Somewhere
2012-11-29, 08:41 PM
Those 4 asterisks are supposed to be 4 letters which would in English be a synonym for feces.
So some of us are fans, or at least readers, of Jump series like One Piece, Naruto, and Bleach. Toward that demographic, I inquire...
How many of us have checked out what looks to be Weekly Shounen Jump's next big thing, Assassination Classroom..... which people, naturally, lovingly shorten to Assclass.
What does it look like so far, 20 scanlated chapters in: It's one of those 1 teacher strives to improve the designated outcast class stories. It basically feels like Great Teacher Onizuka, except with an alien (looking) being as the teacher. And I'd say it feels a bit lighter than GTO did.
The premise is that said teacher, Koro-sensei, had destroyed a chunk of the moon such that it's now a crescent. Now he has struck a deal with the government of Japan to let him teach a very specific junior high class for one year. At the end of that year, he will destroy the Earth. The students of that class are charged with the task of killing him before that happens... in the meantime, Koro-sensei makes for an excellent teacher.
I said this looks to be the Next Big Thing for Weekly Shounen Jump; what the heck am I basing that statement on?
http://www.imagebam.com/image/9cdadc221573568
That's a table of Table of Content rankings for the past year's weekly Jump that someone translated. They are a rough measure of the popularity of a series, based on survey cards mailed in by subscribers; specifically the chapter serialized 8 issues ago. Lower is better. (Conversely, if a series consistently ranks at the highest numbers/bottom, you're at good risk of getting axed when it comes time for the new 2-3 series to debut)
Numbers in coloured boxes are exempt from polling, I think, and are presumably placed by editors discretion.
Over the last few months, Assclass has not fallen out of the top 5, being able to tangle with the likes of Toriko and the unstoppable beast that is One Piece.
Volume 1 was released on November 2. It has now racked up a total of ~300k sales. From looking at comments in ToC discussion threads around various forums, it's been stated that such numbers make Assclass the hottest debut volume for a Jump series since Death Note. Admittedly, that's hearsay. I'm having difficulty looking up verification of this. But I can say that 300k copies of a volume sold is pretty good for a manga, non-One Piece division. If you look at the top selling manga by volume of the (half) year lists, like on ANN, that's not far off from spot #50. In an industry that apparently spits out an average of 1k volumes a month. And this is for volume 1 after 4 weeks, when its fanbase is presumably at its smallest.
So, advertisement aside, what do I think of it? After reading ToC discussion threads and seeing the hype for it, I decided to read it last night. Got through the 20 scanlated chapters (22 is the latest in Japan at this time, I believe). I like it. I don't enjoy it as much as I do GTO, but GTO's on a particularly high pedestal for me. It holds a lot of promise. I really like Koro-sensei. I look more forward to new chapters of this series than I do of some of the stuff running in Shounen Jump Alpha.
...and, as someone throwing away money on a SJA subscription, I really, really want this to be one of the series picked up when SJA expands in January.
So some of us are fans, or at least readers, of Jump series like One Piece, Naruto, and Bleach. Toward that demographic, I inquire...
How many of us have checked out what looks to be Weekly Shounen Jump's next big thing, Assassination Classroom..... which people, naturally, lovingly shorten to Assclass.
What does it look like so far, 20 scanlated chapters in: It's one of those 1 teacher strives to improve the designated outcast class stories. It basically feels like Great Teacher Onizuka, except with an alien (looking) being as the teacher. And I'd say it feels a bit lighter than GTO did.
The premise is that said teacher, Koro-sensei, had destroyed a chunk of the moon such that it's now a crescent. Now he has struck a deal with the government of Japan to let him teach a very specific junior high class for one year. At the end of that year, he will destroy the Earth. The students of that class are charged with the task of killing him before that happens... in the meantime, Koro-sensei makes for an excellent teacher.
I said this looks to be the Next Big Thing for Weekly Shounen Jump; what the heck am I basing that statement on?
http://www.imagebam.com/image/9cdadc221573568
That's a table of Table of Content rankings for the past year's weekly Jump that someone translated. They are a rough measure of the popularity of a series, based on survey cards mailed in by subscribers; specifically the chapter serialized 8 issues ago. Lower is better. (Conversely, if a series consistently ranks at the highest numbers/bottom, you're at good risk of getting axed when it comes time for the new 2-3 series to debut)
Numbers in coloured boxes are exempt from polling, I think, and are presumably placed by editors discretion.
Over the last few months, Assclass has not fallen out of the top 5, being able to tangle with the likes of Toriko and the unstoppable beast that is One Piece.
Volume 1 was released on November 2. It has now racked up a total of ~300k sales. From looking at comments in ToC discussion threads around various forums, it's been stated that such numbers make Assclass the hottest debut volume for a Jump series since Death Note. Admittedly, that's hearsay. I'm having difficulty looking up verification of this. But I can say that 300k copies of a volume sold is pretty good for a manga, non-One Piece division. If you look at the top selling manga by volume of the (half) year lists, like on ANN, that's not far off from spot #50. In an industry that apparently spits out an average of 1k volumes a month. And this is for volume 1 after 4 weeks, when its fanbase is presumably at its smallest.
So, advertisement aside, what do I think of it? After reading ToC discussion threads and seeing the hype for it, I decided to read it last night. Got through the 20 scanlated chapters (22 is the latest in Japan at this time, I believe). I like it. I don't enjoy it as much as I do GTO, but GTO's on a particularly high pedestal for me. It holds a lot of promise. I really like Koro-sensei. I look more forward to new chapters of this series than I do of some of the stuff running in Shounen Jump Alpha.
...and, as someone throwing away money on a SJA subscription, I really, really want this to be one of the series picked up when SJA expands in January.