Apr 10, 2025
"Series Axed! Behind the Scenes of the Shonen Jump's Golden Age" is a rather upfront memoir of the author, Kouji Maki's, experience during one of the most profitable eras of Shonen Jump which started with the introduction of series such as Fist of The North Star, Captain Tsubasa, Kinnikuman, Jojo's Bizzare Adventure, and many others in the 80s and concluded following the end of both Dragon Ball's and Slam Dunk's run in the magazine in the mid-90s. The very first chapter puts us right at the very moment one of the author's works gets axed by the editorial department and then goes back to the
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very beginning of his manga career, to the time he submitted his very own one-shots for different manga award competitions and how he got invited to work on his first serialized series, however, life seems to throw him a curveball every time he starts to feel comfortable in the industry.
What I appreciate most about this short series is its honesty, especially regarding how Maki's ideas clashed with Jump's core ideals for what manga serialized in the magazine should be like. Maki was someone who was inspired by seinen manga and Hollywood movies (such as Rolling Thunder, Taxi Driver, and Mad Max 2, and directors like Sam Peckinpah), his works usually strayed away from the shonen archetype which represented values such as friendship and hard work (as stated by the author). When we think of manga sometimes we forget that the final product had to go through the editors' approval and chapters might have undergone serious changes for the better (like when Tetsuo Hara re-did FotNS's 2nd chapter, an occurrence we see in this manga) or for the worse (like when Maki got an editor who didn't click with him and thus was stuck in storyboarding hell for the remainder of his contract at Jump). It gets to the idea that whichever job you have if it conflicts with your sensibilities you can only suck it up so much before the frustration of doing what you really wanted to do catches up to you, it's a scary feeling the manga portrays through Maki's ever-wacky reactions to news surrounding his standing in Jump, he can go from being at the top of the world and proclaiming himself a genius only for his enthusiasm to drop down tremendously in just a few pages (the art capable of showing the wide arrange of emotions through cartoony and exaggerate expressions). It also puts great emphasis on getting the right fit when you work in a team, since as you'll soon realize while reading, Maki goes through a variety of editors in spans shorter than how long his manga pan out to be.
It's a very fun short read that'll keep your attention throughout its chapters and has some interesting tidbits of trivia concerning a few popular and successful Shonen Jump authors that make it all the more worthwhile to read especially if you are just curious to know more about them around the time they hit it big in the industry, not that it goes very in-depth, it's still a series about Maki's body of work, but it recounts some very amusing interactions between him and others. It also won't be a recap of the manga he's produced, there are references to them but it doesn't require much context other than the one stated in the 7 chapters and epilogue. I've only heard about "Miquiztli" in name only but seeing how it was licensed in English I'm looking forward to reading it to better understand how it was the manga Maki was aiming to create all along over the series that came before it. "Series Axed!" ends on a rather reflective note that looks at how other (Jump) authors became part of the bigger cultural conversation and "soared high in the air" while Maki carved his very own path the way he wanted, so in a sense both sides are winners. Check it out!
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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