This Hit Shonen Jump Series Will End Its Run This Month

The winner of MILLION TAG and creator of the popular Shonen Jump+ manga Beat & Motion, Naoki Fujita, announced on the final page of Chapter 47 that the series would officially be coming to an end with the release of Chapter 48 on January 25, 2025. As of writing, the series has an anime adaptation in production that’s been licensed by Netflix, as well as five collected volumes.

Considering the series originally began serialization on the service due to Natsuki Fujita winning the aforementioned reality series, it’s been absolutely incredible to see the series take off in the way that it has – especially when remembering that Shueisha only promised the winner a minimum of one fully collected volume being released, which only guaranteed the new mangaka four chapters when Beat & Motion began.

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Beat & Motion is a gorgeously illustrated debut manga that follows Tatsuhiko, a young man with a passion for the arts who, in childhood, wanted to become an animator. After being bullied away from his passions, he instead turns to music and forms a short-lived band. After the band breaks up, Tatsuhiko shuts down socially and becomes cynical toward those around him. After vocally talking down to his friends for having dreams and being told off by a random drunk woman, Tatsuhiko suddenly feels inspired to animate again. He’s then contacted by an artist he’s been a fan of for a long time, and the two begin to pursue their passions together.

Beat & Motion Is a Manga About Passion, and the Success Of Natsuki Fujita Proves It’s Message

With some of Shonen Jump and Shonen Jump+‘s heaviest hitters coming to an end, Shueisha has been in desperate need of fresh faces. One of the biggest outlets recently used to scope out these new talents is a reality show called MILLION TAG, which describes itself as being “A battle audition documentary series that follows the discovery of the next biggest comic artist.” When the show was originally released, it featured six budding artists facing off against one another to try and win 5 million Japanese yen, an opportunity to have their work serialized in Shonen Jump+, a physical published volume of that work, and an anime adaptation from Netflix.

Natsuki Fujita, the creator of Beat & Motion, was the winner of the competition and has used that success to craft a work that is a true love letter for creators struggling to stay motivated when developing their natural talents and skills. While it’s sad to see the series coming to an end, it had an excellent run and did everything it needed to in terms of storytelling. Plus, there’s still an anime adaptation in the works — so it’s likely that anime and manga fans will be seeing a lot more of Beat & Motion in the future.

H/T Shonen Jump+