CATDOLL: Is the decline in sales of comic magazines such as Shonen Jump really the end?

Japanese comics can be said to occupy a large proportion in Japanese culture. In recent years, various publishing houses have also had their own comic serial magazines, among which Shueisha's "Weekly Shonen" series is the most famous. However, in recent years, the sales of Japanese comic magazines have been declining. Even the representative "Weekly Shonen Jump", "Weekly Shonen Sunday" and "Weekly Shonen Magazine" are also in a state of decline. Recently, a Japanese netizen announced the sales of these three magazines last year, and the situation is really not optimistic.

Just looking at the sales in the last quarter of last year, Weekly Shonen Jump dropped by 55,000 copies, Weekly Shonen Sunday dropped by 19,186 copies, and Weekly Shonen Magazine dropped by 22,730 copies. What is surprising is that the sales of Weekly Shonen Jump, which was 2,321,667 copies, is only one-third of the same period in its heyday (1995). The data of 6.53 million copies at that time seemed to be unbreakable. Of course, although it seems that the sales of Weekly Shonen Sunday have dropped the least, the current sales are only a pitiful 356,584 copies, while the sales in the same period of 2010 were 620,000 copies.

Many Japanese netizens lamented: "If JUMP waits until One Piece is finished, sales will probably fall below 1 million, right?" "No wonder Togashi is so confident, waiting for the critical moment to save his life." "SUNDAY boasted about a big reform before, but it seems that there is no effect..." It seems that the industry's recession has really affected a lot, so where will the future of Japanese comics go? Let's pay attention together.