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The story
On 5ch’s “Live News G” board, posters debated whether Weekly Shonen Jump’s current lineup has gotten “small-time.” The thread weighed in on ongoing series like Sakamoto Days, Akane-banashi, and Kagurabachi, while also posting a ranking of first-print runs for legendary hits — One Piece (4.05 million copies) and Demon Slayer (3.95 million copies) among them — as a point of comparison with today’s titles. Some brought up Frieren’s year-long hiatus over at Shogakukan’s Sunday, while others pointed out how often One Piece itself goes on break, making both the quality of current series and the hiatus problem plaguing flagship titles hot topics.
What people said
Waste of paper.
Some of us make a living producing paper, you know 😡
Isn't Case Closed (Detective Conan) enough to carry it?
Frieren's small-time, it only sells 600–800k copies.
If Sunday's leaning on that, it's done for either way.
Needs to be putting out at least a million copies minimum.
That part.
Apparently they even snatched the anime rights away from Shueisha.
Out of these, Sakamoto Days and Akane-banashi are the top two, I guess.
The flashback arc's been dragging so I figured I'd binge it all later and haven't been reading.
Isn't it running kind of long?
No wonder nobody can stop Oda.
Just do it.
It's just on hiatus a ridiculous amount…
If that's the case they should just hurry up and end it.
Conan takes plenty of breaks too and it's still going, and Hunter × Hunter is basically nothing but hiatuses.
Jump Series First-Print Run Rankings
ONE PIECE — 4.05 million copies
Demon Slayer — 3.95 million copies
SLAM DUNK — 2.5 million copies
Dr. Slump — 2.2 million copies
DRAGON BALL — 2.2 million copies
Jujutsu Kaisen — 2.15 million copies
Yu Yu Hakusho — 1.7 million copies
NARUTO — 1.62 million copies
HUNTER×HUNTER — 1.6 million copies
Kinnikuman — 1.6 million copies
SPY×FAMILY — 1.55 million copies
Rurouni Kenshin — 1.33 million copies
BLEACH — 1.33 million copies
DEATH NOTE — 1.27 million copies
REAL — 1.15 million copies
The Prince of Tennis — 1.11 million copies
BASTARD!! — 1.05 million copies
Dai's Great Adventure — 1.05 million copies
Assassination Classroom — 1 million copies
Kuroko's Basketball — 1 million copies
Rokudenashi Blues — 1 million copies
Kingdom — 1 million copies
Blue Exorcist — 1 million copies
Bonus
Terra Formars — 900,000 copies
Tokyo Ghoul:re — 900,000 copies
Kaiju No. 8 — 900,000 copies
Chainsaw Man — 850,000 copies
My Hero Academia — 780,000 copies
Guess the miracle hits that kept showing up every time things looked dire are done now too.
With the internet and more outlets to express yourself, talented people just aren't flocking here anymore.
My Hero Academia's actually pretty low on the list, huh.
Background and Key Points of This Discussion
The “first-print run rankings” posted in the thread refer to the initial print run for each series’ first collected volume — not total sales across the whole series or a measure of current popularity. First-print numbers are also shaped by a publisher’s expectations and print-run decisions, so they shouldn’t be read as a simple popularity ranking. The thread also raised the view that “One Piece has lost popularity because it goes on hiatus so often,” but Case Closed (Detective Conan) and Hunter × Hunter are both well known for frequent hiatuses too, so hiatus frequency doesn’t necessarily track with popularity. As for Kagurabachi, the author’s health issues are known to be one reason behind the irregular publication schedule, which should be considered separately from any judgment of the collected volumes’ quality or content. Opinions in the thread were split between those calling the current lineup “small-time” and others praising Sakamoto Days, Akane-banashi, and Kagurabachi.
※This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Live News G) thread ‘Weekly Shonen Jump Is in Seriously Bad Shape.’
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