It's no secret that Weekly Shonen Jump faces an uncertain future. Following the conclusion of My Hero Academia and JUJUTSU KAISEN, two of the magazine's biggest sellers will have departed, and many of its newer series have failed to find similar success. The solution? It may just be headhunting.

Back in April, readers of Weekly Shonen Jump were shocked to see none other than Ken Wakui joining the magazine's line-up with a new series, titled Astro Royale. Having previously penned the hugely successful Tokyo Revengers in Weekly Shonen Magazine from 2017 to 2022, many wondered what Wakui's next steps would be, but no one quite expected him to jump to a rival publication.

And then the unthinkable happened... It happened again.

Osamu Nishi is now the latest author to come over to Jump from a rival publication, this time being Weekly Shonen Champion, where she has penned Welcome to Demon School, Iruma-kun! since 2014. Joining her in this endeavour is also another very exciting face: Shiro Usazaki, whose stellar artwork on previous Jump series act-age was unfortunately marred by the crimes of her co-creator. Nishi alone was enough to make a splash, but Usazaki’s involvement makes this into a bonafide tsunami.

Unlike Wakui, it is worth noting that Osamu plans to continue her series in Champion for the time being, but this only makes the move that much more unexpected. Even with Usazaki’s help in the art department, running two series at once isn’t an easy task, so Osamu must consider it to be worth the effort. It’s not hard to imagine why: although not as dominant in the manga industry as it once was, the Jump brand alone carries significant cultural capital, and the publication does have a proven track record of producing mega-hits.

That being said, the policy of onboarding experienced artists with a series or two under their belt isn't one that Jump has traditionally pursued in the past. Rather, the publication has targeted rookie creators at the very start of their careers with various prizes and competitions, most notably the Golden Future Cup. Furthermore, creators who begin their career at Jump tend to stay within the brand, if not at publisher Shueisha as a whole.

One of the most famous instances of manga industry headhunting actually happened to Jump with SHAMAN KING and Hiroyuki Takei. Following the manga's abrupt cancellation in 2014, the copyright for the series passed to Kodansha in 2017 and Takei has since penned a couple of SHAMAN KING spinoffs in Kodansha magazines. He did, however, make a return to the Shueisha-Shogakukan umbrella in 2015 with a follow-up to Zaurus Tokuda’s 1987 series Dash! Younkurou in the pages of CoroCoro Comic, so it wasn’t exactly a permanent break.

So why the sudden change in policy? It is worth noting that Japan as a society has contracted something of a job change fever right now, with advertisements from recruitment companies such as Bizreach and Doda practically everywhere you look. Perhaps Shueisha's corporate culture has been influenced by this, but the most probable answer comes down to cold hard business. Who is more likely to succeed in the highly competitive Weekly Shonen Jump environment: a veteran creator with years of experience under their belt, or a newbie who only just learned how to panel the other week?

Whether or not the magazine's recent spate of headhunting will constitute a permanent change in strategy remains to be seen. Certainly, two examples isn’t enough to make a consistent pattern, but the creators coming over to Jump are big enough to make heads turn. At the very least, the editorial board will be hoping that both Astro Royale and Ichi the Witch are big enough hits to help secure the magazine’s current line-up. 

And if they get a little bit of extra publicity from poaching? So be it.

You can read Astro Royale and Ichi the Witch for free in English via VIZ Media.