Otaku Culture

The Worst Shonen Jump Endings According to Japan

Josei Jishin magazine conducted a survey among men aged 30 to 40 to evaluate the most disappointing endings of manga series published in Weekly Shonen Jump magazine since 2014. The survey was conducted at a key moment for the magazine, which recently lost several of its most iconic series, including works that became social phenomena and marked an era in the history of manga.

On August 19, it was announced on the Weekly Shonen Jump YouTube channel that the popular manga “Jujutsu Kaisen” would be coming to an end in just five chapters. The announcement came as a surprise to many, as the series is one of the magazine’s most successful, with over 90 million copies of its volumes sold worldwide. Jujutsu Kaisen has been a mainstay of the magazine in recent years, and its closure marks the end of another important stage in the history of Shonen Jump.

This announcement adds to a recent trend where several of Shonen Jump's most popular series have come to an end. On August 5th, “My Hero Academia” also concluded its serialization, another series that had been the magazine’s flagship. These endings join other notable ones, such as “Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba“, which ended in May 2020 after becoming a social phenomenon, and that of”Haikyu!“, which ended in July of the same year.

In the midst of this transition, Josei Jishin decided to investigate readers' opinions on the endings of some of the most popular series that have concluded since 2014. The magazine interviewed men in their 30s and 40s, a demographic that has followed many of these series since their inception. The question asked to them was simple but direct: “Which play do you think had a disappointing ending?”

The survey revealed the opinions of a group of readers who grew up with these stories and whose feelings about the endings of their favorite series are deeply personal. With so many influential series having disappeared from the pages of Weekly Shonen Jump, the survey also reflects a kind of nostalgia and disenchantment among readers.who now watch as the magazine undergoes a significant overhaul.