About six months away from it's 10 year anniversary, Viz's Shonen Jump Manga Anthology will be going the way other anthology magazines such as Animerica & Viz's own Shojo Beat. The final issue, April 2012, will be a farewell issue for the most successful manga anthology to date. Viz announced this at the most recent NY Comic Con, but also then announced the release of the digital
Weekly Shonen Jump Alpha that will act as a replacement for the magazine. WSJalpha will begin the in Januaru of 2012 with weekly releases "that are just a few days after Japan" of Naruto, One Piece, and Bleach. Viz's shonen jump website already has older SJ as well as newer series like Toriko and Bakuman that I'm sure will be implemented into the new WSJalpha subscription. You'll be able to read these mangas on your PC, Laptop, Notbook, iPad, iTouch, and any sort of iThings. Don't worry current subscribers, you'll get your first year of WSJa for free as well as three graphic novels (unknown titles of someones decision.)
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| Quickest photoshop mesh-up ever. |
It'll be sad to see the printed Shonen Jump no longer on my store shelf, but all things must come to an end. My bookshelf was running out of room anyways, as I've had to recently pack 2002-2007 Shonen Jumps away. Shonen Jump introduced me to some great series that I will continue to like for along time. To celebrate such a long run, I'd like to comment on some of the series that have ran though the magazine that I have enjoyed.
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| Good old Naruto started on issue 2 of SJ. I can easily say I loved the series until the time skip, now it's a "like-like" relationship. The greatest part of this series was being about to watch the anime with my daughter. |
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| I can't say I loved this series from the get-go, but 10 years later it's become one of my top favorite series. Carefree, fun, never takes itself to seriously. Partial credit goes to Misato-san for getting me into this series. |
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| With the first few chapters published in the monthly magazine, I was provoked to purchase the first novel. (Awesome marketing job, Viz!) After the first volume was read (on the car ride home), I was hooked to see Light's journey all the way to the end. |
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| Really REALLY enjoyed the series, until they removed it from the monthly line-up and published it in novel form only. Damn them, I'll never know Hao's true intention!! |
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| Great series that I look forward to reading more of in the future! |
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| Ok ok, so Shonen Jump had nothing to do with this series becoming my number 1. The reason it's here is because I shit bricks when I saw Kenshin on the cover of SJ with the announcement of the graphic novels being released in English! |
Hopefully this new digital print will be successful. I'll be damned if I have to go back to reading raw scans of the manga like I did back in 1996. XD
Now you know my pain when Wizard magazine went to digital only. In about five years will there even be magazines or comics on shelves anymore? :(
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