Re: Weekly Shounen Jump [2009] - Discussion & TOC Talk v.2
I am very happy with this ToC. Toriko and beelzebub show that there's material enough to make long running shounens shorter eg reborn, bleach and others. There'll be a day (and we're getting to it now) older series will suffer because they are taking too long while refreshing series want their place too.
Anyway, every serie should walk a neuro/muhyo path: long enough but not too long to become slow and boring. Good path for mago, psyren, sket, toirko and beelzebub to walk on.
That would be in a more sensible, interesting world. The problem is that certain series turn into money making machines and sort of lose their plot or their concepts long ago. There are certain longer Jump series that essentially have the feel that their tales have to be long or were built into being so: OP and, in a weird way, Naruto. They need the time to tell the tale and are popular enough to tell it how they need to. Many of the others are more like factories: they have the ideas and concepts to run a more concise, great series, but choose not to and prefer to stall both to please themselves and the editors. (Bleach, Reborn) Not really including series like KochiKame or Gintama, which are more a different mold in that they tell what they need to or what they want to...and in Gintama's case, can end if it's told enough or at the drop of a hat. (told a friend yesterday: if Gintama finally does tank, then Sorachi can easily tell the remaining key tales in 2-3 volumes akin to Nube's final volumes and he'd have a successful, great run) It's too hard to say what direction the newer series will head in, but they all do have potential to be seen or heard greater than they are...but aren't due to the longer runners, whether they be epics or factory.
As for this week's TOC...well Beezle seems to be getting preferential treatment akin to a few other newer series as of late (Toriko, Bakuman, Kuroko), so at least somehow something did snap in Shueisha's mind to start doing this. And Inumaru in the top 3 is surprising.