the Shonen Jump magazines in 7Elevens. Every time I stumbled upon a new one I’d get so happy. I read online scanlations, but having physical copies always feel especially more rewarding (especially since you’re legally supporting).
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CatSword



Joined: 01 Jul 2014
Posts: 1489
PostPosted: Sun Dec 09, 2018 8:48 pm Reply with quote
Print Shonen Jump sort of lives on through Scholastic book orders, though they're a bit of a ripoff. I wasn't into Yu-Gi-Oh! as a kid, and as such, 96 pages of manga for $10.50 would've been a raw deal.

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Gem-Bug



Joined: 10 Nov 2018
Posts: 1194
PostPosted: Sun Dec 09, 2018 10:40 pm Reply with quote
I remember starting with, I think, issue #4 of Shonen Jump. Yugioh was big in high school at the time, and the darker, edgier original story was a big draw for me. It was quickly overshadowed by Naruto, One Piece, and my still favorite, Shaman King. I loved the different art styles and extras, like Japanese culture articles and the like. Eventually I guess it was my gateway drug into online manga reading, though I still bought the magazine every month.
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KabaKabaFruit



Joined: 20 Sep 2007
Posts: 1869
Location: Winnipeg, Manitoba
PostPosted: Mon Dec 10, 2018 12:42 am Reply with quote
Viz's Shonen Jump did help bolster more people into reading manga but I still shake my head at them for allowing favoritism of certain series to dominate their publications at the expense of others and kowtowing to the business interests of 4Kids for the sake of consistency when their original mission statement was to create a manga anthology for manga fans.
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Engineering Nerd



Joined: 24 Apr 2008
Posts: 897
Location: Southern California
PostPosted: Mon Dec 10, 2018 12:53 am Reply with quote
I really do think the success of western Shoen Jump printed or online, has a lot to do with the bouns Yu-Gi-Oh! Cards that were included in the printed issues or online subscriptions. Yes, definitely even more than the article desdcribed as “cash positive”, the values of some promo cards are simply insane (for example, Some tournament-staple promo cards can easily value more than 25+ dollars in secondary singles market. Same thing with Yu-gi-oh! Manga volumes too, most of the times the promo cards along can value more than the compiled book itself.


I do hope this new Jump strategy can work, although one of its biggest advantages over their competitors, the promo cards, are now a thing in the history
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Hellfish



Joined: 19 Dec 2007
Posts: 391
Location: Mexico
PostPosted: Mon Dec 10, 2018 1:49 am Reply with quote
Shonen Jump number was probably the first magazine (and maybe only) that had printed a letter I sent, it wasn't the most intellectual thing but it's there. I even got the number zero that preview thing which I didn't get for free but oh well. It was quite odd, some numbers I got with some people that got things over the diamond catalogue in Mexico, some numbers I was able to buy them on the US and some even got to appear in a few select Magazine stands... it was quite thing to watch. I ended dropping quite quick as even if most shonen jump titles have really strong begininings most lose me at the middle.

Shojo Beat... I didn't got all the numbers but I got quite a good colection, I probably only missed a year at most and mostly at the beggining. Unfortunately it dropped titles I loved on it's and added or insisted to complete titles I absolute hated. (My blood still boils at absolute boyfriend and Vampire Knight) I have no idea how many months I would have kept going even if the publication continued.

Animerica Extra I loved from beginning to end, I was younger though and it was a little harder to get. I don't think I would buy all the titles on a new edition but on that time it was nice.

And fun fact. Mixx zine seems to have re-sold rights to their publication in Mexico and we got Sailor Moon and Magic Knight Rayearth in a big flip book which I am sure had much nicer design that the US one, romanization was kind of funky there but it seems the magazine did well until it turned out the people who sold the rights which wasn't Kodansha didn't have the right to do that and the magazine folded as the japanese didn't want to renegotiate... or so they say here..
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CorbeauKarasu



Joined: 17 Feb 2007
Posts: 26
PostPosted: Tue Dec 11, 2018 12:26 pm Reply with quote
Classic stuff, that. Just seeing that premiere volume reminds me of coming home from high school and picking up every volume from my local Blockbuster. I had a handful of whole years of the mag until I donated them to an auction at my college's anime club.

Viz's new plan is a very good idea and I'm certainly somewhat interested in participating, but I can't always say I'm fond of the way that company chooses to translate/transliterate its more common titles. Anyone who's been reading with their online service, can you tell me if Roronoa Zoro is still being called "Zolo?"

You might say it's petty, but that's just about the only reason I don't buy Viz's One Piece volumes.
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Peebs



Joined: 07 Dec 2005
Posts: 419
PostPosted: Wed Dec 12, 2018 4:55 pm Reply with quote
I got an iPad and a paid subscription to Shonen Jump Alpha just so I could be part of the new wave. I've kept up my subscription through all these years. I've even gotten a newer iPad to keep up with the times. It was momentous when I downloaded and read the last issue this past Monday. In my own way I made history again.
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DoujinHunter



Joined: 03 Nov 2018
Posts: 1
PostPosted: Thu Dec 13, 2018 12:24 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
Viz launched a companion magazine, Shojo Beat, to showcase more shoujo and josei manga. That magazine wasn't quite as robust as Shonen Jump; it folded in 2009. You could probably ascribe some of that lack of staying power to the sad, weird fact that, as a demographic set, shoujo manga has faded a lot over the past decade. There's not as much of it being made anymore, because an awful lot of young girls who used to read stuff like Absolute Boyfriend now just read the likes of One Piece and Nisekoi.


A bit tangential, but I didn't know that the shoujo demographic had fallen apart like that. Why did this happen? Any replies or articles, particularly long and well researched ones, would be greatly appreciated.

Did shoujo or shounen manga series undergo changes which made shounen manga more appealing to young girls relative to shoujo series? Did Shounen Jump change up its series to include what would have been traditionally shoujo series but under a shounen label? Was there some shift in consumer preferences or supply changes (for example, towards more connected series that rewarded binge reading which can be practiced more easily with digital services or some other such change) that favored series in shounen magazines relative to shoujo magazines?

edit: a bit more on topic, did this change result in (or was it the result of) Shounen Jump procuring staff or implementing policies from shoujo magazines?
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rizuchan
Collector Extraordinaire



Joined: 11 Mar 2007
Posts: 974
Location: Kansas
PostPosted: Thu Dec 13, 2018 2:27 pm Reply with quote
I can't speak for raw numbers of series in Japan, but I don't think Shoujo manga is less popular than it used to be. There's a lot more anime adaptations of (highschool romance type) shoujo manga coming out than there used to be. I do agree that demographics have probably changed a lot, but that goes for shoujo manga too. While lots of girls are reading Shounen Jump (hasn't that been the case for a very long time?), I've seen a lot of fans of seinen romance and harem shows getting into Kimi ni Todoke or My Love Story, and lots of casual, male anime fans that enjoyed watching Fruits Basket and Ouran on Netflix. That said, how many of them went back and read the original manga for those shows is... probably not a lot.

And then you have magical girl shows... but I wouldn't even know where to start with how those demographics are these days. I wonder what the ratio of actual little girls to male otaku the fans of PreCure are now.
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littlegreenwolf



Joined: 10 Aug 2002
Posts: 4796
Location: Seattle, WA
PostPosted: Thu Dec 13, 2018 3:08 pm Reply with quote
Shojo beat responded to Mike Toole's claims about shojo manga dying out and their old magazine.

https://officialshojobeat.tumblr.com/post/181085600324/mike-toole-made-questionable-statements-about-the

Quote:
lumranmayasha asked:

Mike Toole made questionable statements about the reason why the Shojo Beat magazine was cancelled in his latest column. He said "You could probably ascribe some of that lack of staying power to the sad, weird fact that, as a demographic set, shojo manga has faded a lot over the past decade. There's not as much of it being made anymore, because an awful lot of young girls who used to read stuff like Absolute Boyfriend now just read the likes of One Piece and Nisekoi." This is nonsense, right?

officialshojobeat answered:

You are correct–that is not why Shojo Beat magazine was cancelled. In 2009, most anime and manga magazines (actually, most print magazines and newspapers across the board) were having a hard time of it, and many went defunct. I think there may be only one anime-related print magazine still alive today. Shojo Beat magazine was doing okay, but the future of magazines was (and still is) bleak. In addition, with the rise of piracy, the manga bubble bursting, and Borders flirting with bankruptcy at the time, management decided to discontinue the magazine and make Shonen Jump digital-only with mostly manga and very few articles. I want to stress that Shojo Beat magazine was an immense amount of work–it had an entire department dedicated to everything that wasn’t manga in that magazine. Most magazines at VIZ in the past were axed to make way for a new magazine or endeavor, but after 2009 they didn’t pursue print magazines anymore.

As for shojo manga not being made anymore–that is ridiculous. Although readership for manga magazines in Japan has been in decline for many years (shonen and shojo), all the major shojo magazines are still around as they have been for decades. One trend that I think makes shojo series harder to discover over here is that fewer shojo series are adapted into anime. Most Japanese publishers prefer to make live-action dramas and movies from shojo manga instead. So we don’t see these titles as anime, which is much more accessible for fans in the US. But the insinuation that girls have given up shojo because it’s somehow a lesser genre than shonen is what I think is sticking in your craw. Shonen manga has always gotten the lion’s share in promotion and publicity, and shonen publishers have been reaching out to female audiences for a long time because they are a huge part of their readership. But shojo manga still endures, and we are still here. (Anime smile)v

-Editor Nancy
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FinalVentCard
ANN Reviewer


Joined: 28 Oct 2018
Posts: 483
PostPosted: Wed Dec 19, 2018 11:20 pm Reply with quote
Shonen Jump was such a treasure for those of us in Puerto Rico. There were only three Borders' on the island. Sure, only a few out-of-the-way grocery stores or pharmacies would have a magazine rack with Shonen Jump (and beloved gaming magazines like Tips 'N Tricks, GamePro, or EGM), but finding a magazine in the wild in 2004 was such a thrill for me. I subscribed immediately. I practically read those volumes to rags.

It bummed me out when Shonen Jump Magazine basically became "Bleach, Naruto and One Piece Monthly" (with the three series taking up nine chapters of space a pop). YuYu Hakusho got to finish, but Shaman King was taken out of the magazine just when it was getting good, as was Hikaru no Go. But seeing that magazine in my mailbox really would make my week, even if it bummed me out that I could barely find any JoJo's Bizarre Adventure in Puerto Rico.
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