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Hello everyone, I decided to put all 9 of my 2017 table of content (TOC) averages into a single Imgur album. This will allow people to quickly scroll through and compare and contrast more easily if they so desire. I have never made an Imgur album before, so I put the name of the magazine in the tag section underneath the image it describes. As many on here already know, the importance of the TOC is highly debated and varies greatly depending on the publisher.
From what I have noticed after going through these calculations, TOC arrangement matters the most in Jump magazines, with Weekly Shonen Jump clearly being the most prominent. Weekly Young Jump also exhibited signs of this being important, but less so than WSJ. I would say that TOC placement ended up mattering the least in Weekly Shonen Magazine. Even the best-selling series frequently found themselves in the middle range, with only a few truly poor-selling series winding up consistently at the bottom (almost all of which have been cancelled by now). Weekly Shonen Sunday and Weekly Shonen Champion both fall somewhere in between these 2 extremes. Both have a couple of major series frequently appearing in the top quarter of the TOC (such as Detective Conan and Yowamushi Pedal, respectively) and poor-selling series staying stuck in the bottom (such as Meteor Girl and Jinba, respectively), but it's more of a free-for-all after taking those into account.
The monthly magazines exhibited similar behaviors as their weekly counterparts, but a bit less so than the weekly versions. Jump SQ still seemed to place the most emphasis on TOC placement, but Gessan was a very close second in my opinion. Karakai Jouzu no Takagi-san and Mix both frequently dominated Gessan's TOC, and a handful of series never seemed to escape the bottom quartile of the TOC. Bessatsu Shonen Champion takes the third slot since it is simply quite short, but still had a couple series that always seemed to score color pages almost every month and wind up near the top. Bessatsu Shonen Magazine gets deemed the least concerned with TOC placement, much like its weekly counterpart. Interestingly, BSM has a lot of series that seem to only last for 2 or 3 volumes, so there was quite a lot of series starting and ending in 2017, so it was a bit like a revolving door. The sheer fact that Shingeki no Kyojin (Attack on Titan) is not in the top 3 every month like One Piece and ended up so low in the TOC average exemplifies this excellently.
Looking ahead to 2018, I am still planning on doing these calculations for the magazines that I did for 2017. TOCs for the 5 weekly magazines I covered (WSJ, WSM, WSS, WSC, and WYJ) should be pretty easy to continue finding. In addition Jump SQ should be easy to find. Although they were a bit harder to come across, I still have plans to cover BSM and Gessan. Thankfully @Ihore does an excellent job providing for BSC, so if he still provides the TOCs, then I will keep covering BSC.
I am also considering adding a multitude of new additions to my TOC averages, provided that I can find all the information I need for the TOCs and extra details that I need (such as color pages, when a new series starts and ends, if something is a oneshot or short serialization since those I exclude, etc). For 2018, I have begin compiling data on the following new magazines: Weekly Young Magazine, Weekly Big Comic Spirits, Young Animal, Grand Jump, Ultra Jump, Manga Time Kirara, Manga Time Kirara Carat, Manga Time Kirara Max, Manga Time Kirara Forward, and Comic Ryu. WYM can serve as a nice comparison point as a weekly seinen magazine for WYJ. I'm reading a few things in WBCS, so that'll be nice if I can keep finding its TOCs; it'd be nice if it got some more attention. YA and GJ are both released twice a month and seinen, so perhaps those could be compared to each other. While I don't read anything from UJ, I may as well try it since I'm doing a bunch of other Jump stuff lol. The 4 Kirara magazines provide the necessary amounts of moe, and @BanzaiMang has been doing an amazing job providing TOCs and drawing attention to the many series in these 4 magazines, so hopefully I'll be able to find all the info I need for the 12 issues of each of these. Comic Ryu may seem a bit random, but the TOC I found was easy to decipher, and I follow a few series in this one *cough* *Monster Musume* *cough*.
If anyone has any other magazines that they want covered, please let me know. However, I would most likely need someone else to provide me TOCs in English for the requested magazine with the necessary supplemental information included (color pages, indication of new series and final chapters, indication if something is a oneshot or short serialization).
Furthermore, I am also planning on adding a bit more information for each magazine in addition to the average and ranking. Although I calculated it in the Excel sheet, I decided not to include it this year: total number of appearance in the year. I mentioned the series that had perfect attendance in each thread that I commented on, but I'm going to add a devoted column to the charts for it now. In addition, I found a formula for adding up the total number of color pages in the year. The formula is a bit more complex since Excel considers color-filled cells as blank, so the normal count feature doesn't work, but I found one that does total them after a bit of VBA.
Lastly, I'm going to include standard deviation since it is simple to calculate. This one is purely for my enjoyment of statistics, so I'll explain it really quickly: I higher standard deviation means that the series bounces around the TOC more than a series with a low standard deviation. Having a low standard deviation could be good (such as WSJ's One Piece always being at the top of the TOC) or bad (such as WSS's Meteor Girl always appearing in the bottom few slots of the TOC) or even irrelevant (WSS's Youkai Giga intentionally comes at the end of each issue). Series with large standard deviations either haven't become established yet (a new series that hasn't been deemed favorable of unfavorable by fans yet) or is in a magazine that doesn't place as much emphasis on TOC placement. Either way, it may be interesting to see. If I calculate it at the end and it seems boring (everything is super close together), I may just keep that for myself rather than give it a column in the chart. If anyone has any other stats they may want to see, let me know, and I may include them if they can be easily done in Excel and seem like they could provide some relevant, interesting information.
Thank you all for reading on commenting on my work thus far. I am also reducing the number of "pre-rank" chapters for monthly magazines from 7 down to 3 (begin ranking on chapter 4), and I will use 5 pre-rank chapters (begin ranking on chapter 6) for the new semi-monthly magazines I hope to cover. Although my career, family, and other real-life things will surely keep me busy in 2018, I hope I will have the time to continue providing this info for all of you guys. I hope you all have a wonderful 2018!
From what I have noticed after going through these calculations, TOC arrangement matters the most in Jump magazines, with Weekly Shonen Jump clearly being the most prominent. Weekly Young Jump also exhibited signs of this being important, but less so than WSJ. I would say that TOC placement ended up mattering the least in Weekly Shonen Magazine. Even the best-selling series frequently found themselves in the middle range, with only a few truly poor-selling series winding up consistently at the bottom (almost all of which have been cancelled by now). Weekly Shonen Sunday and Weekly Shonen Champion both fall somewhere in between these 2 extremes. Both have a couple of major series frequently appearing in the top quarter of the TOC (such as Detective Conan and Yowamushi Pedal, respectively) and poor-selling series staying stuck in the bottom (such as Meteor Girl and Jinba, respectively), but it's more of a free-for-all after taking those into account.
The monthly magazines exhibited similar behaviors as their weekly counterparts, but a bit less so than the weekly versions. Jump SQ still seemed to place the most emphasis on TOC placement, but Gessan was a very close second in my opinion. Karakai Jouzu no Takagi-san and Mix both frequently dominated Gessan's TOC, and a handful of series never seemed to escape the bottom quartile of the TOC. Bessatsu Shonen Champion takes the third slot since it is simply quite short, but still had a couple series that always seemed to score color pages almost every month and wind up near the top. Bessatsu Shonen Magazine gets deemed the least concerned with TOC placement, much like its weekly counterpart. Interestingly, BSM has a lot of series that seem to only last for 2 or 3 volumes, so there was quite a lot of series starting and ending in 2017, so it was a bit like a revolving door. The sheer fact that Shingeki no Kyojin (Attack on Titan) is not in the top 3 every month like One Piece and ended up so low in the TOC average exemplifies this excellently.
Looking ahead to 2018, I am still planning on doing these calculations for the magazines that I did for 2017. TOCs for the 5 weekly magazines I covered (WSJ, WSM, WSS, WSC, and WYJ) should be pretty easy to continue finding. In addition Jump SQ should be easy to find. Although they were a bit harder to come across, I still have plans to cover BSM and Gessan. Thankfully @Ihore does an excellent job providing for BSC, so if he still provides the TOCs, then I will keep covering BSC.
I am also considering adding a multitude of new additions to my TOC averages, provided that I can find all the information I need for the TOCs and extra details that I need (such as color pages, when a new series starts and ends, if something is a oneshot or short serialization since those I exclude, etc). For 2018, I have begin compiling data on the following new magazines: Weekly Young Magazine, Weekly Big Comic Spirits, Young Animal, Grand Jump, Ultra Jump, Manga Time Kirara, Manga Time Kirara Carat, Manga Time Kirara Max, Manga Time Kirara Forward, and Comic Ryu. WYM can serve as a nice comparison point as a weekly seinen magazine for WYJ. I'm reading a few things in WBCS, so that'll be nice if I can keep finding its TOCs; it'd be nice if it got some more attention. YA and GJ are both released twice a month and seinen, so perhaps those could be compared to each other. While I don't read anything from UJ, I may as well try it since I'm doing a bunch of other Jump stuff lol. The 4 Kirara magazines provide the necessary amounts of moe, and @BanzaiMang has been doing an amazing job providing TOCs and drawing attention to the many series in these 4 magazines, so hopefully I'll be able to find all the info I need for the 12 issues of each of these. Comic Ryu may seem a bit random, but the TOC I found was easy to decipher, and I follow a few series in this one *cough* *Monster Musume* *cough*.
If anyone has any other magazines that they want covered, please let me know. However, I would most likely need someone else to provide me TOCs in English for the requested magazine with the necessary supplemental information included (color pages, indication of new series and final chapters, indication if something is a oneshot or short serialization).
Furthermore, I am also planning on adding a bit more information for each magazine in addition to the average and ranking. Although I calculated it in the Excel sheet, I decided not to include it this year: total number of appearance in the year. I mentioned the series that had perfect attendance in each thread that I commented on, but I'm going to add a devoted column to the charts for it now. In addition, I found a formula for adding up the total number of color pages in the year. The formula is a bit more complex since Excel considers color-filled cells as blank, so the normal count feature doesn't work, but I found one that does total them after a bit of VBA.
Lastly, I'm going to include standard deviation since it is simple to calculate. This one is purely for my enjoyment of statistics, so I'll explain it really quickly: I higher standard deviation means that the series bounces around the TOC more than a series with a low standard deviation. Having a low standard deviation could be good (such as WSJ's One Piece always being at the top of the TOC) or bad (such as WSS's Meteor Girl always appearing in the bottom few slots of the TOC) or even irrelevant (WSS's Youkai Giga intentionally comes at the end of each issue). Series with large standard deviations either haven't become established yet (a new series that hasn't been deemed favorable of unfavorable by fans yet) or is in a magazine that doesn't place as much emphasis on TOC placement. Either way, it may be interesting to see. If I calculate it at the end and it seems boring (everything is super close together), I may just keep that for myself rather than give it a column in the chart. If anyone has any other stats they may want to see, let me know, and I may include them if they can be easily done in Excel and seem like they could provide some relevant, interesting information.
Thank you all for reading on commenting on my work thus far. I am also reducing the number of "pre-rank" chapters for monthly magazines from 7 down to 3 (begin ranking on chapter 4), and I will use 5 pre-rank chapters (begin ranking on chapter 6) for the new semi-monthly magazines I hope to cover. Although my career, family, and other real-life things will surely keep me busy in 2018, I hope I will have the time to continue providing this info for all of you guys. I hope you all have a wonderful 2018!
