A jump into Shonen Jump

Purpose: To inform manga or comic book fans about a particular magazine filled with Japanese comics.

Audience: Teens

From ninjas to pirates to soul reapers, you can find all your favourite action packed manga in Shonen Jump magazine. Shonen Jump is a monthly magazine owned by Viz media Media; a leader in the publishing and distribution of Japanese manga for English speaking audiences in North America, the United Kingdom, Ireland, and South Africa and is a global ex-Asia licensor of Japanese manga and animation. It was a spin off of the weekly Shonen Jump, One of the longest-running manga magazines in Japan. It sells for $7. 99 Canadian. However, this isn' like your average magizine; since the Japanese read their books from right to left, so does this magazine.

The magazine contains chapters of different shonen manga, or "boy manga." Shonen is basically the Japanese word for boy. Although shonen manga was created to attract younger male audiences, they can still be enjoyed by both boys and girls. Shonen Jump magazine features recent and popular manga such as Naruto, Yu Yu Hakisho, One Piece, Bleach and Yugioh GX.
They generally have around a few chapters per manga that continue on in the next issue. Each series provides character profiles and a synopses of the previous chapters. Sometimes they include a bonus preview manga of a new Shonen Jump series. They also add in other extras, such as interviews with mangakas (Japanese comic artists or cartoonists), fan art galleries, contests, limited edition cards, video game previews and reviews on other manga.

On the positives, this magazine is ideal for audiences who are unfamiliar with manga. It's general purpose is to introduce these series to new manga readers so that they will become interested enough to buy the separate volumes. It's a great beginner's guide to manga, since it also gives you manga definitions and terms. The graphics and colourful captions are also a plus because they draw the reader into flipping through the pages.

However, this magazine is not for those hard core manga readers. Most serious manga/anime fans like myself would agree that Shonen Jump magazine and the manga they feature are too "Americanized" and kiddish. Although it may give some information on new series, it's a waste of energy to buy considering most of us can go purchase our favourite series our selves or find some manga scans on websites instead of waiting a whole month to see what happens in the next chapter.

On the whole note, I would suggest this magazine for those who do not read manga often and wish to become familiar with it. For those of you who are extreme manga lovers, don't expect to be as satisfied.