Thoughts on the New Shonen Jump

Hey guys, as some of you may know, about a month ago, Shonen Jump has changed up quite a bit. They announced not too long ago that they have decided to make Shonen Jump free for all and if you want to pay $1.99 a month you will have access to their vault of manga. This was a super cool idea and I got behind it immediately making sure that I signed up and spread the word a bit amongst my friends because, at the end of the day, we need more accessibility to legal manga that will get everyone off those shitty, virus infested sites. After a month(or more) I thought it would be a good time to give my honest opinion about the service.

Here are some of the benefits they initially claimed they would be rolling out with the new shonen jump:

• Free Manga(three most recent chapters for currently running series)
• Access to a vault containing over 100,000 chapters of manga for $1.99
• Manga being released the same day as it is released in Japan.
• Each release of Shonen Jump is now separated by series.

These are all great things that I was super excited about. I try to support the industry in any way I can but manga has always been one that I found very difficult. I do purchase physical copies but I do like to keep up on my weekly shonen series. Having a hub that contains everything I want to read for such a low price is just insane.

The Good

The separation of the series is awesome. The fact that now I can mark the series I want to follow and just read through makes things so much easier than before. I remember having shonen jump before and I had look through the whole magazine to stay up to date the with the one or two manga I was reading. I also love the fact that they send you an email when they’ve gotten new chapters. Something that many of the streaming anime platforms still hasn’t done with our queues.

I’ve also found it much easier to binge read series that have been on my list for ages but never gotten around to. In the month that Shonen Jump has rebranded, I caught up on Dr. Stone and currently working through Black Clover and We Never Learn. If you are just looking for something to read, the catalog is so massive(if you pay $1.99). Honestly, we really have no excuse to not do the subscription. It’s such a low cost and getting so much.

The Bad

As much as I love that we have the ability to read manga through our smartphones and tablets, a few of my friends and I have encountered many issues with their iOS app. I can’t really speak on any other platforms it can be on since I don’t use them. If you are reading a few chapters back to back, sometimes the app will crash or just be so slow it will actually make it impossible to do anything but wait for it to respond. This turned many of my friends down from using the app. I just stick to the desktop to avoid the problem altogether.

Shonen Jump specifically mentioned that they would be releasing chapters on the site on the same day it releases in Japan. This is something that is pretty hard to promise in the first place but they made the statement. I thought I could get my friends and myself off these janky sites because of it but it seems that they are still a few days ahead of it. I’m guessing there are leaks prior to the release so I don’t want to make it sound like we are being lied to. I truly can’t imagine trying to battle piracy like they are now.

Conclusion

I’m hopeful that the bugs will be addressed soon on the iOS app. I doubt this will be an ongoing issue.

Otherwise, Shonen Jump has been worth every penny and I’m very happy I decided to subscribe. If they would allow me to bump the price of my subscription up, I would. I’m very thankful for what companies like VIZ and Crunchyroll have done to bring us anime and manga so we should really give support what we can. Thankfully, they also offer great stuff for those who can’t afford a subscription. If you are also using Shonen Jump, I’d love to hear your thoughts on it so leave a comment below.

Thanks for reading and have a great weekend!