I'm Famous!

Feeling nostalgic upon learning that Viz was celebrating the fifth anniversary of Shonen Jump magazine, I decided to read the Wikipedia entry on the popular manga anthology. As I worked my way toward the bottom of the entry, I was surprised to run across a familiar name:

"Color me surprised. Largely as a show of support for the anthology format, I signed up for subscriptions for both RAIJIN COMICS and SHONEN JUMP, but I was sure that I would enjoy the former much more than the latter since RC was promoted as being targeted for an older audience, and since SJ featured series that I associated with young children's cartoons. Instead, having read both first issues, I find that (so far) I much prefer SHONEN JUMP, both in terms of actual story content as well as in terms of the magazine's production values."

—John Jakala, ANN

Reviewers of the magazine applauded the selection of series and the various articles included in each issue.In his coverage of the magazine's debut issue, John Jakala of Anime News Network, compared it to the debut issue of competing work Raijin Comics and was surprised to find himself preferring Shonen Jump, despite it being targeted for a younger age group than Raijin Comics. Calling it an "impressive debut issue", Jakala predicted that its high quality content and high value for the price would result in the anthology becoming a successful anthology in North America. In succeeding reviews, Jakala stated that Shonen Jump put "American comics to shame", particularly in terms of the size of the magazine for the price versus the normal size of a similarly priced issue of a regular comic book. He did, however, note that the episodic nature of some of the series included had started to become repetitive after three issues, and that while the articles might appeal to many readers, he himself skipped over them.

The funny bit is I'd just linked to the Wikipedia SJ Entry last week but the quotes from my reviews weren't there at the time. (It looks like the references to my reviews were added on July 12th.)

To commerate this momentous occasion, I will be releasing my old reviews in special hardcover Fifth Anniversary Collector's Editions! Order now!!

Labels: Internet Fame, Shonen Jump, The Joys of Googling Yourself, Viz

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