Shonen Jump Cancels New Sports Series Before It Even Had a Chance

Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump magazine has brought another series to an early end this week continuing a major trend of cancellations through the month, but its latest cancellation is for a major sports series that has been cut off at the knees before it even had its chance to succeed with fans. Shonen Jump is going through a major new phase this Summer as they are introducing tons of new series this month alone in the search of their next biggest hit, and unfortunately that means that many of the other running series are going to be brought to their respective ends.

This Summer has already been a rough one for Shonen Jump as many of its serializations have been cancelled for the weeks thus far with both Super Psychic Policeman Chojo and Syd Craft: Love is a Mystery being brought to their ends over the past couple of weeks. Now the third cancellation this month has been revealed as Kei Kurumazaki and Sotaro Nishii’s Embers has been brought to its truncated ending with only 20 chapters under its belt before cancellation.

Embers Cancelled at Shonen Jump After 20 Chapters

Embers first hit the pages of Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump magazine earlier this February, and is currently the shortest series cancelled through the month thus far. Super Psychic Policeman Chojo was able to explore its story for at least a year and more than 50 chapters before it came to an end, and Syd Craft: Love is a Mystery was able to wrap up its own story with under 30 chapters. But Embers is getting cancelled before it even really has the chance to show fans what it could bring to the table. Which unfortunately also falls in line with just how competitive it can be to keep a serialization running with the magazine.

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Embers was an interesting take on football as Shonen Jump has not had a lot of other series like it, but fans started calling out this new series for how much it seemed to share with other hits like Muneyuki Kaneshiro and Yusuke Nomura’s Blue Lock. It had a much different hook, however, as a team of delinquents was slowly putting their talents together in order to take on better made teams through sheer passion and gumption for winning alone. But we’ll never truly see what kind of heights it could have reached.

What Does This Mean for Shonen Jump?

Shonen Jump is going through some big changes this Summer with June already introducing three new serializations to the magazine in the hopes of finding new pillars that could support the magazine in the future. But Embers‘ cancellation provides an interesting new insight into the magazine as it marks yet another failed attempt at getting a popular sports serialization going again. Outside of the currently running Blue Box, and the newly released Harukaze Mound, there aren’t really any manga in the magazine that offer something for sports fans like fans will see from other brands’ action magazines.

It’s the kind of place that fans saw previous hits like Haikyuu!!, Eyeshield 21 and more, and Shonen Jump is clearly in a place where it could use another sports hit. Embers wasn’t what the editors were looking for, so perhaps the duo behind it can return some day with something else. We’ve seen other cancelled Shonen Jump creators return to the magazine with new series attempts, and that’s likely going to be the same case here as this duo behind Embers has to go back to the drawing board and see what they want to possibly work on next.