Shueisha has announced that volume one of its Gintama manga has now sold over one million copies. One of the major factor behind the sudden increase in sales was the announcement of a Gintama anime. Volume 17 of Gintama will go on sale in Japan in March.

Source: ANS

According to the preview page on the BJ website, Kei Toume's Sing Yesterday for Me will resume serialization in Business Jump issue 8 (3/15). Sing Yesterday for Me went on hiatus in September of 2006, and many thought the series ended for good due to the announcement message.

Shueisha has announced that its shonen magazine Monthly Shonen Jump will cease publication as of the July issue, on sale June 6th. According to Shueisha, the suspension is due to Monthly Jump's declining sales, which have dropped 30% since its peak.

Also, Shueisha's Public Relations Department stated that a new magazine is currently being planned to replace Monthly Shonen Jump: "We plan on creating a new magazine that is more in tune with the times, tentatively slated for a launch this fall."

Monthly Shonen Jump was launched in December of 1969 as a sister magazine of Weekly Shonen Jump. In 1989, the magazine's circulation reached 1,400,000, while last year only 420,000 copies were printed. Series serialized in Monthly Shonen Jump include Claymore by Norihiro Yagi, Beet the Vandel Buster by Riki Sanjo & Koji Inada, Captain by Akio Chiba, Mahou Tsukai Kurohime, and more. There has been no announcement regarding the future of manga currently serialized in Monthly Shonen Jump.

Source: Yahoo! Japan

Controller M&Y by Akira Akatsuki, which began in Weekly Shonen Jump issue 2 in early 2007, will end in Shonen Jump issue 13.

Also, two new series are set to begin serialization in Shonen Jump issue 14 and 15:

Issue 14 (3/5): Samurai Usagi by Fukushima Teppei
Issue 15 (3/12): Volley Ball Tsukai by Takahashi Ichirou

Source: Ultimatum - Talk

Gokusen, a popular josei manga by Kozueko Morimoto, will be ending in YOU No.5, on sale 2/15.

Gokusen follows the story of Yamaguchi Kumiko, the granddaughter of a Yakuza boss, who tries to become a high school teacher. The manga was adapted into a drama in 2002, and later an anime series in 2004.

Japanese fans recently pointed out similarities between Rin Yoshii's manga Switch and photographs from the November 06 issue of the fashion magazine Sweet. This week the editorial department of Cookie (the magazine Switch is serialized in) sent out a letter confirming the plagiarism. As a result Switch will be dropped from Cookie, Rin Yoshii's two other series, Kurabeyou mo Nai Hodo ni (So Incomparable) and silent summer snow, will also be temporarily suspended to be checked for possible plagiarized content.

The images in question appeared in 2007 Issue 1 of Shueisha's Cookie magazine, some comparison can be seen here:

The apology letter from the Cookie Editorial Department:

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ANS reports that Japanese fans are accusing mangaka Rin Yoshii's manga SWITCH of copying a photograph from the November 06 issue of the fashion magazine SWEET. A comparison between the original photograph and the SWITCH manga scan can be seen here and here (the scan is from the January 07 issue of Shuisha's Cookie).

The latest issue of Shueisha's Akamaru Jump came with the To-LOVE-Ru Winter Art, a collection of To-LOVE-Ru illustrations on double-leaved pages. However, one of the artwork seems to have been deliberately altered.

The picture in question is a spread scene with Lala and Haruna taking a bath together, with a tremendous amount of bubbles are covering their bodies, to the extent that only their faces can be seen. The illustration is published in a very artificial condition.

To quote some of To-LOVE-Ru creator Kentaro Yabuki's comment at the back of Weekly Shonen Jump:

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Death Note, written by Tsugumi Ohba and illustrated by Takeshi Obata, was one of the most talked about manga in 2006. With the popularity of the manga, successful movie adaptions, and an anime TV series, Death Note was ranked as the No.1 anime and manga search term on Yahoo! Japan in 2006.

In early 2006, a Japanese blog published an article (the entry was taken down, but a Chinese version can be found here) about a 24-page one-shot called The Miraculous Notebook (不思議な手帖) by Shigeru Mizuki, which was published in the magazine Comic Mystery in 1973. The story of the one-shot revolves around a magical notebook: when a person's name is written on that notebook, the said person dies. Sounds familiar? Below is a summary (with some pictures) of the one-shot:

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MoePre has an interesting article titled "Jump and Fujoshi." The article analyzes the recent attempts by Shonen Jump to better market itself to the fujoshi demographic.

Part 1 of the article introduces the readers to the term "fujoshi," and provides an overview of the situation. In Part 2, the article takes a closer look at the impact of the fujoshi audience on Shonen Jump.

[The Turning Point of Shonen Jump]

Shonen Jump experienced a turning point during the serialization of The Prince of Tennis by Takeshi Konomi.

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