Mag Talk Weekly Shonen Jump [2021] - Discussion and ToC Talk

[ItsSamu]

Me & Roboco's boost isn't that impressive considering the amount of promo it's had so that is disappointing, however it has still gone up and I never expected it to sell better than Phantom Seer on the same month. At this point it's fair to say they've got different strengths/consumers depending on whether you weigh how good they're doing in the magazine vs with their volumes. It wouldn't be unwise to assume that Me & Roboco works well in the magazine and gets higher rankings because it primarily appeals to a younger audience than other series (though still has references that more seasoned manga readers can pick up on) and is the best performing gag manga currently running, while Phantom Seer has competition against the rest of action series week-to-week however has enough dedicated fans when it comes to the volumes.

Since we had five/six gag manga at the same time only a month or so ago I decided to go back and see how each performed in their volume 2 first week sales as well as some other gag/comedy manga from across the past few years (including Yozakura since it did have a very comedy-centric beginning):

1. Me & Roboco V2 - 10,645 (4 Days)
2. Magu-chan: God of Destruction V2 - 9,500 (7 Days)
3. Yozakura Family V2 - 6,595 (3 Days)
4. Spring Weapon Number One V2 - 6,057 (6 days)
5. Agrvaity Boys V2 - 5,585 (3 Days)
6. Teenage Renaissance! David V2 - 4,064 (7 days)
7. High School Family: Kokosei Kazoku V2 - 3,636 (4 Days)
8. I'm From Japan V2 - Lower than David, couldn't find numbers
9. Moriking V2 - Not in Shoseki
10. Mitama Security: Spirit Busters V2 - Not in Shoseki

I can't find the exact numbers for Lycopene the Tamatoy Poodle but it's possible that sold more than Me & Roboco at the similar time, though by then it had moved to Jump+ already. Otherwise it looks like the last gag manga (that remained in WSJ) to sell better than Me & Roboco at this point were Samon-sun wa Summoner in 2016 and Isobe Isobee Monogatari's V2 from back in 2014.

Everyone already knows that gag manga always sell less than their action counterparts, so even if the boost wasn't massive it was still enough to put it over the rest of its genre competition over the past several years. Unless something major happens Me & Roboco is hardly in danger; as a gag manga it's got very good rankings and is doing decently well sales-wise although still not near the highs of Saiki or Isobee from early 2010's. I do hope it continues to grow to match the rest of the magazine, otherwise it's going to be continually compared against other genres that typically sell better and blamed for not being axed instead of them.

 

[Mammo]

My guess is he'll go to Jump+ for a proper delinquent manga instead of one disguised as another genre and find minor but stable success there.

Perhaps even taking the route most 80s and 90s Jump mangaka eventually have taken and make sequels and prequels to their hit series, but Beelzebub was clearly running out of ideas by the end so I don't know if he could really manage that.

he could do a series about music since he did 2 oneshots about the subject (Ura Beat and Rappa Rendan), but I don't know, I feel like he would just pack it full of ideas and it will be hard to read too

like in HM, if you remove the gender bender, the ecchi, the exorcists, the family melodrama, it's a fish-out-of-water type of series
and and could probably find an audience with the cute-girls-doing-cute-things crowd

and C&D, if you remove all the fantasy elements, all the fanserives, it's a series an adult changing towns and man-vs-himself story, which would be completely different from anything in Jump and could bode well for it

but nope, he went and added 1000 different things to his work, because he seems to think bigger = better
maybe an editors change could fix his career

 

[savethecat]

he could do a series about music since he did 2 oneshots about the subject (Ura Beat and Rappa Rendan), but I don't know, I feel like he would just pack it full of ideas and it will be hard to read too

like in HM, if you remove the gender bender, the ecchi, the exorcists, the family melodrama, it's a fish-out-of-water type of series
and and could probably find an audience with the cute-girls-doing-cute-things crowd

and C&D, if you remove all the fantasy elements, all the fanserives, it's a series an adult changing towns and man-vs-himself story, which would be completely different from anything in Jump and could bode well for it

but nope, he went and added 1000 different things to his work, because he seems to think bigger = better
maybe an editors change could fix his career

To be fair, while I think the ideas you suggested would be way better and way more interesting than what we actually got, I can’t imagine Jump would actually accept those as serializations.

 

[Chuck_Atlas]

Me & Roboco's boost isn't that impressive considering the amount of promo it's had so that is disappointing, however it has still gone up and I never expected it to sell better than Phantom Seer on the same month. At this point it's fair to say they've got different strengths/consumers depending on whether you weigh how good they're doing in the magazine vs with their volumes. It wouldn't be unwise to assume that Me & Roboco works well in the magazine and gets higher rankings because it primarily appeals to a younger audience than other series (though still has references that more seasoned manga readers can pick up on) and is the best performing gag manga currently running, while Phantom Seer has competition against the rest of action series week-to-week however has enough dedicated fans when it comes to the volumes.

Since we had five/six gag manga at the same time only a month or so ago I decided to go back and see how each performed in their volume 2 first week sales as well as some other gag/comedy manga from across the past few years (including Yozakura since it did have a very comedy-centric beginning):

1. Me & Roboco V2 - 10,645 (4 Days)
2. Magu-chan: God of Destruction V2 - 9,500 (7 Days)
3. Yozakura Family V2 - 6,595 (3 Days)
4. Spring Weapon Number One V2 - 6,057 (6 days)
5. Agrvaity Boys V2 - 5,585 (3 Days)
6. Teenage Renaissance! David V2 - 4,064 (7 days)
7. High School Family: Kokosei Kazoku V2 - 3,636 (4 Days)
8. I'm From Japan V2 - Lower than David, couldn't find numbers
9. Moriking V2 - Not in Shoseki
10. Mitama Security: Spirit Busters V2 - Not in Shoseki
11. Seiji Tanaka V2 - Not in Shoseki

I can't find the exact numbers for Lycopene the Tamatoy Poodle but it's possible that sold more than Me & Roboco at the similar time, though by then it had moved to Jump+ already. Otherwise it looks like the last gag manga (that remained in WSJ) to sell better than Me & Roboco at this point were Samon-sun wa Summoner in 2016 and Isobe Isobee Monogatari's V2 from back in 2014.

Everyone already knows that gag manga always sell less than their action counterparts, so even if the boost wasn't massive it was still enough to put it over the rest of its genre competition over the past several years. Unless something major happens Me & Roboco is hardly in danger; as a gag manga it's got very good rankings and is doing decently well sales-wise although still not near the highs of Saiki or Isobee from early 2010's. I do hope it continues to grow to match the rest of the magazine, otherwise it's going to be continually compared against other genres that typically sell better and blamed for not being axed instead of them.

Just a Lil nitpick, but Seiji Tanaka wasn’t a gag

 

[101nemesis]

Me & Roboco's boost isn't that impressive considering the amount of promo it's had so that is disappointing, however it has still gone up and I never expected it to sell better than Phantom Seer on the same month. At this point it's fair to say they've got different strengths/consumers depending on whether you weigh how good they're doing in the magazine vs with their volumes. It wouldn't be unwise to assume that Me & Roboco works well in the magazine and gets higher rankings because it primarily appeals to a younger audience than other series (though still has references that more seasoned manga readers can pick up on) and is the best performing gag manga currently running, while Phantom Seer has competition against the rest of action series week-to-week however has enough dedicated fans when it comes to the volumes.

Since we had five/six gag manga at the same time only a month or so ago I decided to go back and see how each performed in their volume 2 first week sales as well as some other gag/comedy manga from across the past few years (including Yozakura since it did have a very comedy-centric beginning):

1. Me & Roboco V2 - 10,645 (4 Days)
2. Magu-chan: God of Destruction V2 - 9,500 (7 Days)
3. Yozakura Family V2 - 6,595 (3 Days)
4. Spring Weapon Number One V2 - 6,057 (6 days)
5. Agrvaity Boys V2 - 5,585 (3 Days)
6. Teenage Renaissance! David V2 - 4,064 (7 days)
7. High School Family: Kokosei Kazoku V2 - 3,636 (4 Days)
8. I'm From Japan V2 - Lower than David, couldn't find numbers
9. Moriking V2 - Not in Shoseki
10. Mitama Security: Spirit Busters V2 - Not in Shoseki

I can't find the exact numbers for Lycopene the Tamatoy Poodle but it's possible that sold more than Me & Roboco at the similar time, though by then it had moved to Jump+ already. Otherwise it looks like the last gag manga (that remained in WSJ) to sell better than Me & Roboco at this point were Samon-sun wa Summoner in 2016 and Isobe Isobee Monogatari's V2 from back in 2014.

Everyone already knows that gag manga always sell less than their action counterparts, so even if the boost wasn't massive it was still enough to put it over the rest of its genre competition over the past several years. Unless something major happens Me & Roboco is hardly in danger; as a gag manga it's got very good rankings and is doing decently well sales-wise although still not near the highs of Saiki or Isobee from early 2010's. I do hope it continues to grow to match the rest of the magazine, otherwise it's going to be continually compared against other genres that typically sell better and blamed for not being axed instead of them.

I mean, the only thing this list does show is that ALL are doing/have done terribly and not that Roboco is doing anything great with its sales.
lol.

Robocco has shown some growth with the new volume but it's disappointing after all merch, CPs, JJK parody video etc that it had going for it.
Roboco isn't in danger now because there are like 3 other manga before it that deserve to be canned (Cop, HSF, Magu). Doesn't mean it's got decent sales by any means, even for a gag.

Nothing about its sales is decent. It's just "better" than other newbies that came around the same time and survives because of the state of the magazine, as is the case with Magu and as was the case with Yoza.

 

[Ike79]

Me & Roboco's boost isn't that impressive considering the amount of promo it's had so that is disappointing, however it has still gone up and I never expected it to sell better than Phantom Seer on the same month. At this point it's fair to say they've got different strengths/consumers depending on whether you weigh how good they're doing in the magazine vs with their volumes. It wouldn't be unwise to assume that Me & Roboco works well in the magazine and gets higher rankings because it primarily appeals to a younger audience than other series (though still has references that more seasoned manga readers can pick up on) and is the best performing gag manga currently running, while Phantom Seer has competition against the rest of action series week-to-week however has enough dedicated fans when it comes to the volumes.

Since we had five/six gag manga at the same time only a month or so ago I decided to go back and see how each performed in their volume 2 first week sales as well as some other gag/comedy manga from across the past few years (including Yozakura since it did have a very comedy-centric beginning):

1. Me & Roboco V2 - 10,645 (4 Days)
2. Magu-chan: God of Destruction V2 - 9,500 (7 Days)
3. Yozakura Family V2 - 6,595 (3 Days)
4. Spring Weapon Number One V2 - 6,057 (6 days)
5. Agrvaity Boys V2 - 5,585 (3 Days)
6. Teenage Renaissance! David V2 - 4,064 (7 days)
7. High School Family: Kokosei Kazoku V2 - 3,636 (4 Days)
8. I'm From Japan V2 - Lower than David, couldn't find numbers
9. Moriking V2 - Not in Shoseki
10. Mitama Security: Spirit Busters V2 - Not in Shoseki

I can't find the exact numbers for Lycopene the Tamatoy Poodle but it's possible that sold more than Me & Roboco at the similar time, though by then it had moved to Jump+ already. Otherwise it looks like the last gag manga (that remained in WSJ) to sell better than Me & Roboco at this point were Samon-sun wa Summoner in 2016 and Isobe Isobee Monogatari's V2 from back in 2014.

Everyone already knows that gag manga always sell less than their action counterparts, so even if the boost wasn't massive it was still enough to put it over the rest of its genre competition over the past several years. Unless something major happens Me & Roboco is hardly in danger; as a gag manga it's got very good rankings and is doing decently well sales-wise although still not near the highs of Saiki or Isobee from early 2010's. I do hope it continues to grow to match the rest of the magazine, otherwise it's going to be continually compared against other genres that typically sell better and blamed for not being axed instead of them.

I have written down that Mitama Sesurity Vol 2 sold 4,480 copies in 5 days. That would put it between Agravity and David in your list.

 

[yadayada]

Me & Roboco's boost isn't that impressive considering the amount of promo it's had so that is disappointing, however it has still gone up and I never expected it to sell better than Phantom Seer on the same month. At this point it's fair to say they've got different strengths/consumers depending on whether you weigh how good they're doing in the magazine vs with their volumes. It wouldn't be unwise to assume that Me & Roboco works well in the magazine and gets higher rankings because it primarily appeals to a younger audience than other series (though still has references that more seasoned manga readers can pick up on) and is the best performing gag manga currently running, while Phantom Seer has competition against the rest of action series week-to-week however has enough dedicated fans when it comes to the volumes.

Since we had five/six gag manga at the same time only a month or so ago I decided to go back and see how each performed in their volume 2 first week sales as well as some other gag/comedy manga from across the past few years (including Yozakura since it did have a very comedy-centric beginning):

1. Me & Roboco V2 - 10,645 (4 Days)
2. Magu-chan: God of Destruction V2 - 9,500 (7 Days)
3. Yozakura Family V2 - 6,595 (3 Days)
4. Spring Weapon Number One V2 - 6,057 (6 days)
5. Agrvaity Boys V2 - 5,585 (3 Days)
6. Teenage Renaissance! David V2 - 4,064 (7 days)
7. High School Family: Kokosei Kazoku V2 - 3,636 (4 Days)
8. I'm From Japan V2 - Lower than David, couldn't find numbers
9. Moriking V2 - Not in Shoseki
10. Mitama Security: Spirit Busters V2 - Not in Shoseki
11. Seiji Tanaka V2 - Not in Shoseki

I can't find the exact numbers for Lycopene the Tamatoy Poodle but it's possible that sold more than Me & Roboco at the similar time, though by then it had moved to Jump+ already. Otherwise it looks like the last gag manga (that remained in WSJ) to sell better than Me & Roboco at this point were Samon-sun wa Summoner in 2016 and Isobe Isobee Monogatari's V2 from back in 2014.

Everyone already knows that gag manga always sell less than their action counterparts, so even if the boost wasn't massive it was still enough to put it over the rest of its genre competition over the past several years. Unless something major happens Me & Roboco is hardly in danger; as a gag manga it's got very good rankings and is doing decently well sales-wise although still not near the highs of Saiki or Isobee from early 2010's. I do hope it continues to grow to match the rest of the magazine, otherwise it's going to be continually compared against other genres that typically sell better and blamed for not being axed instead of them.

All this is saying is just that relative to the other gag flops of recent years roboco is doing better, and marginally so despite all the attention it's been getting from the mag lol.

That doesn't put it on par to other successes even within the same genre, nowhere near it in fact, and it doesn't take away the fact that this level of growth for this level of push is just a disappointing and utterly mediocre outcome. If it needs that much push to only improve this little then it's just a waste of promo that could've gone to more promising series, and saying that "the boost puts it over its recent competition" seems to just be rubbing in the special treatment the series got to even get over that (ridicolously low) bar to me.

ToC rankings can easily crumble in the blink of an eye once sales fail to meet expectations anyways, we've seen this happen time and time again even within the past year. Roboco isn't in immediate danger and may continue getting pushed so long as Nak keeps being biased towards it, but this isn't the look of a success.

 

[Minsel]

what the hell does decent mean. Isn't the term "decent" for the magazine constantly in fluctuation because of how sales are? Roboco in this day and age of jump is doing decent, Phantom Seer is doing good, Yozakura is doing decent, Undead Unluck is doing good, and MASHLE is doing great. That's how I see it

 

[RafGL]

it was still enough to put it over the rest of its genre competition over the past several years.

I'm sorry, but saying this because of comparing Volume 2 first week sales is a blatant lie, and in this case in favor of Roboco. Roboco's Volume 1 sales already were above Magu-chan, Agravity Boys, David-kun, HSF, Japan (which didn't rank at all), Moriking and Mitama (which has been ranking with every volume).

Spoiler: Numbers

8.637 (5) Me & Roboco 1
8.400 (5) Magu-chan 1
5.186 (3) AGRAVITY BOYS 1 (even if fewer days, it only reached 1k more than Roboco with 2nd week)
4.953 (6) Mitama Security 1
4.173 (5) Moriking 1
3.536 (4) High School Family 1

6.814 (2 weeks) David-kun 1

I'm not going to bother to find SWN1 numbers because I think my point gets across: the boost did nothing at all because Roboco was already over all of those series. And that still doesn't make it a success, and it shows the boost did nothing else than what could have been pure natural growth that other series in the magazine have had while ranking in Bottom 5. And this is not a different-genre comparison, because if we're gonna talk about Yozakura being comedy-focused, then it belongs here.

 

[Rheine]

As a big Roboco fan, I agree that the support should probably be spread out a little more now. But hindsight is 20/20 and it was not the weirdest decision to give Roboco all that extra push at the time (though outright shutting out Phantom Seer kinda sucked).

But the more telling thing is what Nak will do from this point on.

Roboco got its chance, and it still might find some success/growth in the future anyway, who knows.

 

[Mammo]

To be fair, while I think the ideas you suggested would be way better and way more interesting than what we actually got, I can’t imagine Jump would actually accept those as serializations.

Hungry Marie could focus on food, something like "a time traveling princess discover modern day cuisine", and it would work fine, something like Dagashi Kashi or Torture Princess
C&D could focus on character development and Shark wanting to find purpose, with being a cop is a background setting, like in Slam Dunk or Dancing Midget it's just a coming of age story in highschool club setting

 

[savethecat]

Hungry Marie could focus on food, something like "a time traveling princess discover modern day cuisine", and it would work fine, something like Dagashi Kashi or Torture Princess
C&D could focus on character development and Shark wanting to find purpose, with being a cop is a background setting, like in Slam Dunk or Dancing Midget it's just a coming of age story in highschool club setting

Hmm yeah, I could see that working

 

[DreamcastDazia]

about Shark and Dolphin
I'm now sure Tamura is a one hit wonder
he executed all of his good ideas on his first series, hit the writer wall and now he just throw random stuff at the wall and hopes something sticks
Beelzebub was one of the funniest manga in Jump recent history, but everything he did ever since have been meh
Hungey Marie was illegible and all over the place
and this one had a pretty decent set up but it quickly became Hungry Marie 2.0, not knowing what it want to be
way too many subplot to keep up with, the main plot barely move and when it moves it isn't interesting, it's not particularly funny, not a romance, the ecchi scenes are not particularly well done, the battles are generic

once this get axed I dunno where he go from here, I don't think Beelzebub is popular enough for him to pull a Kishimoto or a Watsuki
and if he start another series who's to say he will won't do what he did with HM and C&D yet again?

They should just let him finnish Beelzebub tbh.... Idc thats one of my most favourite manga of all time. The only manga I have re read 6 times. Never gets old

 

[ItsSamu]

I mean, the only thing this list does show is that ALL are doing/have done terribly and not that Roboco is doing anything great with its sales.
lol.

Robocco has shown some growth with the new volume but it's disappointing after all merch, CPs, JJK parody video etc that it had going for it.
Roboco isn't in danger now because there are like 3 other manga before it that deserve to be canned (Cop, HSF, Magu). Doesn't mean it's got decent sales by any means, even for a gag.

Nothing about its sales is decent. It's just "better" than other newbies that came around the same time and survives because of the state of the magazine, as is the case with Magu and as was the case with Yoza.

All this is saying is just that relative to the other gag flops of recent years roboco is doing better, and marginally so despite all the attention it's been getting from the mag lol.

That doesn't put it on par to other successes even within the same genre, nowhere near it in fact, and it doesn't take away the fact that this level of growth for this level of push is just a disappointing and utterly mediocre outcome. If it needs that much push to only improve this little then it's just a waste of promo that could've gone to more promising series, and saying that "the boost puts it over its recent competition" seems to just be rubbing in the special treatment the series got to even get over that (ridicolously low) bar to me.

ToC rankings can easily crumble in the blink of an eye once sales fail to meet expectations anyways, we've seen this happen time and time again even within the past year. Roboco isn't in immediate danger and may continue getting pushed so long as Nak keeps being biased towards it, but this isn't the look of a success.

Ok, but I literally did start off my post with "Me & Roboco's boost isn't that impressive considering the amount of promo it's had so that is disappointing", so I'm not discounting that, lol.

Nor did I say that Me & Roboco is a success, I'm doing exactly what you both said by just showing that it is selling better than other recent gag manga, among them flops and some still ongoing (for now). As for the reason why it got special treatment, all we know outside of sales is that it has ranked better in the TOC than most other new series so it getting promotion as a result makes sense, even if it hasn't totally paid off (like I said). As for it not being in danger due to the state of the magazine and how it's performing relative to other series, it looks like we're also in agreement.

Regarding 'decent' sales, I think its sales are decent. I agree with Minsel that it's relative to the current magazine and its genre. Me & Roboco isn't doing great or good or bad, it's doing decent; Isobee and Samon-kun had good sales from early on (the latter even getting a cover around when volume 2 came out, I believe), a definite level above Me & Roboco. I don't think I've overstated or made Me & Roboco seem more popular than it actually is and haven't discounted that it was aided by promotional push.

What I did try and say is that most gag manga don't sell that great anyways and I mentioned that it's possible that Me & Roboco's audience could be primarily within the readership of the magazine due to it reaching a different demographic who perhaps are less likely to buy volumes. That's just my theory and we don't have anything else to base off of that the positions it has got up until now. Could Nak loving gag manga have affected it as well? For sure, I'm not going to try to disagree with that either.

I'm sorry, but saying this because of comparing Volume 2 first week sales is a blatant lie, and in this case in favor of Roboco. Roboco's Volume 1 sales already were above Magu-chan, Agravity Boys, David-kun, HSF, Japan (which didn't rank at all), Moriking and Mitama (which has been ranking with every volume).

Spoiler: Numbers

8.637 (5) Me & Roboco 1
8.400 (5) Magu-chan 1
5.186 (3) AGRAVITY BOYS 1 (even if fewer days, it only reached 1k more than Roboco with 2nd week)
4.953 (6) Mitama Security 1
4.173 (5) Moriking 1
3.536 (4) High School Family 1

6.814 (2 weeks) David-kun 1

I'm not going to bother to find SWN1 numbers because I think my point gets across: the boost did nothing at all because Roboco was already over all of those series. And that still doesn't make it a success, and it shows the boost did nothing else than what could have been pure natural growth that other series in the magazine have had.

All I am saying is that at the same time most of the recent gag manga were selling less than Me & Roboco. I never claimed it got a boost over anything else compared to the first volume, in fact I agree that the push it did get was disappointing. I'm just using that figure/volume as a point of reference.

 

[Manjiknights]

I think it's more that most of the new series aren't really hits so much as having a stable niche fanbase, so they're growing slowly. Mashle was big from the start so it grows well each volume, but Roboco doesn't seem much above Magu-chan in actual popularity

Even as the resident Magu shill Roboco pretty clearly wins in the popularity department thanks to the admittedly genius twitter PR and the JJK collab; unfortunately that kind of stuff hasn't translated to significant growth in volume sales, and we have yet to see if Roboco v1's backlog will result in actual reader retention. Do they get equal surveys, maybe, but that's not information we have and ultimately might not even make a difference.

But really this all raises the question, why aren't other newbies getting the kind of PR Roboco got? Why didn't Magu get a Twitter page or a merch raffle like Roboco had with that pillow when the characters are literally made for merchandise? Why doesn't Sakamoto Days have a Twitter page to capitalize on its potential for success now that we're getting closer to volume 1 coming out? Why doesn't Phantom Seer have a Twitter page, push campaign, higher ToC and color page(s) like it should be getting now that it's clearly showing the biggest growth since Mashle? I'm not saying they should give up totally on pushing Roboco but I have to agree with the sentiment that it feels unfair to other series and even more disappointing when it only amounted to a little growth.

For now though, in part due to the push, Roboco is preforming better than its genre contemporaries yes, and it will probably stick around if they don't find another more successful gag (it probably has a chance of surviving 2021). But unless it grows steadily it probably isn't going to look good by comparison once HSF and Magu are out. Just like how now Magu looks a lot worse with the loss of Moriking, AB and OBO, eventually unless a lot of new series bomb Roboco will be considered a low seller in the magazine. I guess Roboco could just be one of those series that helps magazine circulation because people enjoy it there but won't push volumes as much. But I have to wonder if that circulation benefit means anything or if it's too marginal.

 

[101nemesis]

what the hell does decent mean. Isn't the term "decent" for the magazine constantly in fluctuation because of how sales are? Roboco in this day and age of jump is doing decent, Phantom Seer is doing good, Yozakura is doing decent, Undead Unluck is doing good, and MASHLE is doing great. That's how I see it

Selling sub 10k in any generation for any genre is not "decent" in WSJ. Roboco, Magu, early Yoza would not survive had the magazine just had a stable line up.
That's it.

Series surviving by chance because of the poor state of magazine does not make their figures "decent".

 

[Mankichi Togawa]

 

[Rain Spectre]

To throw my hat into the ring, I have to wonder if a lot of this is because the gag nature of Roboco is detrimental to word-of-mouth. The growth of Phantom Seer can I think be tied to the discussion surrounding its fantastic artwork and solid character writing, but Roboco is basically just "It's funny", and there's not much else to attach to.

For comparison, look at Saiki, the last real gag hit Jump had. That series is funny, yeah, but a lot of its appeal comes in the character writing and dynamics, and how that grew as the series continued. A lot of the best stuff in the manga is just watching the eccentric ensemble Saiki's surrounded by play off each other.

 

[Konja9]

I don't think UU's character designs have any issues. They seem more of a throwback to older art styles in some ways but that's about it. Still "attractive" designs and cute characters.

I just think UU's initial 5-8 chapters are super hard to get past.

BK is probably being held back in some way by the art choices, yeah

I don't read Build King, because the first promotional art "scared" me.

So, I think its art could be a problem to attract people.

 

[perroloco]

Make your bets ladies and gentlemen, will JJK surpass KnY? I think it won't (I am talking sales per volume, lifetime sales I think it will surpass KnY since I guess JJK could be longer).