Currently Running Manga Discussion

[Spark Of Spirit]

Robot X Laserbeam is having a 3 year time jump this early in the game? I'm wondering how long he's expecting this story to be.

Here are the results for the Kimetsu no Yaiba popularity poll including vote numbers.

1st Tanjiro Kamado - 6742
2nd Zenitsu Agatsuma - 4299
3rd Nezuko - 3319
4th Giyu Tomioka - 2190
5th Inosuke Hashibira - 1977
6th Shinobu Kocho - 1813
7th Kyojuro Rengoku - 1021
8th Kanao Tuyuri - 712
9th Wani (the author) - 331
10th Makomo - 294
11th Muzan Kibutsuji
12th Mitsuri Kanroji
13th Sabito
14th Urokodaki-san
15th Shinazugawa (wind pillar)
16th Rui (the spider boy)
17th Yushiro
18th Tamayo-sama
19th Chun-taro (Zen's Sparrow?
20th Kyogai (Oni writer)

Not a bad list. Inosuke would be my #2, though.

[LumRanmaYasha]

Robot X Laserbeam is having a 3 year time jump this early in the game? I'm wondering how long he's expecting this story to be.

It's definitely a bold move. I'm really not sure what to think. Honestly, it could be refreshing to see a shonen sports manga focused on the world of a professional sports league and not the standard high school sports tournament format, which has been done to death. I'm just wondering if the other members of Robo's team will join him in going pro.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

It's definitely a bold move. I'm really not sure what to think. Honestly, it could be refreshing to see a shonen sports manga focused on the world of a professional sports league and not the standard high school sports tournament format, which has been done to death. I'm just wondering if the other members of Robo's team will join him in going pro.

What makes it more baffling is that, while the weekly rankings have been all over the place, they haven't been anywhere near bad enough for the series to be in danger of cancellation anytime soon.

The thing about the time-skip is that I'm not actually surprised that it happened in and of itself. Tadatoshi had been building up that Robo was destined to go pro for a while now. It's just surprising that it happened so soon. While I am glad that this manga is going past the inter-high level stage and moving onto the pro league, I feel as though we missed an essential part of Robo's growth leading up to that point. I'm not saying that we needed to spend another hundred plus chapters on high school, but another 20-30 chronologically covering various highlights of at least Robo's first year would have been sufficient, leading to a time-skip past the next two years. This way we could have at least got to see Robo further bonding with his teammates and making a name for himself in the Japan's Golfing scene when he's still a complete unknown. It's kind of a shame to skip over all of that.

Still, the prospect of where this series could go moving forward definitely has me intrigued.

[VLordGTZ]

What makes it more baffling is that, while the weekly rankings have been all over the place, they haven't been anywhere near bad enough for the series to be in danger of cancellation anytime soon.

The thing about the time-skip is that I'm not actually surprised that it happened in and of itself. Horikoshi had been building up that Robo was destined to go pro for a while now. It's just surprising that it happened so soon. While I am glad that this manga is going past the inter-high level stage and moving onto the pro league, I feel as though we missed an essential part of Robo's growth leading up to that point. I'm not saying that we needed to spend another hundred plus chapters on high school, but another 20-30 chronologically covering various highlights of at least Robo's first year would have been sufficient, leading to a time-skip past the next two years. This way we could have at least got to see Robo further bonding with his teammates and making a name for himself in the Japan's Golfing scene when he's still a complete unknown. It's kind of a shame to skip over all of that.

Still, the prospect of where this series could go moving forward definitely has me intrigued.

I didn't know that the creator of MHA started writing RxL in Fujimaki's place. 

I agree that some more time with Robo playing in high school would have been beneficial, especially since they still hadn't even competed in an actual tournament yet.  It's possible that Fujimaki decided to do this time-skip earlier than initially planned in an attempt to gain a larger audience with Jump readers, but it's a ballsy move nonetheless.  I do find it interesting that this is happening around the same time that Hinomaru Sumo has switched from being about high-school to professional sports.  While I'm sure it's not intentional, it is certainly a funny coincidence.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Weekly Shonen Jump Issue #48 (October 25th, 2017):
Golem Hearts (Cover/Lead CP, New Series)
1. One Piece
2. Dr. Stone
Full Drive (CP)
3. Haikyu!!
4. My Hero Academia
Food Wars!: Shokugeki no Soma (CP)
5. Black Clover
6. Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba
Tomatoy Poodle (Not Ranked)
Gintama (CP, Final Popularity Poll Results)
7. The Promised Neverland
8. We Never Learn
9. Hinomaru Zumou
10. The Disastrous Life of Saiki K
11. Spring Weapon No. 1
12. Yuuna and the Haunted Hot Springs
13. Shudan!
14. Robot x Laserbeam
15. Cross Account
Tomatoy Poodle (Not Ranked)


We Never Learn is getting the cover next week. Food Wars and Golem Hearts are getting color pages and a one shot as well. Nothing is very surprising here, but I'm really wondering about Robot. These new developments are quite strange. Nonetheless, it looks like Cross Account has managed to live through this round, which is quite a shock. I really wasn't expecting it to last.

[VLordGTZ]

Robot's ToC placement is definitely concerning given the abrupt time skip.  That being said, the volumes seem to be selling just as well as We Never Learn, so I'm not sure what will happen to it.  I guess we're not getting any more cancellations this round, but I'm pretty confident that Cross Account will meet it's end when the next wave of new series come.  I'm curious to see how Full Drive and Golem Hearts will perform in the coming weeks.

[Spark Of Spirit]

I would say Golem Hearts was easily the strongest of the three new series. The first chapter eases you in without over-explaining the world or rules and gets you used to the main duo really quick. There is a lot of potential for future adventures in this world. I'm anticipating more and I only hope that it will continue to improve as it goes.

[VLordGTZ]

Lycopene was my favorite of the three Jump Starts personally, but Golem Hearts is a close second.  Heck, I even enjoyed Full Drive quite a bit as well, so this was a pretty solid round of series overall.  The big question though is whether Full Drive or Golem Hearts will be able survive with Jump having a lot of heavy-hitters right now.  I guess we'll have to wait and see....

[Spark Of Spirit]

Weekly Shonen Jump Issue #49 (November 1st, 2017):
We Never Learn (Cover, Lead CP)
1. Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba
2. One Piece
3. The Promised Neverland
4. Dr. Stone
Tomatoy Lycopene (Not Ranked)
Golem Hearts (CP)
5. Yuuna and the Haunted Hot Springs
6. Haikyu!!
Full Drive (Not Ranked)
7. Hinomaru Zumo
8. The Disastrous Life of Saiki K
Grimm Reaper (CP, Oneshot)
9. Black Clover
Food Wars!: Shokugeki no Soma (CP)
10. Robot x Laserbeam
11. Gintama
12. Spring Weapon No. 1
13. Shudan!
14. Cross Account
Tomatoy Lycopene (Not Ranked)


No MHA this week, but KnY gets first again even above One Piece. The rest of the ranks are pretty much standard, except for a random Black Clover dip. But that doesn't matter as it's getting the cover next week. Also, Yuuna is getting color pages as is Spring Weapon. As it is it's looking like Cross Account s definitely ending before the year is out, and Shudan might join it at this rate. Also, it looks like Yuuna will have an important announcement next week. Otherwise, not much to talk about.

[VLordGTZ]

That important announcement for Yuna is likely a Jump Festa OVA or TV anime announcement since a production committee label has been found on its Jump Festa event web-page.

I'm curious if we might get a Kimetsu no Yaiba anime announcement at/prior to Jump Festa this year.  The time is certainly ripe considering how well it's doing in the magazine.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Weekly Shonen Jump Issue #50 (November 7th, 2017):
Black Clover (Cover, Lead CP)
1. Dr. Stone
2. One Piece
3. Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba
4. My Hero Academia
5. The Promised Neverland
Tomatoy Lycopene (Not Ranked)
6. The Disastrous Life of Saiki K
7. Haikyu!!
Goo to Goo (CP, One Shot)
8. We Never Learn
Golem Hearts (Not Ranked)
Yuuna and the Haunted Hotsprings (CP, Anime Adaptation Announcement)
Full Drive (Not Ranked)
9. Robot×Laserbeam
Spring Weapon Number One (CP)
10. Hinomaru Zumou
11. Gintama
12. Food Wars!: Shokugeki no Soma
13. Cross Account
14. Shudan!
Tomatoy Lycopene


I'd say this is bad news for Shudan, but it is getting a color page next week announcing that this is the end of the "Elementary School Arc" so who knows where that is going. Dr. Stone has really been doing well recently so it's no surprise to see it so high and the rest is pretty much where it usually is. Next week Boruto gets the cover and a color page, but KnY gets the lead color, and as stated Shudan and Promised Neverland are getting color pages as well. Not surprised Yuuna is getting an anime, but I would have supposed KnY would have too since they started at the same time as each other and both have enough material for a 24-26 episode season. Oh well.

[VLordGTZ]

There's some speculation that Shudan might move to a different magazine (or Jump+) after this arc concludes.  The while it's volume sales aren't amazing, I think it's still selling well enough that Jump doesn't want to kill it.  We'll have to wait and see what happens in the coming weeks.

KnY is bound to get an anime announcement soon, though I suspect Jump wants some breathing room between announcing Yuuna's anime and it.  If we don't hear anything about a KnY anime at Jump Festa, I'm sure something will be announced in early 2018.  The series is doing too well for Shueisha not to be working on getting an anime green-lit for it.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Well, I finally caught up with Hinomaru Zumou's scans, and I realized my mistake in starting a series that has virtually no chance of being licensed over here and which is infrequently being fan translated. This is going to be another Baby Steps situation for me.

At any rate, it's a really good sports manga, arguably the best currently running in WSJ (and the best of the last few years, at that) and it's nice that the group working on it at least had the good grace to leave off at the end of the High School portion of the manga as opposed to the middle of an arc.

[Spark Of Spirit]

It only has a shot at release if it either gets an anime or is picked up by someone like Seven Seas. It's a really good series, but it just doesn't have much natural mainstream appeal. Shame since, like Yuuna and KnY, it started in the same round as MHA and has been running as long as that has.

But it's also up against some stiff competition in Jump itself. I think the magazine has the best line up it has had in years.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

To be fair, Sports manga and anime have been slowly but gradually growing in popularity among the Western anime fan-base, to the point where the big hitters like Kuroko no Basket and Haikyuu!! are getting full-fledged physical releases. It's still very much a niche genre over here, but a niche that's big enough to warrant some attention from licensing publishers.

Unfortunately, Hinomaru Zumou is a niche within a niche. The actual execution of the manga is in itself very straightforward and familiar to any fans of the genre, but its subject matter of Sumo (which while deeply rooted in Japanese history, culture, and tradition, has undeniably dwindled in popularity) keeps many from even paying it much mind and thus I would take an educated guess and say that a lot of Jump readers don't even give it much of a chance and just skip over it. Obviously it still does well enough to be able to keep running to this day, but it isn't the type of work that has enough immediate appeal to score an early anime adaptation deal or sell an above average amount of volumes. I have a feeling that RXL is subject to similar circumstances.