The biggest surprise for me was Jujutsu Kaisen. I was feeling pretty confident that when it first came out that it would get axed in less than 20 chapters due to an artstyle that I didn't really find visually appealing and there already being several pretty successful demon/exorcist/battle series going on. Well as history has gone to prove, I was quite incorrect since not only did it survive, it ended up being immediately quite successful. I may be wrong, but I believe it has had the best-selling first volume for a new series in WSJ over the past few years.
From the same serialization batch, I thought Noah's Notes would've done much better than it ended up doing at first. The initial premise seemed pretty interesting, but as later chapters would go on to prove, it seemed to take a too serious approach and lost that fun, interesting vibe it had at the beginning. Ultimately, I wasn't surprised it got axed, but I did feel disappointed since it could've been a fun, interesting series. Still sad the author took it in the direction that he did (plus the ending was pretty depressing).
Honestly, I hope both of them for the time being. Yozakura started off stronger for me between the two, and although some of the newer chapters haven't resonated with me as much as the early ones, I still thoroughly enjoy it. On the other hand, the first few chapters of Mitama largely missed with me. However, the newer chapters have all been fantastic and the humor is exactly on point, even with some genuinely touching moments thrown in (Mr. Commentary's brief flashback from the most recent chapter anyone?).
Did the author of Mitama have a previous serialization, or did they have a popular Twitter series they self-released?
