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The story
A thread rounding up manga that surprise people once they learn they actually ran in Weekly Shonen Jump — titles like “Barefoot Gen” and “Gutsy Frog.” One after another, works came up that are strongly associated with other magazines or that nobody ever thinks about in terms of which magazine serialized them, including City Hunter, Cat’s Eye, Midori no Makibao, Astro Kyudan, Samurai Giants, and Death Note. Opinions were especially split over “Barefoot Gen”: one comment pointed out that at the start of its run it wasn’t meant as peace education at all but was on a battle/gag-manga track, while others pushed back that given the author’s intent, it’s a stretch to claim the work was ever free of political overtones.
What people said
Gutsy Frog
Mazinger Z
・City Hunter
Honestly, I always figured it was in the same vein as Lupin III or Golgo 13.
I assumed it ran in a seinen (adult) magazine, so I was surprised to learn it was actually in Jump.
True, a lot of the setups couldn't get published today, but (Cat's Eye aside) City Hunter skews noticeably younger than the genuine hard-boiled stuff.
Still, it's clearly a notch above Dragon Ball or Kinnikuman in terms of age level.
・Cat's Eye
Like City Hunter, this is a work by Tsukasa Hojo.
・Midori no Makibao
A manga with horse racing as its subject.
Kimagure Orange Road
I thought at first it was a shojo (girls') manga.
By the way, the heroine is Madoka Ayukawa.
The manga itself is a perfectly normal shonen manga though.
Totemo! Luckyman
Feels very CoroCoro (CoroCoro Comic, a magazine known for kids' gag manga)
Magical Taruruuto-kun
The vibe is honestly more CoroCoro Comic than Jump.
For what it's worth, the same author did run a series called "Unpoko" in CoroCoro Comic.
Rookies
A baseball manga that also got a live-action TBS drama adaptation.
Rabbit girl "Mabel-chan"
*AI art in the style of Demon Slayer (Nezuko Kamado-style)
Rabbit girl "Pacifica-chan"
*AI art in the style of Dragon Ball (Akira Toriyama-style)
Rabbit girl "Wendy-chan"
*AI art in the style of Dragon Ball (Akira Toriyama-style)
Hey, Tetsugaku News (a matome/news-aggregator blog)!
Get this one summarized!
I like this drawing better
By the way, here's where the Mabel girls are from
・Mabel-chan → Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture
・Pacifica-chan → Saitama City, Saitama Prefecture (formerly Omiya City)
・Wendy-chan → Niigata City, Niigata Prefecture
Wasn't that a baseball manga from the 1970s?
They go up against manager Kaneyan's Lotte team (Kaneyan = nickname for legendary manager Masaichi Kaneda)
That's George Akiyama, right?
Didn't it end pretty quickly?
Yep.
Same here.
Honestly, aside from Slam Dunk, I don't really associate sports manga (spo-kon/hot-blooded sports stories) with Jump at all…
Cooking manga in Jump feels pretty rare.
*For reference, Mister Ajikko ran in Magazine.
・Circuit no Ookami (Wolves of the Circuit)
One of the few racing/motorsport manga Jump ever ran.
Yoroshiku Mecha-Dock was good too
・You and I, Polar Opposites
Not Weekly Shonen Jump itself, but it did run on Jump+.
I see, makes sense!
There was Masatoshi Usune's Killer Boy
・Majirumie Inc.
Set in a world where magical girls are recognized as a proper profession for adult women.
A Jump+ series.
Death Note
Apparently it's by the same writer as Luckyman.
It's Tsugumi Ohba (nicknamed "Obatsu-gumi" as wordplay), right?
And yeah, it really doesn't give off much of that friendship-effort-victory vibe…
though it is a battle of wits.
To begin with, it wasn't even meant as peace education at first — it was originally headed in a battle-manga/gag-manga direction.
After moving on from Jump, it shifted toward a much more overtly political style.
No, honestly, given how the author clearly felt about the subject, it's a stretch to say there was no political angle to it.
For reference, here's what the Jump lineup looked like around when Barefoot Gen was running
Isamu, Boy of the Wilderness and Gutsy Frog were running at the same time, among others
Looks like it ended pretty fast though… 😢
Background and points of debate
“Barefoot Gen” began serialization in Weekly Shonen Jump in 1973. While it drew on the author’s own wartime experience from the start, its early chapters carried battle-manga and gag-manga elements. After its run in Jump ended, the series moved to other outlets such as “Shimin” and “Bunka Hyoron,” and it was there that its anti-war, anti-nuclear message grew stronger. The thread’s disagreement boiled down to a single question: did the series carry political intent from the very start of its serialization? One camp argued that, since the work is grounded in the author’s lived experience, its political character can’t be separated out even from the beginning; the other argued that its style shifted only after it changed magazines. Also striking is the gap with today’s image of Jump — cases like “City Hunter” and “Cat’s Eye,” where the magazine’s image doesn’t match its actual readership, and Showa-era hot-blooded sports manga like “Astro Kyudan” and “Samurai Giants” that once ran there too.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Nandemo Jikkyo G) thread “Three things people are surprised to learn actually ran in Weekly Shonen Jump: “Barefoot Gen,” “Gutsy Frog”.”
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