Much like Weekly Shonen Jump, Kodansha’s Weekly Shonen Magazine is going through a bit of a shake-up right now. Popular titles are ending one after another, and the magazine’s line-up is increasingly dominated by new series. Nevertheless, Magazine editor-in-chief Kurita Hirotoshi isn’t worried. In a recent interview with Oricon, he talked about the current state of the magazine and where it goes from here on out – he says that he has “no regrets”, so let’s hope that his confidence isn’t misplaced.
Firstly, with regards to popular series coming to an end, Kurita Hirotoshi said in the interview that the editorial department “never” considers prolonging series beyond their natural endpoint. Taking as his example the recently-concluded Quintessential Quintuplets, he says that it would be akin to “mutual destruction” if the team had forced series author Negi Haruba to extend the series simply because of its success – the story would “lose its shine” and, as a result, the magazine would too.
Despite The Quintessential Quintuplets, The Seven Deadly Sins, and Domestic Girlfriend all coming to an end this year, Kurita Hirotoshi said in the interview that he has absolute confidence in the magazine’s latest series. In particular, he highlighted Miki Yoshikawa’s The Cuckoo’s Fiancee, Sora Karin (story) and Ran Kuze (art)’s Tokyo Babel, as well as Hiroyuki’s Kanonjo mo Kanojo – all three of these series are proving popular with readers of the magazine, with The Cuckoo’s Fiancee in particular being a record-breaking success.
The interviewer pointed out that The Cuckoo’s Fiancee launched fairly shortly after The Quintessential Quintuplets came to an end in February, which begs the question: is there a set schema that Magazine operates by for its roster? Kurita Hirotoshi answered in the interview in the negative. Despite both series being love comedies, it was simply a matter of chance: what really counts is whether or not they are interesting, as well as whether the characters are appealing or not.
Kurita Hirotoshi finished the interview by promising readers that the new series would “replenish” Weekly Shonen Magazine’s roster and pledged to keep on promoting “interesting” manga, which he believes to be Magazine’s speciality.
You can read the full Kurita Horitoshi interview via Oricon.