It’s been reported that Weekly Shonen Jump’s circulation has fallen below 1 million copies for the first time. Jump first broke the 1-million mark in 1971, and in 1973 it overtook Magazine to become the industry’s top-selling manga weekly. This article covers the plight of small and mid-sized publishers, who face declining print sales while also struggling to monetize digital editions. On 5ch, the thread sparked a wide-ranging debate — from generational disagreements over when Jump’s “golden age” really was, to the homogenization of art styles, the shift to digital comics, and the limits of overseas expansion.
President Online, 9/1, 8:00 AM
■ Jump Held the Line at “1 Million Copies” for Over Half a Century
Shonen Jump launched in July 1968 as a biweekly magazine (published twice a month), then switched to a weekly format in October of the following year to become Weekly Shonen Jump. Despite being a late entrant among boys’ manga magazines, it focused heavily on discovering and nurturing new and up-and-coming artists, surpassing 1 million copies in circulation in 1971 and overtaking rival Weekly Shonen Magazine to take the top spot in 1973.
Source: president.jp / Original article here
Even people who read manga are doing it digitally on their phones now, so you'd never notice from the outside.
And apparently even digital comics aren't selling that well either, according to the article.
Magazines were basically a fleeting product of the pre-internet era.
A business built on charging money for information you can now get for free online.
Same here.
I kept up a 45-year family tradition of reading it, passed down from my parents, but I stopped buying it six months ago.
Around when ≡ ended?
Nothing special going on — digital included, I'm just buying it out of habit at this point.
Is Jump's golden age the Fist of the North Star / Captain Tsubasa / Kinnikuman / Mecha Kimengumi / Dragon Ball era? Or does it go back further to the Dr. Slump days?
The so-called golden age around Slam Dunk isn't interesting at all.
Well, that's fine for you. Of course it's going to vary by generation.
Think whatever you want, but circulation dropped sharply once Slam Dunk ended. That was the real turning point.
Now that you mention it, manga magazines really don't run many ads. Meanwhile fashion magazines, car and bike magazines are packed with them.
Thermae Romae's a long-lived property — even the browser game is still going after more than 10 years. Though I don't actually know how well it sells.
Even so, Jump is still the best-selling magazine in Japan.
Well, of course. Anime gets hyped as hugely popular too, but its ratings are way below TV dramas.
Magazine's been pushing its digital edition hard. You can read it free in the app once it's a bit behind schedule, and buying the digital magazine through the app lets you reread it later without even buying the collected volumes. At that point, who's buying the print version?
They already do sell overseas, though?
Selling overseas only moves the needle a tiny bit. Even where anime is popular abroad, it only really catches on with a niche otaku crowd.
Wait, Comic Ran actually sold that well? I used to at least browse it in stores back when Fuunji-tachi was running.
My parents' house had old issues of Bunshun from back when Nancy Seki had her column — the print was so small I couldn't even read it, lol. These days the text's bigger but the magazine's thinner, right? I bet declining magazine sales come down to the falling birthrate, plus older readers' eyesight going with age.
I heard the circulation drop was tied to Dragon Ball (ending).
Overall, it was probably the end of the three pillar series back then.
Slam Dunk kept running for about another year after Dragon Ball ended, and most readers stuck around at least that long. That's really where Jump's golden age ended.
Araki doesn't belong in the Big 3. It should be Inoue. JoJo's only popular with a niche crowd.
I think it went out of print a few years back.
There used to be one, but it got discontinued.
Yamada Reiji's Young Sunday (referring to manga artist Reiji Yamada, associated with the magazine)
Those street sellers probably had their own turf, right? But they've all been swept away now. Wonder what happened to those homeless guys.
I saw the same thing around 20 years ago in Jimbocho and Kinshicho too — some homeless-looking guy was selling them.
Background and Key Points of This Discussion
Weekly Shonen Jump once reached circulation in the range of 6 million copies, and its long decline has tracked the broader shrinkage of the magazine market as a whole. The thread split over how to define the “golden age” — readers who grew up on Fist of the North Star and Captain Tsubasa versus those who mark the end of Slam Dunk as the dividing line, showing how much the answer depends on a reader’s age. Another point of debate was that it’s not just print struggling — digital editions are having a hard time too, with free delayed-release reading and the limited size of overseas markets cited as evidence against the simple assumption that “going digital solves everything.” A common misconception is that falling circulation directly reflects declining interest in manga itself; in reality, it largely reflects the shift to reading digital comics on smartphones and the diminishing role of the magazine format itself. For small and mid-sized publishers, the core takeaway of the article is a structural bind: without a flagship hit series, both print and digital revenue keep shrinking.
*This article is compiled as excerpts and a summary from the 5ch (Geisports Bulletin+) thread “Weekly Shonen Jump’s First Drop Below 1 Million Is Just the Tip of the Iceberg — Print Won’t Sell, Digital Won’t Pay: The Fate of Small and Mid-Size Publishers.”
