On December 20, 2018, Viz Media did something simultaneously insane & brilliant. It ended the digital Weekly Shonen Jump magazine, which itself replaced the physical Shonen Jump magazine that ran monthly for years, & in its place was a brand new subscription model. For just $1.99/month, readers would gain access to every single Jump manga that Viz was simulpublishing on a weekly basis, just like the digital magazine, but unlike before you weren't at the mercy of back-issues that you had to otherwise purchase separately, if you weren't subscribing from the very beginning. Instead, every chapter of every simulpublished manga was made available on a new Shonen Jump app, so new subscribers could easily catch up; you could also read them online at Viz's website. But what exactly was insane about this new endeavor?
Hmmm, maybe the fact that Viz was also offering nearly every single Shonen Jump manga it had ever published on the app as well!
Yes, for just $24/year, one has access to not only brand new, weekly chapters of currently-running manga, but can also read the entire runs of over 50 different manga from the past, in what Viz calls the Shonen Jump Vault, with the only restriction being that you can only read up to 100 chapters each day; for most, that's immensely more than reasonable. However, the keyword there is nearly, because Viz didn't instantly make all of its currently-published Jump manga available on the app right away. In fact, some series, like Fire Punch, Platinum End, &Ral Ω Grad, are only available via the website, likely due to content that wouldn't fly on an app that's (technically) for all ages. Still, when this new program launched, Viz did promise that other manga would get added over time. So, over this past year, there have been the occasional new additions to the SJ Vault, regardless of whether they're from Weekly Shonen Jump or not, like One-Punch Man(which is Shonen Jump-adjacent, as volumes are published under the Jump Comics label in Japan), JoJo's Bizarre Adventure (all the way up to the current release of Diamond is Unbreakable), Boys Over Flowers (which isn't a Jump manga, but the currently-running sequel is serialized over at Jump+, so Viz tossed both in), & even Golden Kamuyfrom Young Jump (though, due to its mature content, it's only available on the website, not via the app).
My Hero Academia: Smash Joins Viz Media's Online Shonen Jump Vault
However, the people at Viz did also indicate that their overall goal is to, ideally, make available ANY manga that ever got published under the Shonen Jump (& Shonen Jump Advanced) label on the app; naturally, achieving this would likely require negotiating new licenses for older titles. Of course, it's obvious that Viz will not eventually put up literally every Jump-related manga it has ever published in its 33-year history. For example, the Vault will never see those old releases of Space Adventure Cobra, Baoh, or Fist of the North Star that Viz released during the late 80s & early 90s, because they were done in the old flipped format, and two of them weren't even finished. However, there are still 22 different Jump manga that Viz has published in the past, in unflipped format, that are not currently on the app, so I just want to go over each of those & see what could, theoretically, still get added to the Shonen Jump Vault.
This will be split across three parts, and first up is what I call Simply Waiting for Their Turns, as all of these Jump manga are currently being offered digitally already by Viz, but are just not available as part of the subscription.
As usual, let's just immediately address the 500 lb gorilla & get it out the way. No matter how you feel about his slow-as-molasses production rate nowadays, mainly caused by his history of chronic back problems, Yoshihiro Togashi is easily one of the most cherished mangaka in the history of Shonen Jump. While it wasn't his debut serialization, 1990's Yu Yu Hakusho was a landmark series from the second half of the Golden Age of Jump, bringing with it a smarter, more introspective take on the shonen action formula that made it a smash hit, one that even beat out Akira Toriyama's Dragon Ball on occasion, in terms of at-the-moment popularity. In fact, the only reason Togashi ended the manga after 19 volumes was simply because he had gotten physically tired of making it, and didn't want to continue if his heart (& body) wasn't in it anymore. Four years later, following an constantly expectation-breaking short run with Level E, Togashi returned with 1998'sHunter x Hunter, which expanded even more on his penchant for delivering a more thinking man's take on shonen action, and while it's still technically running to this day, & currently at 36 volumes, it hasn't had a truly consistent pace ever since 2005, and there haven't been any new chapters for well over a year, by now; still not as bad as the four-year gap between Volumes 32 & 33, however.
Viz Media Offering Free Chapters Of Shonen Jump Along With Digital Vault Membership Details!
Still, this isn't about the merits of Yoshihiro Togashi's two most iconic works, but rather this is about the fact that neither is currently available to read via the subscription... Even though both are listed on the Shonen Jump app. Yes, you can load up the app right now, go to the All Series section, scroll on down to the Hs & Ys, and find listings for both Yu Yu Hakusho & Hunter x Hunter, but doing so will only give you the ability to purchase the digital versions of their respective volumes. Obviously, for Viz to even make the Shonen Jump Vault a reality, the licensing department more than likely had to renegotiate with not only co-parent company Shueisha, but also get the approval of every single mangaka to allow their works to be made available for instant reading via subscription, instead of only allowing one to do so by purchasing the book digitally; I can't even start to imagine what the mangaka royalties for this service are like. Obviously, with digital versions of both of these series existing, Togashi has no problem with his work being released digitally, but maybe he's a bit hesitant to make his titles THIS easily available; honestly, the same could be said of most of the manga in this part. Of course, this is all just speculation, but considering how Yu Yu Hakusho & Hunter x Hunter are both on the app, technically, I'm sure these are two series Viz will likely try to get added to Vault proper sooner, rather than later.
By the by, why hasn't Viz bothered to release more of Togashi's manga, anyway? By this point, FUNimation has long released the anime adaptation of Level E, so I just find it odd that Viz has never released the original three-volume manga. Also, what about Togashi's debut series, 1989's romantic comedy Ten de Showaru Cupid/An Extremely Sexual Cupid? Sure, even Togashi has admitted that it was a failure, but you'd think Viz would be all for giving fans more of the man's catalog, in between the long waits for new volumes of Hunter x Hunter.
[4/2023 UPDATE: I had planned on waiting until both got added, but for the time being all ofHunter x Hunterhas been added to the Shonen Jump Vault!]
Anyone Know Why Hells Paradise Isn't In The Shonen Jump Or Viz App ? I Wanted To Download It To Read On A Flight :( It's On The Website But Not The
Boy, for a manga that Viz has seemingly never really wanted to do, it sure has given it more tries than you'd think. Just ask series translator (& big fan of the manga) Mari Morimoto, and she'll gladly tell you about she had pleaded to Viz during the 90s to release this manga, only to be told No, it's too old, but once DiC licensed the anime for TV airing on Cartoon Network, Viz was all for finally bringing over Knights of the Zodiac: Saint Seiya! (At least they remembered to hire Morimoto to translate it) Now, to be fair, there is also the possibility that Viz may have been forced to release the manga by order of Shueisha, which I'm sure was all for trying to turn Masami Kurumada's international smash hit into a new anime & manga sensation North of Mexico. Unfortunately, DiC's horrifically botched execution of its edit of the anime didn't do the manga any favors, especially since Viz was forced to maintain all of the name & terminology changes that DiC had done. Also, to be fair, the early 00s just wasn't a time to release classic manga, unless it had already been previously established as a hit, like Ranma 1/2 or Dragon Ball had; even the JoJo's Bizarre Adventure manga bombed the first time, as it predated the TV anime. Still, Viz continued to release theSaint Seiya manga, though after Volume 18 the schedule slowed from bimonthly to triannually, before finally releasing Volume 28 in early 2010, bringing the series to an end.
By that point, you'd think Viz would want nothing more to do with Saint Seiya. After all, it infamously sold poorly, was tied to an old TV edit that no
Boy, for a manga that Viz has seemingly never really wanted to do, it sure has given it more tries than you'd think. Just ask series translator (& big fan of the manga) Mari Morimoto, and she'll gladly tell you about she had pleaded to Viz during the 90s to release this manga, only to be told No, it's too old, but once DiC licensed the anime for TV airing on Cartoon Network, Viz was all for finally bringing over Knights of the Zodiac: Saint Seiya! (At least they remembered to hire Morimoto to translate it) Now, to be fair, there is also the possibility that Viz may have been forced to release the manga by order of Shueisha, which I'm sure was all for trying to turn Masami Kurumada's international smash hit into a new anime & manga sensation North of Mexico. Unfortunately, DiC's horrifically botched execution of its edit of the anime didn't do the manga any favors, especially since Viz was forced to maintain all of the name & terminology changes that DiC had done. Also, to be fair, the early 00s just wasn't a time to release classic manga, unless it had already been previously established as a hit, like Ranma 1/2 or Dragon Ball had; even the JoJo's Bizarre Adventure manga bombed the first time, as it predated the TV anime. Still, Viz continued to release theSaint Seiya manga, though after Volume 18 the schedule slowed from bimonthly to triannually, before finally releasing Volume 28 in early 2010, bringing the series to an end.
By that point, you'd think Viz would want nothing more to do with Saint Seiya. After all, it infamously sold poorly, was tied to an old TV edit that no
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