To celebrate Weekly Shonen Jump‘s 25th anniversary, Shueisha decided to create a new style event to promote it’s history for the fans. The name of the event was called “Weekly Jump Multi World” and was a exhibition that was held in the Tokyo Dome Prism Hall between July 28th through August 15th, 1993. The event cost 700 yen for admission and guests were able to receive as special booklet which highlighted some of the items on display. The booklet was never available for sale directly. Over 48 authors provided new illustrations and congratulatory messages for this anniversary and are documented in this booklet and this is one of them. To help provide context to this profile that was captured in 1993, we have included some additional information to supplement the transcription and rough English translation.
| Name | Masanori Morita (森田まさのり) |
| Date of Birth | December 22, 1966 |
| Birthplace | Shiga Prefecture |
| Blood Type | O |
| Debut Work | “It’s Late” in 1984 (Published in the September issue of Fresh Jump) ’84 『IT’S LATE』(フレッシュジャンプ9月号掲載) |
| 1st Jump Serialization | “Rokudenashi BLUES” 『ろくでなしBLUES』 |
| Additional Info | Characters from “Bachi-Atari Rock” that appear tough but are actually kind-hearted are some of his most popular. 『BACHI-ATARI ROCK』など、ツッパったなかにも純な優しさがあるキャラたちが人気を得る。 |
To celebrate Weekly Shonen Jump‘s 25th anniversary, Masanori Morita provided this illustration and comment, which have been roughly translated below:
創刊25周年おめでとうございます。この記念すべき瞬間に自分が連載していることは、この上ない喜びです。週刊少年ジャンプの驚異的な発行部数は、いずれアメリカのTVマガジンをも凌駕することでしょう。
世界最強の少年ジャンプは、永遠に不滅だといいな。
Congrats on the 25th anniversary. I’m so happy that I can be serialized during this memorable occasion. Maybe one day Weekly Shonen Jump’s phenomenal circulation will even surpass America’s TV Guide.
May the powerful Shonen Jump magazine continue to thrive forever.
He also provided this shikishi for the event which was on display at the Jump Multi World event:
The 4-panel manga titled “Friendship” was also on display at the event as well. The original drawings were also posted by the author via his Twitter/X account in 2021.
The article ends with an overview of the Rokudenashi BLUES manga that was still on-going at the time of the article in 1993.
The following is some additional context and information not included in the article:
The oneshot It’s Late was selected as an honorable mention for the 27th Tezuka Award. It was later published in the September 1984 issue of Fresh Jump, which became his debut as a mangaka while still being in high school. At that time, he went under the name 森田 真法, which is his full name. After graduating, he moved to Tokyo and promised his parents that he would be serialized within the next 4 years. Originally he hoped to become an assistant to Tsukasa Hojo, since he felt that his art style was the closest to his own. But he was rejected since they already had enough assistants working on his new title, City Hunter. He was then recommended to Tetsuo Hara for being an assistant with Fist of the North Star, which was still being serialized in Weekly Shonen Jump at the time.1
He would later create a series of oneshots that would be combined into the BACHI-ATARI ROCK manga volume. These oneshots would be the basis of his first full serialization, Rokudenashi Blues.
Due to circulation numbers not being precise, it’s hard to exactly pinpoint when Weekly Shonen Jump did surpass TV Guide magazine in total circulation. The Weekly Shonen Jump circulation numbers did peak in 1995 with around 6.5 million copies each week, but that number has been on the decline ever since. TV Guide’s circulation was also on a similar decline since the 1990s where it had anywhere between 10 to 15 million copies printed weekly. By best estimates it looks like around 2010 is when TV Guide’s decline in circulation dipped to under 2.4 million. In this same period, Weekly Shonen Jump was around 2.8 million copies a week. The most recent circulation numbers for TV Guide is now under 1 million and Weekly Shonen Jump is just a bit over 1 million.
By the end of 1993, Rokudenashi Blues had 270 chapters published. The series would continue until 1997 in issue 10 for a total of 421 chapters. As part of the 30th anniversary celebration for Weekly Shonen Jump in 1998, Masanori Morita would reflect on the series with the following comment:
Back then, there was no school-based manga, so I had to draw it myself. That’s a work that stole eight and a half years of my twenties (laughs). It was very long~
- Additional information from an interview with Masanori Morita in 2013 celebrating the 30th anniversary of Fist of the North Star ↩︎
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