Viz’s Shonen Jump magazine is going the way of the dinosaur. Taking its place is Shonen Jump Alpha, a new weekly digital magazine that launched recently.
Viz have been aiming to shorten the time between new chapter releases in Japan and North America, and Shonen Jump Alpha is another step in the process.
For example, new Naruto chapters will be released in North America just two weeks after they’re published in Japan. That effectively means that Japan’s only going to be ahead by about two chapters.
Speaking with Crunchyroll, Viz Senior Vice-President, Alvin Lu, says that the decision to end the print magazine and replace it with a digital counterpart was not made lightly.
“The newsstand is a great tool for reaching certain kinds of readers, particularly those kids who are in Wal-Mart or in the supermarket, and we’re not gonna reach them on newsstand,” Lu says. “That was something we definitely had to take into account when we made this move.”
“We are jumping into something that’s a lot less clear-cut and at the same time, it’s rapidly evolving At this point, it’s probably too early to say how kids are gonna interact with handheld devices, where we think a lot of this business will take place.”
