News
Viz's Shonen Jump Expands to 5 More English-Speaking Regions
posted on by Crystalyn Hodgkins
North American manga publisher Viz Media announced at Anime Expo on Thursday that it is expanding the availability of its Weekly Shonen Jump digital magazine. The digital magazine is available now for readers in the United Kingdom, Ireland, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. Readers must subscribe to the magazine through Apple's Newsstand app. Subscribers outside of the United States and Canada will not be able to access back issues, and will not be able to receive the physical Yu-Gi-Oh! card bonuses, but will have access to all other digital bonuses.
In addition, there will be a special issue on July 15 with full-color chapters of One Piece, Naruto, and One-Punch Man.
Viz Media launched the Weekly Shonen Jump Alpha magazine in the United States and Canada only in January 2012. The magazine featured installments of Bakuman., Bleach, Naruto, Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan, One Piece, and Toriko two weeks after their debut in Japan.
Viz Media then re-launched the magazine in January 2013 as just Weekly Shonen Jump and now features installments of manga on the same day that they are released in Japan. Current series include Naruto, One Piece, Bleach, Toriko, Cross Manage, Nisekoi, World Trigger, One-Punch Man, full-color Dragon Ball, Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal, and Blue Exorcist. The magazine will add Akira Toriyama's new Jaco the Galactic Patrolman manga on July 15.
Update: Weekly Shonen Jump Editor Andy Nakatani noted that since Viz began publishing the magazine digitally, it has not made any edits for content.
Update 2: Weekly Shonen Jump will be available in those five new English-speaking regions on Android "soon."
this article has been modified since it was originally posted; see change history