Mag Talk Weekly Shonen Jump [2014] - Discussion and TOC Talk

[Pietro]

Have you noticed that Rufy has got Russian's flag on the color pages?It could be possible Oda's insipiring to what's happening in Ukraine?
Sorry for the question if there are some Russian here:
http://i997.mangareader.net/one-piece/741/one-piece-4838779.jpg

 

[Leoat12]

Have you noticed that Rufy has got Russian's flag on the color pages?It could be possible Oda's insipiring to what's happening in Ukraine?
Sorry for the question if there are some Russian here:
http://i997.mangareader.net/one-piece/741/one-piece-4838779.jpg

Russian's flag? Where? If you are talking about the arm brace, it has a difference pattern of colors. With this pattern of red, blue and white, it would be Netherlands flag.

 

[Pietro]

On rufy's arm there is a blue,white and red flag,that'd be Russian flag

---------- Post added at 05:14 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:11 PM ----------

Oh,I'm sorry,you are right,it's Netherland's flag,but are really similiar.

 

[Xadyu]

I doubt he's trying to represent an actual countries flag in a fictional world. Even if the color-spread was inspired by current on-going world events, it's unlikely it will be featured in the magazine at such a fast rate.

 

[Pietro]

Yes,i think you are right.My question is borned on the fact that I believed it was Russian's flag.

 

[Txapeldun]

Yes,i think you are right.My question is borned on the fact that I believed it was Russian's flag.

Russian or not, the color spread is awesome.

 

[UHU]

This isn't anywhere close to the first time Bleach has gotten such a low ranking.

Actually, it is. Bleach hasn't been in the 19th position in the summary since... 2002. And it's only the second time that Bleach has been in this position since the beginning. Things are getting worse for this manga,

Here's a graph from Ritual Scan Forge:

Green is for sales of volumes since oricon data became available.
Blue is for a chapter's position in a Jump issue.
Yellow is for Bleach's average position in the latest 10 Jump issues.
Red is for Bleach's average position in the latest 10 Jump issues.
It's fairly easy to see the popularity of each arc.
Bleach was unpopular until the battle again the Menos.
Its popularity skyrocketed after that to became Jump's third most popular series. It stayed that way until the Fullbringer arc. It recovers briefly when things are quiet, but as soon as the fighting resumes, it bombs.
Volumes' sales, though still higher than most series, follow the same trend.
It is very bad omen. I guess remaining fans should start worrying.

I was also a little bit worried about Illegal Rare already being so low despite not being ranked (Lots a failures get placed low before they begin ranking)

Yeah, that's because there is no such thing as a 8 weeks rule.

 

[Nayrael]

Yeah, that's because there is no such thing as a 8 weeks rule.

Maybe not exactly 8 weeks, but rankings won't start for a few weeks anyway. Counting votes takes time, not to mention that Issues are prepared, made and printed in advance. And then you have a few weeks of grace period during which all series are safe.
As a result, 8 weeks is a good average to start ranking comparisons no matter what the x in "X weeks rule" is.
So unless there is a strong proof of how big the X is, lets stop bringing this up. 8 weeks rule is the most commonly accepted one, it works flawlessly and if we start discussing a different rule we will get nowhere because everyone will have his own preferred opinion.

Anyway, in comparison to one another the four new series have had the same ranking rule: the older you are, the lower your position. It is likely this is done for promotion purposes (extra promotion to the younger ones).

 

[Kaizou 10]

Yeah, that's because there is no such thing as a 8 weeks rule.

Can you provide source for that?

 

[WyldViolet]

Actually, it is. Bleach hasn't been in the 19th position in the summary since... 2002. And it's only the second time that Bleach has been in this position since the beginning. Things are getting worse for this manga,

Here's a graph from Ritual Scan Forge:

Green is for sales of volumes since oricon data became available.
Blue is for a chapter's position in a Jump issue.
Yellow is for Bleach's average position in the latest 10 Jump issues.
Red is for Bleach's average position in the latest 10 Jump issues.
It's fairly easy to see the popularity of each arc.
Bleach was unpopular until the battle again the Menos.
Its popularity skyrocketed after that to became Jump's third most popular series. It stayed that way until the Fullbringer arc. It recovers briefly when things are quiet, but as soon as the fighting resumes, it bombs.
Volumes' sales, though still higher than most series, follow the same trend.
It is very bad omen. I guess remaining fans should start worrying.


Yeah, that's because there is no such thing as a 8 weeks rule.

Bleach got last place not too long back.
Also, there is an 8 week rule or at least something close to it.
All the evidence is there.

 

[Txapeldun]

Can you provide source for that?

Can you provide a source that denies that?
Please don't pull up the Bakuman argument.

 

[Kaizou 10]

Can you provide a source that denies that?

Which one? Source for there is 8 weeks rule? Or not?

 

[WyldViolet]

Can you provide a source that denies that?
Please don't pull up the Bakuman argument.

Lots of mangaka have referenced the survey and rankings in interviews. Oda's done it several times iirc.
Hell, Ashihara just did so in the interview posted here a few days ago.

 

[Txapeldun]

Which one? Source for there is 8 weeks rule? Or not?

Yes. Source of the 8 week rule.

Lots of mangaka have referenced the survey and rankings in interviews. Oda's done it several times iirc.
Hell, Ashihara just did so in the interview posted here a few days ago.

So, he did say that there's 8 weeks of wait in order to know the results?



We shouldn't take the 8 weeks as a law. It is just a vague concept.

 

[Nayrael]

Can you provide a source that denies that?
Please don't pull up the Bakuman argument.

From what I remember, "8 weeks rule" didn't come from Bakuman but a leak from Shueisha.
Granted, the leak is very old so it may have changed by now but using the "8 weeks rule" for predictions proves to still be efficient for all of its purposes. There is absolutely nothing to gain from discarding it, only lose.
Not to mention bringing up this beat-up argument will lead to nothing but 8 weeks rule still being followed because there is nothing better to replace it with... yet people still get the need to bring it up as if it will change something.

 

[WyldViolet]

From what I remember, "8 weeks rule" didn't come from Bakuman but a leak from Shueisha.
Granted, the leak is very old so it may have changed by now but using the "8 weeks rule" for predictions proves to still be efficient for all of its purposes. There is absolutely nothing to gain from discarding it, only lose.
Not to mention bringing up this beat-up argument will lead to nothing but 8 weeks rule still being followed because there is nothing better to replace it with... yet people still get the need to bring it up as if it will change something.

Not to mention, iirc Bakuman never even mentioned the 8 week thing in the first place.
They mentioned the ranking system, but in the story the series were ranked pretty much right away (which we know would be too difficult to actually be the case and lends more credence to the 8 week rule).

 

[Txapeldun]

From what I remember, "8 weeks rule" didn't come from Bakuman but a leak from Shueisha.
Granted, the leak is very old so it may have changed by now but using the "8 weeks rule" for predictions proves to still be efficient for all of its purposes. There is absolutely nothing to gain from discarding it, only lose.
Not to mention bringing up this beat-up argument will lead to nothing but 8 weeks rule still being followed because there is nothing better to replace it with... yet people still get the need to bring it up as if it will change something.

Nonetheless, Bakuman did imply that there's an 8 week lapse, since Hokuto no Ken's first rating was the best ever and it got the first position in the TOC.

I thought the point was clear months ago. It is an estimate possition. There are lots of other factors that we can't analyze.
A series that ranks poorly, is aexd. A series that ranks good, stays.

And that's what we've got.

Sure, we can still speculate, but it is a waste of time.

EDIT

Not to mention, iirc Bakuman never even mentioned the 8 week thing in the first place.
They mentioned the ranking system, but in the story the series were ranked pretty much right away (which we know would be too difficult to actually be the case and lends more credence to the 8 week rule).

Bakuman is fiction. The polls were based in a 1 week rule.

By the way, do you remember if the Hokuto no Ken ranking was mentioned in Bakuman?
(I may be wrong on that one, my memory is not that great.)

 

[UHU]

Bleach got last place not too long back.

It may be my mistake, but I looked for it, and didn't find it. What issue was it?

Can you provide source for that?

Shall I provide source for the non existence of ghosts?
Actually, I have never seen this "8 week rule" mentioned in any official source.
Many mangaka have mentioned the survey and ranking thing in interviews. Rankings do exists. But, we, readers, don't have access to this kind of data. What we can be sure of is that the TOC somehow reflects current popularity of a series. But we must also keep in mind that these TOC are biased, as:
-surveys' results are explicitly kept confidential.
-TOC are also products of editorial decisions (Maxy Barnard said that too a few pages earlier).
So, we can know how well received is a series by observing the trend of its positions in TOC, but it is useless to see a chapter's position as a direct result of just one earlier chapter survey response.

I do agree with Nayrael:

Maybe not exactly 8 weeks, but rankings won't start for a few weeks anyway. Counting votes takes time, not to mention that Issues are prepared, made and printed in advance. And then you have a few weeks of grace period during which all series are safe.
As a result, 8 weeks is a good average to start ranking comparisons no matter what the x in "X weeks rule" is.
So unless there is a strong proof of how big the X is, lets stop bringing this up. 8 weeks rule is the most commonly accepted one, it works flawlessly and if we start discussing a different rule we will get nowhere because everyone will have his own preferred opinion.

Yes, TOC cannot reflect a series popularity right away, we have to wait a few weeks. By experience, I do think that it happens earlier than 8 week (as said "Lots a failures get placed low before they begin ranking" ), but it would preposterous to make a rule, as the baseline is: "we don't know".

 

[Kaizou 10]

Bakuman is fiction. The polls were based in a 1 week rule.

You forgot one thing. The characters from Bakuman are mangakas; they get the poll result even earlier than the readers.

Like did you expect the mangakas know their result as same time as the regular readers?

---------- Post added at 02:04 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:02 PM ----------

Actually, I have never seen this "8 week rule" mentioned in any official source.
Many mangaka have mentioned the survey and ranking thing in interviews. Rankings do exists. But, we, readers, don't have access to this kind of data. What we can be sure of is that the TOC somehow reflects current popularity of a series. But we must also keep in mind that these TOC are biased, as:
-surveys' results are explicitly kept confidential.
-TOC are also products of editorial decisions (Maxy Barnard said that too a few pages earlier).
So, we can know how well received is a series by observing the trend of its positions in TOC, but it is useless to see a chapter's position as a direct result of just one earlier chapter survey response.

It sounds like you didn't read Nayrael's post after that one.

 

[jace93]

(as said "Lots a failures get placed low before they begin ranking"

but that happens also to many popular series... es shokugeki no souma in his last week as uncharted (if you go by the eight weeks rule) was in 10, and had stayed more or less around that position for the previous 4-5 week, essentially at the same level of hungry joker... but passed the magical number of 8 issue of serialization shokugeki no soma jumped in the top 5 and stayed there for most of the time until now, hungry joker plummeted to the last places and got axed pretty quicly...