There is one clear trend that Magazine is currently following and that is the romance comedy genre. The shift towards this genres has been gradual over the past few years when many romance comedy series in the magazine found significant success. The notable success that seems to have drifted the magazine more firmly towards this trend was 'The Quintessential Quintuplets.' 'The Quintessential Quintuplets' was a harem romance comedy series that began back in 2017, it found a lot of success initially and eventually it received an anime adaptation in 2019. This anime was popular and as a result the series exploded in popularity and it became one of the biggest hits for Magazine.
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| The Quintessential Quintuplets - Kodansha |
'Rent-A-Girlfriend' started not long after 'The Quintessential Quintuplets' and it is also one of the most popular series in the magazine currently. It is likewise a romance comedy series but it has a different edge in that it is more dramatic. After all, Quintuplets is not focused on drama surrounding romantic relationships but on relationship building and the drama mostly originates from who the main character will pick out of the five sisters that grow to like him over the series. This is actually part of the reason this has been a successful trend for Magazine to tap into.
The romance comedy genre is rather flexible and therefore different series can tap into the audience for them in many ways. For instance, 'Kanojo mo Kanojo' is a romance comedy series in Magazine that has an anime upcoming but it is unlike the previous two I mentioned because it is more comedy centered, even the title itself is a pun on the storyline that focus on the main character that has two girlfriends. Another series with this comedic focus, but in a more gag sense, that at the same time has a touch of harem and romance is 'Seitokai Yakuindomo.' In addition to these there is 'The Cuckoo's Fiancee' that is more focused on the romance and harem aspect rather than the comedy. All these series whilst they are all different from all another, they still appeal to readership that enjoy light romance comedy series even if they can vary significantly in their focus by be it on the romance or in the comedy.
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| Kanojo mo Kanojo - Kodansha |
At the same time there is also more dramatic romance comedy series like 'Rent-A-Girlfriend' and 'Domestic Girlfriend.' 'Domestic Girlfriend' ended last year but it is still a good example here, in that these series take away the comedy for the most part and instead add much more drama. A consequence of this is that they tend to have elements that can be more dramatic like sexual content especially in the case of Domestic Girlfriend. Kouji Seo's series also tend to resemble more this style but the jury is still out on his latest work 'Megami no Cafe Terrace' on whether it will resemble this more dramatic style or skew towards a more light side like The Quintessential Quintuplets.
These are all ways Magazine has dug the romance comedy mine. However, more recently the announcement of the serialisation of 'Amagami-san chi no Enmusubi' highlights a deeper dive into the genre by the magazine. It not a bad decision after all recent successes of lighter romance comedy such as 'The Cuckoo's Fiancee' and 'The Quintessential Quintuplets' explored that genre and found a lot of success.
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| 'Amagami-chi no Enmusubi' - Kodansha |
There are other genres that seem to have become a staple for Magazine in recent times like battle orientated series. Hiro Mashima has been filling the hunger for battle orientated series for the last 20 or so years in the magazine, and this is notable since the genre has not historically been associated with it. However, in recent times it has brought authors such as Suzuki Nakana with 'The Seven Deadly Sins' and 'Fire Force' from Ohkubo Atsushi. Both were big hits for the magazine, especially the former which achieved incredibly high levels of popularity for the magazine and it has a sequel currently ongoing in the magazine. In the same vein 'Orient' by Ohtsuka Shinobu also tried to explore this new space for battle series in Magazine, but it was not as successful and moved to its sister magazine Bessatsu Shonen Magazine recently. Battle oriented series are likely going to continue showing up in Magazine but not quite with the frequency of romance comedy.
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| Orient - Kodansha |
However, one magazine that has many battle orientated series is Jump which has embraced this type of series and made it part of its core identity. So in regards to current trends, Jump has not really changed itself too much from the past. It continues to focus on stuff that is more battle orientated for the most part and that will likely not change with the massive success of series like 'Demon Slayer' and 'Jujutsu Kaisen.' Not that Jump needed to make any real change in the first place as it continues to be by far the most successful manga magazine in Japan. In that sense it does not need to innovate but only continue to excel at what it does best - creating massively popular shonen series that appeal a broad audience.
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| Jujutsu Kaisen - Viz Media |
The type of series that hold the most mass appeal is battle orientated series. In essence this might be redundant because this image of battle series grew out of Jump massive success with battle orientated series in contrast to the others magazine. Of course, Jump has changed since back then but its focus on battle series has never changed and thats because they are simply the most popular series but also the ones that can be best built into multimedia franchises.
Some people might have questioned that after the inability of after 'Bleach' many new hits from Jump to break that barrier into massive success in not only sales but as multi media franchise too. However, the entry of 'My Hero Academia' and most notably 'Demon Slayer' but also 'Jujutsu Kaisen' on the stage proved that assumption to be incorrect. It seems like if these series have charming characters to appeal to audiences of ages they can still be incredibly successful. In essence, Magazine turning to these sort of battle series in its more recent history is an acceptance that this is a type of series that has that power to charm Japanese audiences and the world alike.
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