Growing Up With Shonen Jump

They say that every generation has a magazine that defines them: Mad, Fangoria, Playboy, National Lampoon, Rolling Stone, Nintendo Power. At the time, such magazines were just another exciting and informative distraction to look forward to, but looking back, you realize how much they shaped the thoughts and dreams of your youth. For me, whose fondest memories were defined by Dragon Ball after school, Yu-Gi-Oh duels on the weekends, and sneaking Bleach manga in-between classes, that magazine was Shonen Jump.


Now, just to clarify, when I say, Shonen Jump, I don't speak of the original Japanese weekly that's been in publication since 1968, but of the monthly American adaptation that launched in 2002 and ended in 2012. For many kids born in the early 90's our gateway into the world of anime was through the Saturday morning cartoon line-up: Pokemon, Digimon, and a little later, Yu-Gi-Oh, as well the evenings on Cartoon Network with Dragon Ball Z, Yu Yu Hakusho, and Rurouni Kenshin. Out of all of these stories, only Yu-Gi-Oh kept a sustained hold on me, due to my interest in the trading card game, and many exclusive rare cards were included with Jump magazine. My very first copy of Jump included the Trap Card "Embodiment of Aphosis", which was later stolen, but I at least still had the magazine to read, and what a magazine it was.

Initially, my brothers and I only begged our parents to buy Jump to get the next rare card. We were like aficionados of Playboy who saw only the centerfold, but once the shock of a naked woman fades, you start to read the articles. I naturally only read the Yu-Gi-Oh manga, which told a more uncut story than the sanitized version we got from 4Kids, but from there, I began to read some of the other manga that also had appearances on 4Kids, like One Piece and Shaman King. Then when Naruto and Bleach went on Cartoon Network, I found myself searching past Jump issues for any missed chapters. I read so much Jump in those days, that nearly all of my early manga purchases were based on what I read in the magazine. I even pushed myself to read stranger manga like D-Gray Man, Black Cat, Gin-Tama, and Claymore, based on their Jump debut specials. Not to mention Death Note, which while being very dark for my age, was still extremely popular for debates around the middle school playground.

While Jump did a rather short run in print, I think that the impact it had on the otaku community is not to be understated. Drawing them in with trading cards and the hottest anime, Jump introduced a new generation of otaku to manga, one of Japan's highest literary arts. Manga translations, of course, existed before Jump's launch, but they could be a hard sell, especially to young people. They were black and white, not splashing with color like American comics, and had to be read from right-to-left, as opposed to left-to-right. Of course, the strength of a manga belongs to the artist alone, but Jump was a cheap way for curious readers to take a dip into the pool. This popularity was also helped by the fact that the magazine printed one of the most accessible genres in manga, one which had palpable parallels to the superhero comics of Marvel and DC. Jump came right at the perfect time, when young otaku were starting to grow out of Pokemon and Digimon, and in need of stories more mature and action-packed. The time was ripe for shonen's "The Big Three": Naruto, One Piece, and Bleach, to take command of the anime scene, which in turn reverberated to sales of their respective manga. Millions of volumes were sold. Jump was the lifeline that kept many of us in the world of anime and manga through our adolescence, and our springboard into more diverse and challenging stories.

Of course, every thick issue of Jump didn't thrive on manga alone. The front covers were always exciting and colorful, commonly with an image of Goku, Yugi, or Naruto. The introductory and ending color pages had the latest news on upcoming manga, anime, and merchandise. There were exclusive interviews with creators and fans, and a small Japanese vocabulary lesson each issue. There were also useful tips and strategies included with each rare card, and articles exploring the themes of particular manga, my favorite was their commemorative issue on Dragon Ball. Yet with the rise of online manga translations, it only seemed inevitable that Jump, like so many other magazines, would also have to go digital. This was probably their smartest decision business-wise, but it's also a sad thing. There was something about the freshly printed paper, flipping through the new manga, and claiming that shiny new card which doesn't quite translate in today's digital world. It was an exciting ride, however brief, and I never forgot one thing: that true ninja, true soul reapers, true pirates, true duelists, true spirit detectives, true shamans, true rurouni, and true super saiyans always read manga from right to left.