Every year, new manga emerge in Weekly Shonen Jump, resulting in a wide array of fresh stories for readers to enjoy and gush over. This year is no different, with a slew of new manga emerging to fill the void about to be left in the weekly magazine. Popular manga like Demon Slayer and Haikyuu! have concluded while others, like My Hero Academia and One Piece, are starting to near their ends. Meanwhile, newer arrivals, like Chainsaw Man, have made the jump from the print magazine to the Shonen Jump+ app.
Looking at Jump's newest manga of 2021, there are five that stand out as potential frontrunners to carry on the publication's torch from older stalwarts.
5. Candy Flurry
Take the prologue of Akira, add in One Piece's Devil Fruits and filter it all through the landscape of Willy Wonka, and you have the absolutely absurd, cliché-parodying Candy Flurry.
In Candy Flurry, after mysterious power-granting candies are distributed throughout Japan, Tokyo is completely obliterated by lollipops. The story focuses on an abnormal lollypop user, Tsumugi Minase, who has to hide her powers out of fear of being confused for the villain who obliterated Tokyo. All the while, a member of a candy-hunting police force joins Tsumugi's school, pursuing illegal candy users.
Oddly enough for its premise, Candy Flurry is so self-serious it borders on self-parody. It follows the beats of many other shonen manga, but due to how ridiculous the whole affair is, you can't help but love every second of it.
4. i tell c
One of the most unorthodox shonen manga in recent years, i tell c is a crime procedural story revolving around a detective -- Risa Aioi -- who falls obsessively in love with the murderers and other undesirables she hunts. The series, therefore, centers on the cat and mouse games she plays with criminals -- terrifying them with her borderline yandere antics.
i tell c is best described as Death Note if Misa Amane was the main character. In some ways, this manga is also redemption for Kazusa Inaoka, whose prior manga, Invade You, only ran for 16 chapters.
3. Choujin X
In the world of Choujin X, monsters with ghoulish abilities exist, known as choujin. Also in this world are Tokio Kurohara and Azuma Higashi, two ordinary teens who have stuck together their entire lives. While they look like complete opposites, the two regularly defend the vulnerable in brutal street fights. However, when they encounter a choujin who threatens their lives, the two boys have to undergo a grotesque transformation in order to survive, opening them up to a new world of gods and monsters.
Created by Sui Ishida, the author of Tokyo Ghoul, Choujin X will have an infrequent update schedule. Ishida has adopted this non-weekly manga release schedule in order to avoid the terrible burnout he experienced while making his aforementioned iconic, horror shonen. Choujin X looks to be a beautifully illustrated manga that similarly mixes the bonds of friendship with grotesque body horror.
2. Blue Box
Shonen Jump is not just a place for action stories. Many romances have also successfully entertained readers over the magazine's history, with Blue Box being one of the newest. The series adds a twist to the romance genre with a sports element, too: Taiki Inomata is a badminton player who is smitten with the incredibly talented basketball player, Chinatsu. The two develop a relationship through inspiring one another, only for Taiki to gradually realize that Chinatsu's mother is friends with his mother -- and, while Chinatsu's family is abroad, she will be staying in his house.
Blue Box is a sentimental story about human connection. It's beautifully drawn, at times resembling a shojo manga more than a typical shonen. If Blue Box continues, it will likely become an earnest, sincere entry in Shonen Jump's romantic catalog.
1. The Elusive Samurai
One of the best, new titles running in Shonen Jump is a story whose main character avoids fighting anyone. Hojo Tokiyuki is a young prince who has survived a military coup, during which his entire family was murdered. Hojo manages to escape only to find himself constantly on the run as the whole province turns against him. And while Hojo can't fight for survival, he can run away... very well.
Created by Yusei Matsui, the author behind Assassination Classroom, this historical-fiction epic has, in a short period of time, become one of the highlights of Shonen Jump's newer titles. The series is not only surprisingly emotional but also surprisingly intense, starting with all cylinders at full-throttle and never letting up.
