MANGA Plus to begin simultaneous releases of all Shonen Jump+ app one-shot manga

Modified Aug 31, 2024 23:46 GMT

MANGA Plus to begin simultaneous releases of all Shonen Jump+ app one-shot manga (Image via Shueisha)

On Saturday, August 31, 2024, Shueisha’s MANGA Plus service officially announced its intent to begin simultaneously releasing all of the Shonen Jump+ app’s one-shot mangas in English. The process is starting with author and illustrator MUGISUKE’s The Deep Sea of Words, which is now available on the platform in English.

The one-shots will be available to read for free on the platform for the first 90 days after their release and will then be available on the MANGA Plus MAX Deluxe subscriber plan. However, Shueisha also confirmed that there will be some caveats to availability, meaning that it’s possible some one-shots are not simultaneously released.

Shueisha’s new direction with MANGA Plus gives up-and-coming mangaka a better chance at hitting it big

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Shueisha and MANGA Plus caveated the above exciting information by claiming that there may be some exceptions for certain one-shots. They cited the author’s wishes or judgment of the editorial department as possible reasons why the one-shots may not be translated. Shueisha also mentioned that there is no set schedule for new one-shots, but readers can expect them to come on a weekly basis overall.

The news is significant for both readers and mangaka alike by nature of the benefits of added accessibility to one-shots. Typically, one-shots are self-contained stories that run for one chapter and are mainly used to showcase new and upcoming artists. Some will eventually get turned into full series if they prove popular enough as a concept in the format, such as Death Note, Gintama, Bleach, and Naruto.

The Shonen Jump+ app has, in recent years, typically released well over 200 one-shots. One of the most notable is Chainsaw Man mangaka Tatsuki Fujimoto’s Look Back one-shot, which was recently adapted into an anime film project. While Fujimoto was already an established mangaka at the time, this success nevertheless proves how invaluable the one-shot format and its accessibility can be to new artists.

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The move is also shrewd on Shueisha’s part in terms of continuing to further the expansion of official English sources for newly released manga. This is especially true in an era where anime and manga seemingly continue to get more and more popular in the West, shedding the regional stigma that it has had for much of the 21st century so far.

Shueisha launched their Shonen Jump+ app service in September 2014 as a digital publication offering manga for free. There were also subscription options that offered access to completed series in their entirety rather than a select portion of them. This was followed by the launch of MANGA Plus worldwide in January 2019, which also offers a base free version and varying subscriptions based on what users are looking for.