Celebrating 50 Years of Weekly Shonen Magazines
TOC
Return to the Main Index.
Sample Timeline (taken in part from wikipedia)
1954: Nakayoshi (girl's monthly from Kodansha).
1955: Ribon (girls' monthly from Shueisha).
1956: Weekly Shincho.
1956: Weekly Manga Times (adult weekly from
Houbunsha).
1959: Shogakukan starts its Weekly Shonen Sunday
(3-17).
1959: Kodansha follows with Weekly Shonen Magazine (3-17).
1968: Shueisha launched Weekly Shonen Jump.
1969: Akita starts up Weekly Shonen Champion.
Prior to the 1950's, manga in Japan was either published in monthly magazines, a little bit in the newspapers, or made available as "rental manga". (Rental manga were regular book collections of the strips, but you paid a small fee to read the book and then you returned it in order to get the next book, much like the rental DVD system today. However, most rental stores didn't sell the books outright, and most customers were satisfied with just renting them.
The following information comes from the "Shonen Sunday/Shonen Magazine 50th Anniversary DNA" exhibit which had been held at the Kawasaki Museum, from Aug. to Sept., 2009. It's focus is on just the Sunday and Magazine weekly magazines.
In 1956, Weekly Shincho was inaugurated, triggering the "weekly magazine boom". At the same, a growing number of Japanese households were buying TV sets. Since TV programs followed a weekly schedule, many of the children's magazine publishers decided to do the same instead of going monthly. Shogakukan Publishing released their Weekly Shonen Sunday magazine in 1959, as did Kodansha Publishing with their Weekly Shonen Magazine. Shogagkukan beat out Kodansha in asking Osamu Tezuka to write for them, and followed that up with several of Tezuka's Tokiwa Manor group, including Terada Hiroo and Fujiko Fujio. In this way, Sunday attracted many young readers and established a leading position for boy's magazines, which it kept until the mid-1960's. Some of their hits were Yokoyama Mitsuru's ninja story, "Iga no Kagemaru"; Fujio Akatsuka's gag series "Ozomatsu-kun" (which introduced the "Sheee" pose to the Japanese public; and Fujio Fujiko's "Obake no Q-taro".
As Sunday's main rival, Weekly Shonen Magazine, took the route of narrative manga, with girl's magazine artist Chiba Tetsuya and rental magazine artists Sanpei Shirato, Takao Saito and Shigeru Mizuki. Jiro Kuwata's "Eight Man" (original work by Hirai Kazumasa) became a big hit as a TV anime. The editors had a policy of asking scenario writers to create original works for manga, resulting hints like "Star of the Giants". In 1967, Magazine began carrying Fujio Akatsuka's "Tensai Bakabon", and Takamori Asao (also known as Kajiwara Ikki) and Tetsuya Chiba's "Tomorrow's Joe". At this time, along with the growing baby boomer reader base, Kodansha introduced works to appeal to mid-teen and young adult readers. As a result, many baby boomers continued to read manga as adults.
With the increased competition, the manga magazine publishers expanded to appeal to adolescents and young adults. Magazine appealed to high school students with "Star of the Giants" and "Tomorrow's Joe", along with full-color front pages designed by Shoji Otomo. According to the "DNA" exhibit, "[t]he magazine’s popularity among college students is best evidenced in an article of a college newspaper issued by Waseda University in 1969. The article portrayed a university student as holding Asahi Journal in his right hand and Weekly Shonen Magazine in his left. In 1970, the circulation of Weekly Shonen Magazine reached 1.5 million, a surprising record at the time."
Sunday countered with "Otoko do-aho Koshien", "The Drifting Classroom", "Otokogumi", "Ganbare Genki" and "Survival". However, their circulation was still below that of Magazine, until the great "Bakabon iseki rensai jiken" (the incident where Sunday won the authorship of Fujio Akatsuka's "Tensai Bakabon").
Weekly Boys Jump focused on young male readers, who were the original targets of manga magazines, by carrying the gag and comedy works of winners of the Osamu Tezuka and the Fujio Akatsuka Awards (both awards were created by Jump's publisher, Shueisah). Weekly Boys Champion ran a mix of single-chapter gags and short works along with longer serials, such as Mizushima Shinji's “Dokaben”. Champion's circulation jumped to the top at the end of the 1970's, and competition among the magazines got worse.
In 1977, Weekly Shonen Magazine began carrying Yanagisawa Kimio's romantic “Tonda Couple”, starting a boom of romance comedies. Prior to this, a character’s psychological description had appeared more often in girl’s manga than in boys’ manga. With "Tonda Couple", psychological descriptions became a feature of boy's manga as well.
Sunday's response was to release Rumiko Takahashi's "Urusei Yatsura" in 1978 and Adachi Mitsuru's "Touch" in 1981. These two titles helped the magazine reach a record circulation of 2.28 million copies in 1983, and Sunday has continued to feature romance comedies since then. However, along with Takahashi, Sunday branched out with new types of manga, including the parodies by Kazuhiko Shimamoto ("Hono no Tenkosei") and Masami Yuko (Kyukyoku Chojin R"). Adachi, by contrast, employed a timing closer to rakugo (traditional Japanese comic storytelling).
Through the 1980's, Magazine launched long sports manga, including "1, 2, Sanshiro" by Makoto Kobayashi; "Ashita Tenki ni Naare"; and "Kotaro Makaritoru!" 1983's "Bats & Terry" was the first to combine baseball with stories of delinquents. Shuichi Shigeno's "Bari Bari Densetsu", with its motorcycle riders, became Magazine's biggest hit. In the second half of the 1980's, George Morikawa's "Hajime no Ippo" began its run, introducing the "supakan" genre (sports and guts), in which the hero and a matching rival make extraordinary efforts in sports events, supported by an adult that recognizes their talent. "Supokan" remains a key element of Magazine's titles.
The first half of the 1990's represented the Golden Age of weekly shonen magazines, with the total circulation of the top 4 publications exceeding 10 million copies. This time also marked the introduction of detective stories as the rivalry between Magazine ("Kindaichi Shonen no Jikenbo", 1992) and Sunday ("Detective Conan", 1994) continued unabated.
In 1997, Magazine surpassed Jump in terms of circulation, thanks in part to the sports titles "Hajime no Ippo", "Shoot!" and "J-Dream". These three titles used a common theme that Magazinee continues to employ today, where the efforts and teamwork of ordinary boys leads them on to glory as a team. Magazine also carried stories from the delinquent genre, including "Shonen Jundai Gum! and its sequel "GTO", Chameleon" and "Kaze Densetsu Bukkomi no Taku". "Kindaichi Shonen Jikenbo", "Shota no Sushi" and "Psychometrer Eiji" were released as TV anime series.
In contrast, Sunday hired young new artists that gave us "Obi wo Gyutto ne", which inherited Adachi's flair for combining sports and romance comedy, and "Ghost Sweeper Mikami: The Great Paradise Battle!" and its mix of occultist elements with SF comedy ala Takahashi's "Urusei Yatsura". Other comedies included "Go! Southern Ice Hockey Club" (which ignored hockey in favor of a series of gags) and "The Holy Motemote Kingdom". Takahashi and Adachi continued their string of hits with "Inuyasha" and "H2". Sunday's younger artists gave the magazine the air of an advanced, cutting-edge publication.
Sales of stand-alone manga volumes finally surpassed that of magazines in 2005. With the new digital distribution sales represented by downloads to a cell phones, the manga media is facing some major shake-ups. Magazine is using a mix media strategy with "School Rumble", "Negima: Magister Negi Magi", "Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle" and "Sayanora, Zetsubo Sensei" to good effect. They've also continued their sports and delinquent manga combination with "Air Gear" and "Flunk Punk Rumble".
On the other hand, Sunday continues to feature the works of Adachi and Takahashi along with the ongoing long series "Detective Conan" and "Major". Additionally, they introduced the new hit works "Zatch Bell", "The Law of Ueki", "Yakitate! Japan" and "Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple". Particular attention was focused on the new "Hayate the Combat Butler", with its string of parodies; and "The World God Only Knows", which features a boy expert at simulated romance games, who, armed with a wealth of knowledge from simulated games, approaches a real girl. Meanwhile, the success of "Major" has prodded Magazine to revive its traditional baseball works with "Ace of Diamond" and "Shinyaku Star of the Giants Hanagata"
Sunday and Magazine celebrated their shared 50th anniversaries on March 17, 2009, with jointly produced commemorative posters featuring the catchphrase: "It's Not Collaboration, But Friendship".
------------
As part of the "DNA" exhibit, the Kawasaki Museum had on display some original artwork from 100 of the titles from Sunday and Magazine, representing 50 years each from the two publishers. Along with the original pencil drawings, the exhibit included short descriptions of each of the titles. I'm listing the author names here, followed by the title(s) featured. Clicking on the title will take you to that description. Or, you can go straight to the Titles Database.
Manga-ka List (selected from Sunday and Magazine)