Surprise Shonen Jump Series Just Did a Timeskip Ahead of Likely Cancellation

Shuesha’s Weekly Shonen Jump magazine is preparing for its next wave of cancellations and endings, and one surprise series seems to be trying to save itself with a three year time skip ahead of its increasingly likely cancellation. Shonen Jump kicked off the new year with the announcement that it was going to be launching new series, and that meant some of the older serializations in the magazine would soon come to their end. While there are only a lucky few that get to end on their own terms, there are many others that are given the axe before they get a chance.

That’s been the case for Shuhei Tanizaki’s Gonron Egg as it made its debut last Fall as a promising new science-fiction fantasy adventure. The main duo of Gonron and a prince still within his egg are fighting against a world of monstrous threats, but it really has been struggling to gain traction to fans. It seems like the end is closer than ever as the latest chapter of the series not only skipped ahead three years, but is already preparing for its final slate of battles to bring the series to a quick end.

Gonron Egg Faces Cancellation With Surprise Time Skip

Gonron Egg is currently in the danger zone of being cancelled within Shonen Jump as it’s only made it to Chapter 14, but the latest update has confirmed that Gonron had completed a three year training arc with a quick time skip. This was teased to be the thing Gonron needed in order to better utilize he and Ohma’s combined power, and would bring him closer to the rest of the revolutionary army. But rather than being something fans got to see, it’s been skipped over in favor of getting right to the war.

On the one hand, this is a better choice for its pacing overall. Fans have less patience for the kinds of training arcs that used to be more common in Shonen Jump than we see in action these days. But on the other, this is a desperate move considering that many of these serializations heading for cancellation are cancelled within their first 20 chapters. This could be a way that the series is attempting to save itself, but it’s far more likely preparing for some kind of ending as quickly as possible.

What Does This Mean for Shonen Jump?

This is usually the kind of major moves with see much later into a Shonen Jump series as they gear up for a major arc to come, but here it instead looks like it’s going to be coming to its end itself. The series using this time skip so soon feels like it’s an attempt by the series to try and find some kind of ending for fans that the creator can throw together. Using whatever ideas they were trying to hold back for later, fans are likely going to see Gonron Egg make one major choice after another in a quick succession over the next few weeks.

It’s not quite clear how much longer Gonron Egg is going to run before it’s cancelled, but all the signs are there that it’s going to happen quickly. A series isn’t safe from cancellation until after an entire year of its run with the magazine, but we likely won’t see this one making it that far. The potential was there, but fizzled out over the last couple of months.

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