Fans of Shonen Jump who can’t wait to see what their favorite manga will be like animated need to check out a series of videos on the magazine’s YouTube channel that go a long way to answering that question. Shonen Jump manga have been the inspiration for many of the best anime of all time but most of the magazine’s currently running manga haven’t been adapted yet. While some are almost guaranteed to get an anime eventually based on their popularity, this can take quite some time. In addition, many of Shonen Jump‘s newer series are actually more likely to not last long enough to get animated at all.
Shonen Jump has become infamous in recent years for brutally canceling newer series before they have a chance to cultivate an audience. There is even a name for these canceled series, Shonen Jump‘s “Under 19 Club”, so-called because many of those manga don’t even make it to 19 chapters. This is a shame because many of Shonen Jump‘s latest series seem to have a lot of potential. Luckily even if those series don’t get anime adaptations, the Jump Comics Youtube channel has put videos on its channel showing fans what it would be like to hear them fully voiced.
Shonen Jump‘s Manga Videos Can Serve as an Anime Substitute
While the Jump Comics Channel publishes more standard videos like manga trailers, it also has a series of videos featuring what is essentially a sneak peek at what many of its newer series would be like if they had an anime. While they don’t animate the manga in a traditional sense, they do hire professional voice actors to play the various characters and display the manga art on the screen. Many times the actors in the videos are recognizable from other shows, making them even more fun to listen to. For instance, the voice actor for Dio from Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure voices the talking snowman in the videos for Shinpei Watanabe’s fantasy series Ginka & Glüna, which is such a delightfully different role to hear him in. And oftentimes the performances can really bring the art to life, making it feel almost like the videos are actually animated.
These videos can often even enhance the manga they adapt. For instance, the action series Sakamoto Days by Yuto Suzuki has some of its most epic fights adapted, which makes them even more exciting despite not being animated in a traditional sense. In addition, more typically comedic series like Witch Watch by Kenta Shinohara have some of their funniest chapters adapted, and the vocal performances greatly enhance the jokes being told. Even though those two series will likely eventually get anime given their popularity, these videos tide fans over until the anime can actually be released.
While the videos are all in Japanese, which can make it hard for Western fans to understand, if they have already read the chapters in English then they can still usually understand what is happening. Given that many of these series will never get anime adaptations, fans will have to make do with whatever videos like this they can get. Luckily, given the quality of these videos, fans of Shonen Jump can be satisfied even if anime for these series never materialize.
