Sunday X Champion - A Comparison of the Moment.

Image from Takekawa x Ichihara Interview 

Sunday and Champion are rather different magazines even thought they are both weekly shonen magazines. Historically, they have different origins and part of this is why they are separated by over a decade in terms of age. However, the history of these magazines is a topic for another post in the future. This time we will be focusing on the current moment. Over half a century after their creation how are these magazines at the moment? How do they compare to each other in terms the current series, but also what they tend to serialise and what has been successful recently. 

One of the first thing to highlight is how Sunday has a title massive title with iconic cultural status ongoing in the magazine. Of course, I am talking about the unaging not quite a child 'Detective Conan.' This provides a pillar for stability for the magazine as the series seems to be as popular as ever, its movie are racking in at the box office and its older and recent spin off works were also incredibly popular. 

Detective Conan vol 96 - Gosho Aoyama

Champion does not have a series with this similar level of sustained popularity. Of course, it still has popular titles such as Baki, Super Radical Gag Family and Yowamushi Pedal. However, these series have not maintained the high level of popularity they had in the past and in addition they were never really as iconic or as popular as Conan. Conan has in sense has remained unchanged since the start but its audience never moved on. In contrast to Super Radical Gag Family, where audiences moved to other styles of gag manga and the The Parents Associations (TPA) quibbles with probably hindered it as well. Baki in a sense was also effected by this as its kind of failed to keep its audience connect in the same way that Conan has over so many years. Conan's multimedia success is probably a big reason for this as it continues to have a gateway with audiences outside of the magazine sphere in a way that the Champion hit series I have mentioned simply cannot.

Position of the magazine 

However, another pillar of stability for the magazine is its turn to successful veterans in recent times. This can be illustrated by returns of Kenjiro Hata (Tonikaku Kawaii), Syun Matsuema (Kimi wa 008), Kotoyama (Yokufushi no Uta), Takuya Mitsuda (Major 2nd), Rumiko Takahashi(MAO) and Kusuba Michiteru (Daiku no Haito). All these authors had previous successes in Sunday and a lot of baggage and they all have on going series in the magazine at the moment. The series of these authors all are reasonably established in the magazine at the moment with most of them having their run break past a year at least. Therefore, we can reasonably argue that this turn to these veterans was part of the magazine turn to a pair of safe hands in the current troubling period for shonen magazines. 

Champion has attempt the same but returning veterans had not had the same level of success. They have veterans too, firstly there are the ones who had previous hits in the magazine are the ones that are still writing continuation of those hits series such as Itagaki Keisuke (Baki series) and Hamaoka Kenji (Super Radical Gag Family series). In addition, Masahiro Anbe (Shinryaku Ika Musume) is one of the few that had a prior hit in Champion and who returned with another successful series. In a similar vein is Ishiguro Masakazu  but his success prior to starting Furutto on Thursday was not in Champion and one could argue this is likewise the case for Sogabe Toshinori (Yankee JK Kuzuhana-chan). Wataru Watanabe could also be seen in the same vein as two previous authors, but before Yowamushi Pedal, he had limited experience and not a lot of success in his baggage. 

Shuukan Shonen Hachi - Akita Shoten 

However, this does not mean Champion did no try to bring back veterans. in fact, in recent times  Hirakawa Tetsuhiro (Himawari), Masuda Eiji(Weekly Hachi) and Hosokawa Masami (Toubousha Elio) all returned. Neither was able to create a successful series and I do not blame them. The magazine is constantly shifting and in part this is caused by how much smaller shounen magazines have become, they do not have the same readership base they might have even only a decade ago. This obviously spills onto the authors and they have to constantly adapt to the changing scenario and develop stories that can catch different audiences. 

In Sunday, not all returning veterans have had the same level of success as well. Kotoyama. Rumiko Takahashi and Takuya Mitsuda stand out as having found decent success admittedly the later has done this through a sequel to his most well known work. The others Kenjiro Hata, Syun Matsuema and Kusuba Michiteru have not found the same degree of success and the latter is the most notable one in his lack of success with Daiku no Haito. 

Excluding, Major 2nd as it is a sequel to a beloved and massively popular, the biggest hits from Sunday in recent times have come from more inexperienced authors such as Oda Tomohito with Komi-san wa Komyshou wa and Sousou no Frieren from Yamada Kanehito and Abe Tsukasa. Of course, many inexperienced authors fail and thats why veterans are a bet with much less risk. However, at the same time veterans have higher a pay rate and therefore many veterans can mean the profit margin of these magazine, which are low to begin with, are even lower. Perhaps this is one of the reasons Sunday has had to hike its price up and reduce its number of pages, so everything has its downsides. 

Champion on the other hand clings to certain veterans but most of the magazine is formed by inexperienced authors or first time authors. There are sometimes experienced authors like Sogabe Toshinori or even Uchida Kohei (Kurobane Hakusho), they are not authors with a massive success however. This means their pay rate is probably not on the level of authors like Rumiko Takahashi or Takuya Mitsuda and that is probably why Champion even though it is from a much smaller publisher is 20 yen cheaper whilst at the same time having more pages than Sunday. 

Recent Trends  

Sousou no Frieren in Cover of Sunday - Yamada Kanehito & Abe Tsukasa

In recent times both magazines have serialised things that were not traditionally seen in shounen magazines in the past. Sunday for once has come to focus a lot in slice of life series and series with a much slower pace. Things like Maiko-chan, Komi-san, Daiku no Haitou,Yokufushi no Uta and Sousou no Frieren are obviously not similar in genre but they all have a slice of life touch and are usually take more time to develop and they are not overtly dramatic either. They are instead all works that give a positive feeling to the reader. Obviously this is not all Sunday serialises but it has grown to focus on these aspects much more in recent times.

On the other hand, Champion is rather hard to pin point. It does not have a clear focus and things are a bit more erratic. In recent times it has taken popular series SNS and made collabs with a popular television program, serialised spin off of its popular works. So things are a bit more peculiar when it comes to champion, there is no clear trend in what is serialised and the very fact it can pick up three series from SNS in one year shows that. It feels like the magazine is always changing and adapting and thats probably a consequence of the lower circulation number which means the magazines have to find new ways to attract new readers whilst at the same time keeping old fans interested. 

Final Thoughts 

Mairimashita! Iruma-kun in the cover of Champion - Osamu Nishi

Both these magazines are quite different. At the moment, Champion feels like it is in a changing possibly due to the popularity of Mairimashita! Iruma-kun, which has meant the editorial department brought other feel good slice of life series to the magazine. At the same time, it also brought more battle orientated series which have found some success in a genre which had traditionally done rather poorly in Champion in the past. It does feel like the magazine is changing whether its for the best depends on each person's personal taste though.

Sunday has not had the same sort of change as Champion in recent times. The slice of life turn is not necessarily recent and it has continued to drift along that wave and I doubt it will stop anytime soon because it has been successful venture. In addition, Sunday has in a sense its own author 'academy' and by that I mean the authors that publish in Sunday are usually groomed in Sunday's wider editorial framework.  Therefore, these trends of the magazine can be more everlasting since the authors are groomed by the Sunday editorial department. 

This is completely different from Champion that serialises many authors from other areas. It does not tie itself with only authors groomed through its editorial department in fact most authors come from elsewhere when it comes to Champion. This is probably why it has less defined trends in recent times but both types have its downsides and upsides so its a mainly question of the overall editorial line each editorial department has. 

Links -

 Interview between Sunday head editor and Champion head editor

https://natalie.mu/comic/pp/weeklychamp01

If  you enjoy reading these posts, please consider leaving a comment, I would love to hear suggestion for stuff you would like me to write about. 

Thoughts on Weekly Shonen Sunday's current line-up

 Weekly Shonen Sunday opens the new decade with a stable lineup. So lets see its current line up.

Sousou no Frieren (Lead Color)
Detective Conan: Zero's Tea Time
MAO
Komi-san wa Komyushou Desu
Major 2nd
Yofukashi no Uta
Nokemono-tachi no Yoru (Color)
Ryuu to Ichigo
Maou-jou de Oyasumi
Aozakura Bouei Daigakukou Monogatari
Tonikaku Cawaii
Be Blues! - Ao ni Narei
Ponkotsu-chan Kenshochu
Kimi wa 008
Hoankan Evans no Uso (Color)
Souboutei Kowasu Beshi
Maiko-san Chi no Makanai-san
Alice in Borderland RETRY
Amano Megumi wa Suki Darake!
Switch
Sokyuu no Adriadne
Itoyan goto Naki
Zettai Karen Children
Youkai Giga
Tokaichi Hitoribocchi Nouen

ABSENT: Detective Conan, Daiku no Hatou
(Hiatus) Arata Kangatari

Instead of going down through the table of contents, I want to first analyse where the stability of Sunday comes from. As I see it a key component of this stability is obviously the presence of Detective Conan, a series with iconic cultural status which many people tune in on Saturdays evenings to watch its anime. Its incredibly successful anime is a factor in this but the manga also continues to sell well, it is currently Sunday best selling series and it has a towering presence over any other series in the magazine.  

This strong popular magnetism of Detective Conan has meant spin off series have come to appear in the pages of Sunday as well. The most recent ones being Zero Tea's time and Wild Police Force whilst the latter has ended the former appears in the magazine infrequently but they nonetheless show how important Conan is for Sunday.

Komi-san is a strong series in Sunday's line up, sales wise it is still one of the best selling series, even if its sales seems to be in decline at the moment. The editors seem to have stepped back some of the attention they gave it earlier, probably to give space for the much newer series that have not found such levels of popularity. It continues, however ,to be one of the most popular Sunday series and one that many people wish to see animated someday to see it reach new heights but whether that will happen we will just have to wait and see. 

Another series that could be said to be a strong weight lifter in the magazine is Kotoyama latest work 'Yofukashi no Uta.' It is a relatively new series in comparison to Komi but it has become a good stable seller in the magazine and whilst it has not reached the level of popularity that his previous work had in its peak yet, it sells really well in comparison to the rest of the magazine. Perhaps, with an anime in the future it could match or even surpass Dagashi's peak, but that is also something we will have to wait to see. However, neither Komi-san or Yokufashi are the second best selling in the magazine beneath  Conan, after all that title is reserved for Major 2nd at least for the moment. 

Major 2nd is similar in a way to Conan in that it is a very popular series, but unlike it, it is a sequel to the popular 'Major' baseball series that ran on Sunday in the past. Major 2nd following from its prequel was immediately popular since its debut and it continues to be one of the best selling series in Sunday even though it has being ongoing for a a few years already. It has during its current run received two anime seasons but these never boosted its sales to a large extent and the moment its sales seem to be on a downward trend. Despite this it is still a staple in the magazine albeit one that is boosted by its sequel status to an older popular work. 

This brings us to other sports series in the magazine. Be Blues which has been ongoing for a long period, it is similar to Major 2nd in that it is a stable series for the magazine. It does not have the same level of success but it has managed to maintain a decent level of sales but its sales seem to have reached a peak and have since stagnated. It unlike Major 2nd has not had a anime adaptation but it is also by a veteran author with prior successes in Sunday in his curriculum.

Switch on the other hand is one of the younger series in the magazine that has established itself. Unlike Major 2nd or Be Blues, it is from a newbie author. It has nonetheless manage to claw for itself a space in Sunday via growing sales albeit it is still not a big selling series by any stretch of the imagination. It continues to slowly grow but the increase in sales comes in very small chunks and not in leaps which does not paint a picture of a series that will be a star for the magazine in the coming future, unless it of course receives an anime or gets a boost in sales from another source. 

Going from one series that has been making space for itself in the magazine to another, lets move on to Frieren. Frieren has quickly managed to become a title with a lot of promise for Sunday by selling well right from the get go and its second place rank in Kono Manga ga Sugoi is sure to boost it sales further.  Its a golden egg that has a promising future for Sunday. Likewise, Ryuu to Ichigo is also a newer series that started around the same time as Frieren, it has not managed to reach the anywhere the same level of popularity or sales. It has nonetheless established a space for itself in the magazine though it has only a passable level of sales at the moment. Hence, it is likely going to become a middling series in the magazine.

Talking about middling series the likes of Kim wa 008, Tonikaku Kawaii and Sleeping Princess all fit in this category, some are better fit than others however. Both Tonikaku kawaii and Sleeping Princess sell reasonably well, the former sells more but the latter is much further into its run and its sales had stagnated and declined over the last few years. However, both have received anime quite recently and neither has particularly found themselves moving up a tier in sales and Frieren looks set to easily outsell both in no time if it has not already. Kimi wa 008 on the other hand has lower sales than the other two but it has a stable level of sales that should sustain it for a reasonable run in the magazine. An anime for it might not be a remote possibility either even though the anime industry has moved on from such such eechi series in recent times though they still shows up to a certain degree every now and then. 

Alongside these series is of course Ariadne and Maiko-san. Both these series have middling tier status in the magazine, the latter has been on going for longer and its sales are much better but like the others they both are established in the magazine but are not big hits. So they simply do not have the same sort of attention as the more popular stuff. Aozakura also fits alongside these series in the middle tier of the magazine. Likewise this is also the case for Amano Megumi. These series whilst not as big as some of the top selling stuff of the magazine, they form the majority of the magazine and for any magazine to sustain itself it needs to have a strong middle tier alongside the big titles. Sunday's middle tier has average sales for the most part with some highlights here and there, but through them the magazine shows a wide variety of genres that can capture different audiences. 

Daiku no Hatou is a series, I wanted to talk about on its own. It is a series that has established itself in magazine in one way or another but its sales according to shoseki at least are rather poor.  Of course, this does mean its sales are poor everywhere since shoseki does not cover every bookstore in Japan or digital sales at that. Clearly, the editors believe its popularity in magazine and its sales are appropriate enough for it to continue in the magazine till this day. Likewise this is the case with Nokemono-tachi, one of the newer series thats just passed its first anniversary in the magazine but its sales according to shoseki are not good but it continues in the magazine regardless. I do not believe people in the editorial department would keep really unpopular series in the magazine so I am sure these series have a level of popularity thats acceptable regardless of what shoseki might show.