HomeAnime & MangaManga NewsViz's Weekly Shonen Jump debut issue highlights

Viz’s Weekly Shonen Jump debut issue highlights

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As many of you may know, last week Viz’s Shonen Jump Alpha transformed into Weekly Shōnen Jump by bringing their weekly digital manga releases up to the same day as Japan’s Weekly Shōnen Jump Magazine is released. To commemorate this transformation, Viz’s Weekly Shōnen Jump January 21, 2013 saw a few minor aesthetic changes such as an enhanced introductory and recap section for each manga and a better looking glossary, as well as the debut of a new weekly manga called One-Punch Man.

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Alongside the debut of One-Punch Man and his power to instantly kill enemies with only one hit last Monday, we also saw a full color spread of Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura wearing classic Chinese samurai armor, with Naruto wearing a special Nine-Tail fox themed headpiece. In fact, Naruto received quite the highlight in Weekly Shonen Jump’s debut issue as it not only included the aforementioned color insert, but it also was featured prominently on the issue’s cover and included a note from the series’ mangaka Masashi Kishimoto congratulating the company for going simultaneous.

Not only did this issue feature the oddly intriguing One-Punch Man and focus on Naruto, the issue featured One Piece as Usopp and Franky taking on a new set of enemies appearing on Punk Hazard, a good friend losing her glasses in the rom-com Nisekoi leading to a number of comedic misunderstandings with the idiot-couple and the return of the most feared warrior in the Gotei 13 facing off against what may be the strongest Soul Reaper in Bleach.

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To keep things a bit fresh with sports this issue also featured the next chapter of Cross Manage, a series focusing on a girls Lacrosse team as they enter into their first game and do their best to win. However in the world of the Gourmet Age, Toriko and the gang encounter the Gourmet Corp as they invade the Cooking Festival for nefarious reasons. Finally Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal closes things out in this issue with Kaito and Hishakaku’s duel taking a turn for the worse when Kyoji pulls a dirty trick to throw Kaito off of his game.

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The debut issue closes out with an advertisement for Yu-Gi-Oh! cards and an article covering the Abyss Rising Booster Pack. Also announced in the final page is the fact that January 28th’s issue will see the one-shot manga from the famous Akira Toriyama titled Kintoiki. This serves as a great debut issue for Viz’s newly revamped and simultaneous Weekly Shonen Jump by offering not only a new series and a number of intense battles but also the announcement of a highly regarded mangaka’s next one-shot.

Travis Bruno
Travis Bruno
After playing games since a young age and getting into anime a bit later on its been time to write about a little bit of everything.