Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump magazine is only a week into 2025, but the magazine has already brought another major series to an end after five years and only a week after it said its last goodbye. Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump magazine has undoubtedly been going through a major shift as 2024 saw two of its biggest action franchises from the 2010s, Kohei Horikoshi’s My Hero Academia and Gege Akutami’s Jujutsu Kaisen, come to an end. As the end of the year approached, it was also made clear that fans would be saying goodbye to two more of the longer running manga as well.
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At the end of 2024, fans were looking ahead to the impeding endings for both Hitsuji Gondaira’s Mission: Yozakura Family and Yoshifumi Tozuka’s Undead Unluck. But what came as a real surprise was just how fast those endings would hit. Last week saw Mission: Yozakura Family come to an end after six years with the magazine, and now only a week later, Undead Unluck follows. With the release of Chapter 239, Undead Unluck’s manga run has officially come to an end after five years with Weekly Shonen Jump magazine.
How Does Undead Unluck End?
Undead Unluck Chapter 239 serves as the final chapter of the series, and comes just after it was announced that Tozuka’s five year long run would be reaching its climax. It makes a lot of sense considering that fans have seen Fuuko and Andy in the midst of the biggest fight in the series to date, and the penultimate chapter saw the fallout of this fight as those formerly cursed with their powers now get to go on to have regular lives. And as of the final chapter, that is exactly what happens as each character goes off to have a happy future of their own.
The final chapter of Undead Unluck takes place some time after the final battle and revisits everyone one final time. Each character is gathering for an important wedding, but realize that both the groom and bride are running late. It’s then revealed that this is actually Fuuko and Andy’s wedding, and the two of them are confident that they will make it to the ceremony right at the time that the other arrives. In this final extended chapter, Fuuko and Andy get married and pledge to have lives filled with “wicked sick” fun from that point on.
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What Is Happening to Shonen Jump?
With the end of both Undead Unluck and Mission: Yozakura Family happening in such quick succession, it’s a very changing time for Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump magazine. Outside of franchise mainstays like One Piece or the irregular schedule of Hunter x Hunter, every series left regularly running within the magazine at a weekly rate are from the 2020s. This means it’s all young and fresh talent within the magazine as a whole, but also does raise questions about the kind of lasting power that older series in the magazine used to have.
Whether it’s those behind the magazine or the creators themselves, there’s undoubtedly a much faster turnaround for a potential hit series. Unlike the days of My Hero Academia where a series had a chance of running for ten years, it’s likely that even newer hits like Sakamoto Days or Kagurabachi will have a ceiling of about five to six years before their runs will end. This likely makes for much tighter and potentially stronger stories, but it will raise some questions about their longevity as notable brands themselves outside of the magazine. But time will tell.
