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The world of manga is feeling a bit less super now that My Hero Academia has closed the book on its final chapter, but even more change for the industry is just over the horizon. Jujutsu Kaisen is set to end at the end of September 2024 and Oda assures us that One Piece is moving toward its epic finale. Add in a lack of Dragon Ball Super updates in the wake of Akira Toriyama’s death this year, and it feels like we’re watching the end of an era in manga. This week in Popverse Jump, we take a look at what it means for two - potentially three - titans of manga to end so near to each other.

It is tough to fully grasp how monumental it is for both My Hero Academia and Jujutsu Kaisen to end their monumentally successful runs so close to each other. Before they were highly influential and popular anime, both were hugely successful manga that helped bring countless new fans to the pages of Weekly Shonen Jump with every issue. They were huge, modern hits that carried on the legacy of what came before for a new audience. Seeing both of them wrap up their stories is like DC turning around and giving a definitive end to both Green Lantern and The Flash and never revisiting the characters again. That's it. No more. This highly successful comic, that has sold millions of copies around the world, is simply done.

As much as we’ll miss MHA and Jujutsu Kaisen, we may never be emotionally prepared for a world where we open the pages of Shonen Jump and there is never another chapter of One Piece to read. For 27 years, Oda’s iconic characters and steadily expanding world have been part of our lives and it is going to leave a huge hole in the hearts of comic fans around the world when it ends…

And yet, it will end. Most manga do eventually, and it is one of the main ways Japanese comics differ from Western ones. Often, a single creator (and their team of assistants who act as apprentice mangaka while they develop their own stories) is at the heart of all these characters. Eiichiro Oda created Luffy and the rest of the Straw Hats, and he’s telling their complete story, from start to finish, his way. That isn’t to say that Western comics don’t sometimes end and we do love seeing fresh takes on classic characters, but the fact we can definitively point to people like Yoshihiro Togashi, Rumiko Takahashi, and Naoko Takeuchi as the sole creative force behind some of the most iconic manga in history makes the work feel more personal and accessible. The fact that these series have an ending makes them feel more real.

Watching these huge hits end can be tough, especially for those of us who have followed the stories for years now and have loved getting that little notification from our Shonen Jump app telling us a new chapter is ready to read each week, but every ending has a bright spot. Beyond just the conclusion to the story the creator was trying to tell, it opens up the pages of their magazines for new characters and new stories from fresh faces who have been inspired by the giants that have come before them. Shueisha, like any other publisher, has pages to fill; these departures give them the chance to find the next Demon Slayer or Delicious in Dungeon to create a new legacy.

So, I’m not worried about the state of manga with so many huge titles coming to an end around us. Where one era ends, another begins, with exciting new stories to tell.

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