Weekly Shōnen Jump
Weekly Shonen Jump (週刊少年ジャンプ Shukan Shonen Jump), with a circulation of over 3 million, is one of the longest-running, weekly manga compilations in Japan. The magazine is circulated in a monthly version in the United States and Canada, and in Germany under the name BANZAI!.
The magazine in Japan has produced some of the most popular manga titles around, including but not limited to:
- Bastard!!
- Beet the Vandel Buster
- Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo
- Busō Renkin
- City Hunter
- Cowa!
- Dr. Slump
- Dragon Ball (The later half of it is titled Dragon Ball Z in North America)
- DNA²
- Hikaru no Go
- Hunter x Hunter
- Kinnikuman (the toy line of that show was released in the U.S. as "M.U.S.C.L.E.")
- Kinnikuman: Nisei (better known as Ultimate Muscle in North America, Northern Europe, Oceania, and some regions)
- Naruto
- One Piece
- The Prince of Tennis
- Rurouni Kenshin
- Saint Seiya (a.k.a. Knights of the Zodiac)
- SandLand
- Shaman King
- Slam Dunk
- Video Girl Ai
- Whistle!
- Yu-Gi-Oh!
- YuYu Hakusho
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Weekly Shonen Jump is targeted towards the young, male demographic ("Shonen" means young boy or man). It features manga with lots of action and adventure, often featuring young, male protagonists with special powers and/or abilities.
Weekly Shonen Jump was launched by Shueisha in 1968, to compete with the already-successful Shonen Magazine and Shonen Sunday. At its highest point, Weekly Shonen Jump had a regular circulation of over 6 million. Weekly Shonen Jump manga titles have also been translated and redistributed in South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Thailand and also in Germany as the compilation magazine BANZAI!. BANZAI! publishes DNA², Hikaru no Go, Naruto, SandLand, Yu-Gi-Oh!, and an original German manga series called Crewman3. Crewman3 is authored by Robert Labs.
In 2002, Shueisha announced a partnership with Viz, a purveyor of anime and manga in the United States to distribute a monthly version of Shonen Jump in that country. In its first issue (January 2003), it sold almost 300,000 copies, making it the top-selling comic book of any kind in the U.S. for that time period. The titles featured in the American version include Dragon Ball Z (The second part of Dragon Ball, named Dragon Ball Z to eliminate confusion for the American audience), Yu-Gi-Oh, YuYu Hakusho, One Piece, Naruto, Shaman King and SandLand. Starting in January 2004, Shonen Jump replaced SandLand with Hikaru no Go in their line-up, since SandLand had ended.
Shonen Jump also runs a line of graphic novels, including those that have run in the American Shonen Jump, but also other titles that ran in the Japanese Shonen Jump but not the American version, like Rurouni Kenshin, Knights of the Zodiac (Saint Seiya), Ultimate M.U.S.C.L.E., Whistle!, The Prince of Tennis, Beet the Vandel Buster, and Bleach.
In the magazine's text, the U.S. Shonen Jump uses a non-standard romanization system (a modified form of the Hepburn system), replacing the macrons used in Hepburn with circumflexes. The manga in the magazine doesn't always reflect this (e.g., the preview for Whistle! used macrons).