Created and produced by John Daub

ONLY in JAPAN

Manga: it's a Japanese style comic

that is definitely ONLY in JAPAN

and no manga has been more influential in

Japanese culture than the one I'm highlighting today

Shueisha has invited me to get an inside look

at how SHONEN JUMP weekly has

really evolved over the last 50 years

yes that's right, this manga has been around for over 50 years!

It has inspired all-stars like

ONE PIECE

DRAGON BALL, NARUTO

It has inspired a generation of boys

none of whom is more inspired than

the man behind me

He's KK, he's my co-reporter for this episode

and he has in his hands a copy of ー

Hi John, how are you doing?

SHONEN JUMP

How are you?

The exhibition is so cool man!

Right!

What is it about Shonen Jump that inspired you as a kid?

Back when I was a kid,

Monday was the day to begin everything!

To me ー to kids, Monday was the Shonen Jump day.

So go to school, go back to the store

get JUMP and read from beginning to the end.

From cover to cover, you'd read it

all that information

So Shonen Jump gives me a lot of energy

The Shonen Jump series, it's made for just boys

Yeah, mainly for boys

But in it, it was very important because

it also has a lot of life lessons in it

Sure ー effort, friendship, victory

self worth, maybe

Basically if you're reading Shonen Jump, you could probably

get into the mind of what a Japanese guy

is thinking.

Yeah. Yeah.

Which is how important culturally this manga has been.

KK can't wait to see the Shonen Jump exhibit

and neither can I.

Publisher Shueisha is celebrating the series's 50th anniversary.

The exhibit spans 3 eras,

this one focusing on the 1970s to 1980s

when both KK and I were kids.

You can see he has a lot of passion for those childhood memories,

reading every copy of Shonen Jump as a kid.

The walls are lined with scenes from the weekly manga,

Each issue has 20 serial series,

each with 20 pages per week.

Popular serial series can go on for decades

like KK's favorite “Kochikame” which continued for 40 years!

Action and humor is the name of the game

on the pages of JUMP.

Captain Tsubasa, started in 1981

and still running today

has published over 70 million copies to date.

The story revolves around an 11 year old school kid who

wants to win the FIFA World Cup for Japan

This scene was recreated on playgrounds everywhere!

As guys, we like the action, right?

This is my golden era

These manga? Yeah, right!

These manga!

Tsubasa …

For many Japanese, JUMP connects generations,

just looking at old covers brings back memories,

school buddies chatting about what just happened

on those sacred pages!

I want to bring them back home!

So basically when you were a kid

you had friends that had favorite

characters from different series, right?

Yeah, one copy has 15 different stories

My favourite one was Ryo-san, Captain Tsubasa

Back then.

But some of my friends loved another story

So you would read all of them anyway

Yeah Yeah

Even though there are so many in there

There's no way to skip, no reason to skip

So then in the end, you would just have battles like

He's the best! He's the best! This is the best!

Yeah! Or ー

whoever doesn't follow my favourite story

I can tell him, hey!

THIS WEEK RYO-SAN is the BEST!

Now you read it!

Right!

I like that! It's sort of putting the collection all into one book

gives a little camaraderie

Yeah!

I can learn a lot of things from

manga and also manga ー Shonen Jump

helped me to connect with me with my friends

I mean, it's better than talking about homework, right?

I wanted to learn more about how this weekly manga was made –

so I made a trip to publisher Shueisha's headquarters

in Tokyo for an official behind the scenes look at

WEEKLY SHONEN JUMP

WOAH!!

No foreign journalist has ever reported on SHONEN JUMP'S

EDITORIAL ROOM

This is going to be awesome!

”This is the Editorial Department“

This is where all the magic is put together each week

The editors department is just full of ー stuff!

All of it related to manga

There are a lot of secrets in those boxes and manilla envelopes

The department is also filled with toys

Inspiration comes in many forms.

But it's also a place where they, you know,

work to edit each issue.

It's been coming out weekly for almost half a century

Here are some pages for an upcoming issue.

The editor is measuring the size of the words and font here

and adding instructions for the printers.

Inside this manila folder is a rare look at an up coming Shonen Jump cover!

Picking the cover is one of

the most important parts of each issue.

Since One Piece is celebrating its 20th anniversary,

it's an easy decision this week.

Inside this folder is another treasure.

This is very rare!

It's an original ONE PIECE drawing

coming straight from the artist.

This is authentic.

You can tell it's original because

the ink has bled through the paper on the back.

I wonder how many millions of fans will be looking at

this in a few weeks.

Here's another original ONE PIECE work.

These are all the top characters which were

voted on a while ago

Shonen Jump turns 50 and One Piece turns 20.

There's a lot to celebrate at Shueisha!

Let's talk to the editors about how

they put together this weekly manga series.

JUMP has 20 manga series per week and

the process starts with the editor and artist

Each series has their own editor

The process working together doesn't change

We start from scratch, the editor and artist

meeting and discussing

What should this week's episode be?

How was last weeks episode?

The direction of episodes in 10 to 20 weeks

or one year later

and that is how next week's episode will be decided.

It will be held at the artist's work place or

a family restaurant

ranging from one hour to 5 to 6 hours

Once the editor and artist agree on

how next week's episode should be,

the artist will draw something called “the name“

which is a rough draft, plot or plan of the manga

on a notebook or pieces of paper

with a rough sketch

about the scenes, the words

the story of those weekly 19 pages

The editor will chack that again.

The check will be fax, email or

meeting directly to know the content

If it is really good, it will pass,

but that is very rare

The worst case is doing it all over again

Maybe this scene is hard to understand

needs more emotion

and we do the discussion on this again.

After a few discussion and

when the adjustments are agreed,

the artist starts the work