With all of the other weekly shonen magazines teaming up with Uniqlo for cheap and cheerful clothing and apparel lines, you almost have to feel a little bit sorry for Weekly Shonen Sunday. While both Weekly Shonen Jump and Weekly Shonen Magazine have had their most popular series featured as part of the UT line-up, Shogakukan’s magazine has seen no such treatment. That’s a shame, but the publisher has decided to take matters into their own hands, launching the ‘Sunday 2020 T-Project’ this week through the official Weekly Shonen Sunday online store.
The designs unveiled as part of the Sunday 2020 T-Project “2020 line-up” include ones from Rumiko Takahashi’s Inuyasha and MAO; Kenjiro Hata’s Tonikaku Kawaii; Kotoyama’s Yofukashi no Uta, and Tomohito Oda’s Komi Can’t Communicate. That last design is particularly worth highlighting as it comes with a note from Oda, saying that “no explanation is needed” and declaring that he’ll “definitely wear it [the t-shirt].”
This ties in to one of the aims for the Sunday 2020 T-Project, which is to create Sunday t-shirts that “you can wear” – both in the literal and figurative sense. Lord knows that there are enough gaudy anime and manga t-shirts out there, and one of the main draws of the Uniqlo designs has been their understated, stylish look. Shogakukan no doubt hopes to recreate that here.
Another aim of the project is to continually update the online store with new designs, with the ones featured above being labelled as “new items.” It’ll be interesting to see what kind of items come in the future, especially given that the absence of Gosho Aoyama’s Detective Conan is quite conspicuous.
The designs for the Sunday 2020 T-Project are also apparently based on concepts drawn up by the artists themselves, which should help to avoid the type of awkwardness that was explored in episode 1 of Kakushigoto. These t-shirts can only be bought via the official Weekly Shonen Sunday online store, so don’t hesitate to check out the official website for more information.