Early Years of Shonen Jump on Display
A store in Akihabara has recently put up a display that showcases the early life of Shonen Jump in Japan. Included is the very first issue from 1968, all the way up to issues from the 1970s. This is classic stuff right here, folks. Way before any of Akira Toriyama's stuff even. The display has caught tons of attention from shoppers around the area, & people are frequently visiting to get a look at manga history.
But AkibaBlog decided to conduct an interesting experiment by comparing the first "Harenchi" (shameless) manga in Shonen Jump to the current fan-service manga in the magazine today, in order to see which one is more risque. So he compares the classic Harenchi Gakuen to- what elese- To Love-Ru. & the winner in this little comparison? To Love-Ru, by far.
Though I don't think this test was a fair gauge to determine if Shonen Jump is more shameful now then it was in the past. After all, nudity used to be allowed in the magazine but can't be done anymore. Sure the individual manga releases of To Love-Ru contain nipples & such, but they're edited out of the magazine itself. Compare that to older classics from the 1990s like I"s which did have nudity, & the winner is without question. (Though to be fair, I"s actually had a good romance story, while To Love-Ru is nothing more then fan-service fluff.) & let's not forget other titles like Strawberry 100%. Heck, even DragonBall had some nudity!
But despite the earliest issues of Shonen Jump not being as brash as they are today, this collection of magazines is still an impressive display. I have every English version of Shonen Jump in my collection, including the rare issue 0. Think those will be worth something one day? =b To see the comparison pics & more, check out the link below:
http://en.akibablog.net/archives/2008/04/jump-1968-vs-2008-080414.html