Re: Weekly Shounen Jump [2009] - Discussion & TOC Talk v.2
Unfortunately if you don't promote a series that shows signs of popularity early you end up with Psyren and Sket, series that have achieved a degree of popularity but haven't lived up to their potential.
There's "not pimping", "pimping" and "pimping too much". Sket and Psyren were not pimped. Beelze is being pimped too much when simply being pimped would suffice. That's the point I'm trying to make.
With Hoop Men (or Bokke, My Star, etc.) you know your audience has rejected it by chapter 3. Why try and force them to read it? That's not how advertising works. You don't keep pounding New Coke down peoples throat, you reintroduce Coke Classic and cut your losses. Same with Hoop Men; get enough chapters for two volumes, cancel it, and introduce something that might get a positive reaction. And of course, you concentrate time, effort, and money on product that theirs demand for.
I think you're taking what I said about Hoop in another post way too seriously. Fine, let's ignore Hoop. But what about stuff like Psyren, Sket and Mago (i.e. NOT rejected by fans, but still receiving far less attention than they should)? It's okay to not want to bet on something that had no chance from the start, but they could make the middle tier series sell even more if they put some effort into advertising them.
How many times will I have to repeat the word "fair distribution" here? I don't want Hoop to become the new spotlight in Jump, nor do I want them to pretend Beelze doesn't exist. I want stuff that still holds a chance to be invested on at least a little (because right now the investment in Psy/Sket/Mago, as far as covers and CPs go, is ZERO).
BTW: Jump does not have two huge hits. 15 series, not counting the upcoming volumes of Eyeshield, are hits when compared to the sales of series from any other magazine. Considering the least popular series sell as much as the middle tier of Sunday or Magazine, that's a pretty loaded roster.
When I said "two huge hits", I was talking only about the newcomers, that is, Kuroko and Beelze. Psyren, Sket and Mago are hits, but they are not - and will never be - as huge as Jump expects Beelze and Kuroko to become (keyword: expects). Not as long as things stay the way they are now, anyway.