2018 was a stellar year for Weekly Shonen Magazine, if I do say so myself. Many of the romcoms that premiered last year have really blown up, especially
Go-Toubun no Hanayome and
Kanojo, Okarishimasu. The manga adaptation of
Bakemonogatari has been a huge success, and
Eden's Zero has also been growing quickly. There were 12 new series that premiered in 2018, and of those 12, 9 of them are still around in the magazine. The beginning of the year started off with a few 2017 series getting axed (Kessen, World End, and Tsue Petit), but as for axing, the only series to get axed Jump-style was Kiss & Cry, which while it had good art, the story really drug.
A handful of prominent older series concluded this year, including
Tsurezure Children,
Hoshino, Me wo Tsubutte, and
Fuuka.
Real Account was also transferred out to Bessatsu Shonen Magazine, returning from whence it came lol. WSM has been dishing out anime adaptations as of late; including ones for Kishuku, Ahiru, Go-Toubun, Daiya no Ace, Enen, and Domestic. Does this mean we could even see an anime adaptation of Bakemonogatari one day (sarcasm lol)? I'd say there a ton of more growth that could be had from their current line-up, so it seems like a wise move to dish out some anime adaptations while the iron's hot.
Now for some additional stats. The most color pages went to
Kishuku Gakkou no Juliet,
Eden's Zero, and
Days with 6 color pages each. Although this is half of the number of the 2018 WSJ series with the most color pages, WSM does a better job dispersing color pages more evenly among all of its series. The perfect attendance record (appearing in all 48 issues) goes to 6 series:
Days,
Kishuku Gakkou no Juliet,
Tokyo卍Revengers,
Runway de Waratte,
Kanojo Okarishimasu, and
Go-Toubun no Hanayome. The series with the lowest standard deviation (lower = position in TOC changes less each week; higher = position in TOC changes more each week) was
8-jou no Carnival in a negative way and
Eden's Zero in a positive way. The highest standard deviation went to
Ahiru no Sora.
What does the future hold for WSM in 2019? The answer is simple: the ultimate destruction of the internet due to Go-Toubun no Hanayome waifu wars once the anime airs. Japanese Twitter fans already blow up posts online, and even 4chan threads quickly reach the post limits due to this phenomenon lol. But more seriously, I think we'll see some nice growth overall. While series like Yoru probably aren't long for this world, most of the other ones should continue to grow. I think it'll be challenging to have larger serialization rounds in 2019 since I don't think the editors would want to disrupt an older series that is still selling well to risk putting in a new one, and since so many series are selling well right now, that really only leaves a couple of revolving door spots for unsuccessful new serializations. Perhaps Ahiru or Domestic could end after their adaptations, but who knows at this point. I believe Nanatsu may also be ending this year, so that would leave a huge void to fill with another adventure/action series. But no matter how things shake out, hopefully it'll be an amazing year for WSM!
