7 Shonen Jump Time Skips That Completely Reinvented Their Series

Time skips have become a cool thing to see in Shueisha’s longer running Shonen Jump franchises over the years, and there are seven in particular that have helped to completely reinvent their series following the time skip. With these weekly series often continuing their stories across multiple years, and sometimes multiple decades, a time skip is often a great trope to use for a creator to kick off a new era for their work. New characters, new stories, new allies, and new threats and more often pop up with these time skips.

As their worlds are moved ahead several years of time, it means a whole new look for each of the characters as their creators are allowed to then take things to a whole new level. It’s been a cool mark for Shonen Jump stories in particular, and below you’ll find seven series that ended up being completely reinvented thanks to the time skip opening up their stories for all new kinds of opportunities.

7). Akane-banashi

Kicking off with Chapter 141 of the series, Yuki Suenaga and Takamasa Moue’s Akane-banashi skips ahead three years as the titular Akane and her compatriots train for three years to be ready to reach the next phase of their Rakugo journey. It’s a time skip that’s still unfolding with the latest chapters of the series so the full scope has yet to be revealed, but it’s already made a huge difference for the story.

Akane herself is much more skilled at Rakugo, and it’s resulted in some incredible looking visuals that are far better than what was seen in that first half of the series. It’s a little more intense on top of it all, and this one really might end up as one of the best time skips ever.

6). Mission: Yozakura Family

Kicking in with Chapter 170 of Hitsuji Gondaira’s Mission: Yozakura Family, the titular mission of the series itself sparked five years of training for the family. With Asa declaring war on the family and his intent to attack them in a few years time, Momo laid out a plan for the family to follow in order to be ready for the attack. Deciding to then fully trust in the plan, the family got ready for the final fights and it was go for broke from there.

Two new characters were added to the mix as Taiyo and Mutsumi had twin children of their own in the meantime, and from then on we saw those children grow as they reached their own levels of impressive power. It sort of saved the series right when interest started to fade, and led to a huge final battle that fans got to see play out in full over the next couple of years.

5). Haikyu!!

As the final arc of the series, Haruichi Furudate’s Haikyu!! picks up “years later” after Karasuno ends their first major stint in Nationals. Shoyo Hinata and the others have gone their separate ways after high school, and some surprising characters are brought together for one final game that combines everything that we had seen through the series thus far. Shoyo himself spends years training in Brazil to master beach volleyball, and with it gains the skills to jump even higher. It’s the first time in the series that we get to see volleyball on a true professional level, and really feels like the series goes out on a high as a result.

4). One Piece

Eiichiro Oda’s One Piece certainly has one of the more famous Shonen Jump time skips as the Straw Hats had initially expected to reunite three days after the chaos at Saobody Archipelago, but Luffy then declares to them that they will meet up two years later instead. We see the result of this with Chapter 598, and the Straw Hats reunite at the place where they were first separated.

Each of them has been training in their own ways during that time, and gain the proper amount of skills to truly survive the next phase of the Grand Line. It’s from here on out that Luffy and the others are strong enough to make a stamp on the world, and it’s a time skip that we’re still seeing the results of after all these years.

3). JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders

JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure doesn’t really have a time skip as seen with these other series, but instead takes place years after the events of its previous iterations. But the biggest and most impactful change comes during Stardust Crusaders as series creator Hirohiko Araki literally changes everything about the series and how it works from that point on. Taking place 50 years after Battle Tendency, the third arc of the franchise sets the tone for its future.

This introduces fans to a much different type of main character who is a lot more no-nonsense than his counterparts. It’s also where we got Stands introduced for the first time too. Stands might be the most iconic thing to come out of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, but this is where it blew minds for the first time. It was literally like nothing seen before, and what we had seen less.

2). Dragon Ball

Dragon Ball‘s time skip is also one that completely changed Akira Toriyama’s manga series. Starting with Chapter 166, Goku and his friends reunite after three years for the next World Tournament and both they and fans are surprised to see how much Goku had grown in the meantime. It ushered in a whole new era for the series, and allowed Toriyama to take things in a much more action oriented direction than seen with the franchise before.

Things started to expand even more with the “Dragon Ball Z” era of the series to come with another time skip that revealed Goku’s son Gohan, introduced aliens and just all sorts of chaos in the decades that followed. Dragon Ball was never the same after Toriyama aged Goku, and it’s what helped it become such an icon today.

1). Naruto: Shippuden

But if you’re talking about the most iconic time skips in Shonen Jump that also reinvented their series, Naruto and Naruto: Shippuden have to be at the top of the list. Kicking in with Chapter 245 of Masashi Kishimoto’s classic manga, this takes place two and a half years after Naruto left the Hidden Leaf Village to train with Jiraiya. The tone was always intense in the series, but it reached a dark new level with the time skip. It’s funny looking back on it now that the time skip half of the series was much longer than the original too.

Naruto’s Shippuden era expanded the fights to a massive new level with all sorts of major threats and more that Naruto and the others were nowhere near ready to face. Then it went even further with ancient jutsu and all kinds of beings from space to breathe new life into Naruto from that point forward. It pretty much saved it.

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