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| Technically this cover was for celebrating Jump hitting 300 issues... but close enough. |
Over the past 58 years of Weekly Shonen Jump's entire history, only 25 manga had ever managed to surpass 300 chapters in a single run, though two were literally only about a month or so away from reaching it before ending. There were three others that technically also reached 300 chapters, but they were done cumulatively across two series, not in a single run; they count, but not "fully". Earlier this month, though, Me & Roboco become the 26th Jump manga to ever reach 300 chapters in a single run... and yet the magazine itself seemingly thought nothing of it, treating it as though it was simply just another manga, despite it accomplishing something that only a little over 3% of all Jump manga have ever done. In fact, the very idea of a manga hitting 300 chapters hasn't been seen as something truly special by Jump in over 32 years, & it's been nearly 20 years since Jump last acknowledged a series reaching 300 chapters, as only a small handful of titles have actually been celebrated for reaching something special that, for all intents & purposes, is nigh-impossible to accomplish. In fact, only six Jump manga have ever gotten the cover specifically to celebrate reaching 300 chapters, only about about 25%. Now, to be fair, there are some reasonable & logical explanations for this lack of celebration of the vast majority of 300th chapters in Weekly Jump's history, and we'll go over those in due time. So, to celebrate Me & Roboco hitting Chapter 300 earlier this month, let's take a chronological look at Jump's history of 300th chapters... and maybe see why the magazine itself hasn't celebrated them as much as you'd think.
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| The issues featuring the first 100th, 200th, & 300th chapters... yet none of them actually are celebrating those accomplishments. |
For those curious, the first Jump manga to reach 100 chapters was Chichi no Tamashii by Hiroshi Kaizuka in Issue #16 of 1971, which is understandable seeing as this was Jump's first ever long-running manga (128 chapters) & it debuted the literal first ever issue of Jump. Ironically, Jump's first "Chapter 100" happened at the literal end of its own issue, as most of Chichi no Tamashii's chapters were placed there after the first 30 chapters, so the achievement received no flowers. Meanwhile, the first issue of Jump to ever feature a 200th chapter was Issue #29 of 1974, which actually had TWO OF THEM, as The Gutsy Frog by Yasumi Yoshizawa & Manga Drifters by Yuya Enomoto coincidentally both hit Chapter 200 on that same issue; however, even that accomplishment wasn't acknowledged at all on the cover. The first time Shonen Jump truly got close to a 300th chapter would happen in Issue #24 of 1976, which is when The Gutsy Frog came to an end after 296 chapters. At just four chapters from 300, & seven issues away from a literal six-year run, Jump's first (wholesome) hit comedy manga was the closest the magazine ever had to such an accomplishment, only for Yoshizawa to bring it to an end with only a single month's worth of chapters remaining before hitting 300; to this day, The Gutsy Frog remains the longest sub-300-chapter manga in Jump history.
Ironically enough, the first Jump manga to reach 300 chapters actually predated The Gutsy Frog by a mere eight issues, though it originally ran irregularly throughout 1970 & wouldn't truly run weekly until Chapter 16 in early 1971. That manga would be Toilet Hakase/Prof. Toilet by the late Kazuyoshi Torii & in Issue #45 of 1976, only 21 issues after The Gutsy Frog nearly glanced serialization immortality, Toilet Hakase had its 300th chapter, "It's the Autumn Festival at Oyama Shrine", becoming the first Jump manga to achieve that milestone. While Jump's first ever 100th & 200th chapters didn't receive any sort of special treatment, the magazine's first ever 300th chapter actually did get (two-toned) color pages & even the cover, though it was a shared, festival-themed cover, alongside KochikKame, Todai Icchokusen, & 1•2 no Ahho!. However, there's no mention of Toilet Hakase hitting 300 chapters anywhere on the cover & it didn't lead the issue, instead coming in second, so the color pages & cover appearance could be seen as more coincidental than wholly intentional on the part of the staff over at Weekly Jump. I should also note that Toilet Hakase would end with Chapter 319 in Issue #14 of 1977, but I'll save why I feel that's relevant for the end, though I think it's easy for one to come to a conclusion already. Anyway, Toilet Hakase would be the only Jump manga to reach Chapter 300 during the 70s, but already we're seeing a bizarre response from Jump when it comes to landmark chapter milestones... and, believe me, it's only going to get even more bizarre (& inconsistent) as the decades move on.
We now enter the 80s, which would see three (technically four, but we'll get to that) Jump manga reach 300 chapters, and in these cases these are absolutely iconic titles that more or less everyone at least knows of. First up was Issue #40 of 1982, which became the first time Shonen Jump ever actually celebrated a manga reaching 300 chapters by giving KochiKame by Osamu Akimoto the cover in honor of Chapter 300, "A Primitive Family". Along with getting the cover, which featured a giant patch with Kankichi "Ryo-san" Ryotsu emblazoned with the message "Many Thanks 300 Times Since 1976", Chapter 300 of KochiKame also received "Lead Color" status, which meant that it received full-color opening pages, as well as two-toned color pages for the chapter itself (as what had become standard at the time). Then, three years later, Shonen Jump would see its next 300th chapter in Issue #20 of 1985 when Kinnikuman by Yudetamago hit Chapter 300, "Scramble for the Throne Chapter [Part 25]: Returning from Hell". Just as with KochiKame, this issue of Jump celebrated by giving Kinnikuman the cover to itself, this time showing Kinnikuman in front of a giant "300 Anniversary" flag, as well as also giving Chapter 300 itself "Lead Color" status.
Oddly enough, though, this would mark the end of there being any sort of logical consistency from Shonen Jump when it comes to celebrating, or even just acknowledging, a manga reaching 300 chapters (or even some other milestones like it, for that matter), which makes keeping track of this stuff really tricky. Some future 300th chapters will get something like the cover, only for it to happen one or more issues later, while some others won't get anything at all... and some of the recipients of the "Get Nothing Club" will definitely surprise you.
So up next is that technicality I mentioned, because while this was indeed a "300th chapter" it's a cumulative one, so the actual chapter itself wasn't labeled as being #300. Therefore, I don't fully count it since it wasn't achieved under a single run, but we'll still acknowledge it here. Debuting in late 1980, San-nen Kimengumi by Motoei Shinzawa would run until early 1982 before "ending" after 78 weekly chapters across six volumes. However, in reality, the manga didn't really end, but rather its cast graduated from middle school to high school, as the literal next issue would see the debut of High School! Kimengumi, which is really where the series became most iconic. Technically, High School! Kimengumi only ran for 261 chapters across 20 volumes before ending in mid-1987, but in Issue #39 of 1986 Chapter 222, "Ultra Series Part 4: The Story of the Space Insect Insekit (Part 1)", made its appearance. From a cumulative perspective this would mark Kimengumi's 300th chapter (78+222=300), and Jump did indeed give it "All Color" two-toned pages, while also making it the second manga to appear in that issue. That does sound like maybe Jump was actually celebrating this (cumulative milestone), but at the same time this was also the end of a run of color paged chapters happening for the manga every four or five issues (as Chapters 209, 213, & 218 also got special treatment), so it could have simply been a coincidence, a la Toilet Hakase. Also, regardless of anything else, Issue #39 of 1986 had a bigger milestone to celebrate in KochiKame reaching 500 chapters, something only six other manga would ever accomplish in the magazine afterwards, so that got the cover & was the lead manga for that issue. However, Jump did actually acknowledge Kimengumi reaching 300 cumulative chapters... on the following issue, #40, where the series got the cover to celebrate but the chapter itself received no flourishes & was placed in the middle of the issue *sarcastic whoopee*. This would actually be the first of numerous instances where Jump would celebrate a manga reaching a major chapter milestone, like #300, after it had already done so, whether that be one, two, or even three chapters later!
Anyway, the next "true" 300th Chapter would happen in Issue #16 of 1987, when Captain Tsubasa by Yoichi Takahashi became fourth Jump manga to achieve that milestone (in a single run) with "An Ejection is Declared". However, as you can tell above, Captain Tsubasa didn't get the kind of cover treatment that KochiKame & Kinnikuman had received earlier that same decade, and the chapter itself didn't even receive any color pages. Part of that is because Tsubasa actually got the cover & "lead" colored pages just one issue prior, which marked the six-year anniversary of the manga, so what was Jump celebrating for the issue that featured Tsubasa's 300th chapter? The "100th chapter of Tsuide ni Tonchinkan by Koichi Endo... despite Issue #16 technically featuring Chapters 103 & 104. Yeah, just as with Kimengumi the year prior this was another delayed milestone celebration cover. To be fair, the prior two issues celebrated Tsubasa's 6th Anniversary & the return of Kenritsu Umisora Koukou Yakyu-buin Yamashita Taro-kun, though the actual 100th chapter of Tsuide ni Tonchinkan had a standard cover given to Saint Seiya (and the one before that celebrated the return of Kimagure Orange Road), so maybe the staff at Jump simply got caught overplanning their covers & accidentally missed the true milestone issue for Endo's series, and since Tsubasa already got a cover the issue prior to its 300th chapter they had an opening to celebrate Tsuide ni Tonchinkan's milestone; I'll give them the benefit of the doubt on this one.
So when it came to Kimengumi & Tsubasa one could easily see why the exact issues featuring their respective 300th chapters didn't get anything truly special, & especially why Tsubasa's 300th chapter didn't even get any color pages. However, things start to become way more weird & inconsistent once we enter the 90s...
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| Ryo & Momotaro get to celebrate achieving 300 chapters, if a tad late. Goku gets to share a cover celebrating an F1 racer... who's not even on the cover. |
With the "Golden Age of Jump" well into its run by the time the 90s began it's no surprise that the decade would have more 300th chapters than the 80s did, with six series achieving it in a single run, along with one doing so cumulatively. And it all began with Issue #50 of 1990, which saw the 300th chapter of Dragon Ball by Akira Toriyama, "Piccolo's Confidence" ("Freeza vs. Piccolo", in the English release)... and Shonen Jump did literally nothing to celebrate one of its most popular & iconic manga of all time achieving a milestone that only five manga had done previously. Now, since it's Dragon Ball, the chapter still appeared really early in that issue (#3) but the chapter received no color pages, & while Goku was on the cover it's because the cover featured all of the lead characters of Jump's then-current roster, as a group, to celebrate legendary F1 racer Ayrton Senna. By this point Senna had the Jump logo emblazoned on the nose tip of his iconic McLaren MP4/5B as a sponsor, & he had just won his second world championship with that car, hence the cover. Not only that, but this issue also saw the debut of a new series, Tengyan: Minakata Kumagusu-den by Daimuro Kishi, so that took the "Lead Color" spot; it'd only last 12 chapters, but that's beyond the point. Anyway, Dragon Ball wouldn't get the cover the following issue to celebrate Chapter 300, either, and in fact wouldn't get a solo cover for Jump until 23 issues later... and we'll get to that in a moment.
Anyway, 13 issues later Shonen Jump saw another 300th chapter in Issue #12 of 1991. There Chapter 300 of City Hunter by Tsukasa Hojo, "Your...", appeared... but, once again, it was overshadowed by something else. However, in this case it was honestly a little weird, because Issue #12's cover was highlighting the manga Hana no Keiji by Tetsuo Hara (which is being released right now by Kodansha USA/Vertical as The Magnificent Bastard: The Legend of Keiji, which is an amazing title), which had reached 50 chapters. Yeah... 50 whole chapters, and (best of all) that chapter didn't even get any sort of flourish & was placed 12th in the issue, while City Hunter's 300th placed 7th. Like, I get that Tetsuo Hara's name still had tons of cachet in 1991, but it's just weird to give a manga the cover for 50 chapters when another was hitting 300 at the same exact time. Now, to be fair, City Hunter's 300th would be celebrated on the cover... in Issue #15, three whole issues later, & Chapter 303 would be placed third-to-last (#17) in that issue, only for the literal next issue to feature City Hunter in the "Lead Color" spot the very next week. It's at this point that you might be wondering what the hell Shonen Jump's staff is doing when it comes to planning these things out, what with Dragon Ball's 300th chapter not being given any attention at all, City Hunter's 300th being celebrated three issues after the fact, but one issue before it would get something resembling a "proper" celebration with color pages. Well, it gets "better" because only nine issues after City Hunter's 300th Combined Issue #21-22 of 1991 saw Chapter 300 of Sakigake!! Otoko Juku by Akira Miyashita, "The Cursed Blade, Shiranui!"... and this was the issue where Dragon Ball finally got a solo cover to itself for the first time since it saw its 300th chapter published.
Yes, it not only took Dragon Ball 23 whole issues (effectively half a year) to finally get a solo cover after reaching 300 chapters, but when it finally did so it wound up overshadowing Otoko Juku reaching 300 chapters!! Either the people in charge of picking & timing these covers were horribly incompetent, or they were simply downright trolling both readers & the mangaka themselves. However, at least Otoko Juku reaching 300 chapters was given the cover treatment the following issue (but no flourishes for the chapter), so at least Jump didn't wait nearly an entire month to celebrate it, this time around. However, we're already at the point where there's literally only one more Jump manga that has ever received the cover (to itself, at least) for reaching 300 chapters, believe it or not.
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| Boy, oh boy, do we love BØY!!! |
We jump ahead a little shy of two whole years for Jump's next 300th chapter, and we begin with one that some people might think shouldn't technically count, but it actually does. You see, while JoJo's Bizarre Adventure by Hirohiko Araki is now split up across its various "Parts", it was originally serialized as a single, continuous run from its debut in 1987 all the way through the end of Part 5: Golden Wind in 1999. Therefore, while Combined Issue #5-6 of 1993 featured what's now considered Chapter 35 of Part 4: Diamond is Unbreakable, "Yukako Yamagishi Falls in Love, Part 7", back in 1993 it was actually Chapter 300 of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, "A New Power!". However, the chapter itself received no flourishes, though the following chapter would receive "Lead Color" status the very next issue, & this achievement wouldn't receive any cover acknowledgement. Instead, the cover for this issue was the 15th (of 19) annual mangaka group cover, a tradition dating back to 1979 that would end after 1997; JoJo wouldn't get its own cover until 12 issues later. However, you'll notice that I'm not showing the actual cover of Combined Issue #5-6 of 1993 here, but rather it's the cover to the prior issue, which featured BØY by Haruto Umezawa. The reason for that is because BØY wound up being the cover for every other 300th chapter's issue in the 90s, plus the issue that actually celebrated the next 300-chapter accomplishment! A little over a year later, in Issue #20 of 1994, the 189th chapter of New Jungle King Tar-chan by Masaya Tokuhiro, "Perfect Form Vayu", celebrated the manga reaching 300 cumulative chapters, since the original Jungle King Tar-chan manga only ran for 111 chapters from 1988 to 1990, with "Lead Color" status. However, unlike with Kimengumi, New Tar-chan actually carried over its numbering, which meant that Chapter 189 was actually listed as... Chapter 301. OK, the reason this celebration wasn't done the prior issue is because Issue #19 saw the debut of Rurouni Kenshin, so that naturally got "Lead Color" status that issue (fair enough), though while Tar-chan's 301st cumulative chapter got color pages to celebrate... it was BØY that got the cover; Tar-chan would get a solo cover six issues later, though the cumulative milestone was already celebrated.
Anyway, we now move over just 13 issues later, to Issue #33 of 1994, which saw Chapter 300 of Rokudenashi BLUES by Masanori Morita, "Superstar". However, as I said, the cover for this issue was, once again, given to BØY, though Jump would at least make up for it the following issue in a big way. That's because Issue #34 not only gave Rokudenashi BLUES reaching 300 chapters the cover all to itself, but Chapter 301 was even given "Lead Color" status, the first time since Kinnikuman was given the same treatment nine years prior for its 300th chapter. Was this the start of Jump finally returning back to truly celebrating 300th chapters like the accomplishment it honestly is, just like when KochiKame & Kinnikuman did it back in the 80s? Simply put... No, and in fact this is literally the last time Shonen Jump has ever given a 300th chapter both a solo cover & "Lead Color" status, as from here on out all successive 300th chapters would be given absolutely nothing in terms of pomp & circumstance, outside of a single (barely acknowledged) exception. How's that for a downer?! Anyway, the final 300th chapter of the 90s for Jump would happen in Issue #2 of 1996, which saw Chapter 300 of Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Dai, "I Am the Strongest!!! (Part 1)", and in this case it's understandable for BØY to receive the cover (& "Lead Color" status, even) for this issue, since the prior issue already celebrated Dragon Quest Dai's sixth anniversary with both the cover & "Lead Color" status; no complaints or snark here from me on this one.
However, where things get weird is that the reason why BØY got the cover for Issue #2 of 1996 is because it was celebrating the manga's third anniversary... even though BØY began its serialization in Issue #50 of 1992, so the issue where Jump celebrated BØY's third anniversary was three issues late; seriously, how was Jump's cover team so utterly bad at timing some of these milestones?! Oh, by the way, considering how often BØY took the cover for this string of 300th chapter celebrations during the 90s, it'd make perfect sense for BØY itself to get upstaged when it reached 300 chapters itself, right? Well, that never happened... because BØY ended in Issue #9 of 1999 after 295 chapters, making it the second-longest sub-300-chapter manga in Jump history, a mere one chapter behind The Gutsy Frog. I almost wonder if Haruto Umezawa did that intentionally so as to avoid his manga being given the same kind of "treatment" that most of the other members of Jump's "300 Club" got for their club entries. I mean, at this point the mangaka themselves had to have realized that Jump didn't really seem to celebrate 300th chapters.
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| Only one of these is actually celebrating a chapter milestone... but it's NOT for a 300th chapter. Plus, it's two issues after the fact. |
Anyway, we now enter the 00s & it's really weird to feel like we're "celebrating" 300th chapters, at this point, because Jump sure as hell didn't want to anymore. Regardless, with Jump's "Golden Age" now over it took a while for another manga to actually reach this milestone, as it'd take a little over seven years for the next 300th chapter to finally happen. The drought came to an end in Issue #17 of 2003, with Chapter 300 of Yu-Gi-Oh! by Kazuki Takahashi, "Sky Dragon vs. Spirit Beast" (or "Slifer vs. Diabound" in English). For this issue The Prince of Tennis got the cover, and since Yu-Gi-Oh! would wind up ending just shy of a year later in Issue #15 of 2004 the manga would actually never get a solo cover ever again after reaching 300 chapters; the best it got were group covers & a little badge on the cover of its final issue acknowledging its end. At the very end of 2003 Jump would get another 300th chapter, and like in the 90s this was for one of its biggest & most iconic manga of all. Issue #52 of 2003 would see Chapter 300 of One Piece by Eiichiro Oda, "Symphony", and by this point One Piece was already one of Jump's biggest smash hits of all time... but not even that was enough to make Jump care, with the achievement getting neither the cover nor any color pages; in fact, the next color-paged chapter would be four issues later. Now, granted, this was another instance where the cover was celebrating a different milestone, in this case Hunter × Hunter reaching 200 chapters, but (in true fashion) this celebration was two issues late... wait, scratch that, three weeks late because Hunter × Hunter skipped an issue after first reaching Chapter 200 in Issue #49. Like I keep saying, Jump's staff when it comes to covers can be really bizarre with their timing on this stuff, resulting in celebrations happening multiple weeks after the fact &, in turn, preventing celebration of other milestones that are even more rare. Anyway, One Piece wouldn't get a solo cover again until 12 issues later, to help promote the fifth movie, The Cursed Holy Sword.
It'd take a little over two years for the next 300th chapter to happen in Jump, though there was another potential close call with Shaman King by Hiroyuki Takei, which came to an inconclusive end in Issue #40 of 2004 after 284 chapters, roughly four months shy of 300, become the fourth longest sub-300 chapter Jump manga. Eventually Takei would be able to properly finish Shaman King via the kanzenban re-release a few years later, & it would truly end with a total of 300 chapters exactly, but those last 16 chapters were never serialized in Shonen Jump, so they don't count here; still worth bringing up, at least. Anyway, we now move over to Issue #11 of 2006, which saw Chapter 300 of The Prince of Tennis by Takeshi Konomi, "An Approach to Perfection", and (once) again there was literally no fanfare for what was now only the 13th manga to in Jump to ever reach this milestone. Now PoT not getting the cover here was understandable, as this issue saw the debut of Maison du Penguin by Koji Oishi (though the cover itself was for Muhyo & Roji, while Penguin got a 4-panel strip on the cover), but PoT wouldn't get a solo cover (or even color pages) until 21 issues later in Issue #32, to celebrate the manga's seventh anniversary; at least this happened on the actual anniversary issue. However, that was half a year later, so Jump could have still celebrated PoT's 300th one or two issues after the fact & still not felt like overkill.
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| One of these is the last 300th chapter acknowledgement... & it's barely visible. |
A mere six issues later Jump would see its 14th manga to reach that tricentum milestone, as Issue #17 of 2006 would include Chapter 300 of Naruto by Masashi Kishimoto, "Sai's Picture Book!!". Aside from yet another epoch-defining manga for Jump being snubbed for reaching such a rare milestone, this feels like an especially insulting snub if you go solely off of the cover. You see, the cover for Issue #17 was all about Luffy from One Piece about to activate Gear 2, an iconic moment from the series for sure, so if you didn't know better you'd think that this was issue where Gear 2 was first used. However, Gear 2 was first seen in Chapter 387, which appeared in Issue #48 of 2005... 18 issues prior! Hell, Luffy isn't even in Chapter 405, which is the one seen in Issue #17, so Naruto's 300th chapter got upstaged by a cover referencing a scene in another manga that not only didn't happen in the same issue, but rather happened five months prior!! You might think "Well, maybe the cover was referencing the anime hitting that point in the story," but Gear 2 wouldn't appear in the anime until later that July. Anyway, Naruto wouldn't get a solo cover in Jump until 17 issues later to promote the third movie, Guardians of the Crescent Moon Kingdom. I should also quickly bring up Issue #28 of 2007, which saw Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo reach 300 cumulative chapters with Chapter 70 of the sequel Shinsetsu Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo, "Baldy Bald’s Miscalculation", but unlike with Kimengumi & Tar-chan this cumulative accomplishment saw no acknowledgement at all; this is also, as of this piece, the last cumulative 300th chapter in Weekly Jump history. However, we've now reached Issue # 43 of 2007, which is the most recent time Shonen Jump has ever given a 300th chapter any sort of acknowledgement & celebration... and it honestly seems like it was done in jest, because it was for a gag manga. In this issue, Pyu to Fuku! Jaguar by Kyosuke Usuta reached Chapter 300, "Pyu to Fuku! Jaguar Extra Chapter: The Imaginary Three Kingdoms", and not only did it get color pages but the achievement was actually acknowledged on the cover!... in the bottom left corner of what was otherwise a One Piece-focused cover, and said corner acknowledgement was so small that one could easily miss it on a first glance. Now, to be fair, Jaguar actually had a history of getting color pages, done in the old "All Color" format that had long been retired by this point, as Chapters 49 (as a gag), 100, 149 (also as a gag), 200, & 250 all received color pages, & the same would be true for Chapters 350, 400, & 435 (i.e. the final chapter), and since these were all done in "All Color" (i.e. red-toned pages) it obviously didn't cost nearly as much to do as what was then the new standard of full-color opening pages. Also, the idea of acknowledging Jaguar reaching Chapter 300 as a little aside in a corner made perfect sense for the series, as it fit the offbeat & absurd nature of Usuta's works. Unfortunately, this remains the literal last time Shonen Jump has EVER acknowledged a manga reaching 300 chapters, both in terms of it being acknowledged on the cover, even if only barely, & in terms of it being given color pages of any sort. While Rokudenashi BLUES 32 years ago remains the last time Jump "properly" celebrated a manga reaching 300 chapters (i.e. a solo cover & "Lead Color" status), it's been nearly 20 years since Jump last acknowledged a 300-chapter milestone, in any way.
Now, taking aside what I just said, while Jaguar actually getting acknowledgement (barely) & color pages for its 300th chapter would maybe result in one thinking that Jump might start changing its ways when it came to this milestone, even if only maybe acknowledging them in passing in a corner, then you'd be mistaken... because Jump literally had the perfect excuse to at least acknowledge the next 300th chapter, yet chose not to. Issue #51 of 2007 saw Chapter 300 of Bleach, "Curse Named Love", but was given nothing special in that issue, mainly due to that same issue celebrating Muhyo & Roji's third anniversary... two issues early, but whatever. However, the very next issue, #52, saw Bleach get both the solo cover AND "Lead Color" status for Chapter 301... but it wasn't for reaching 300 chapters. Instead, this was all just to promote the second movie, The DiamondDust Rebellion, but it's astonishing that Jump literally had a perfect opportunity to (at the very least) sneak in an acknowledgement of Bleach reaching 300 chapters, literally just one issue later, and they seemingly chose to not do so. They could have kept everything on that cover the exact same & simply included a single line acknowledging 300 chapters ("祝!連載300回突破!!" & "連載300回突破記念" being the two most common), and they simply didn't. If that doesn't tell you everything you need to know about what Shonen Jump thinks about any of its manga reaching 300 chapters, then I don't know what else to say. They'll treat it almost like a joke for an end-of-issue gag manga, but when they have an opportunity handed to them on a silver platter for one of the biggest titles of the era they'll just ignore doing the absolute bare minimum to acknowledge it.
Anyway, nearly a year later Issue #45 of 2008 saw Chapter 300 of Eyeshield 21 by Riichiro Inagaki (story) & Yusuke Murata (art), "The Empire's Triumphal Return Parade", where it got snubbed on the cover by Hunter × Hunter... while the actual "Lead Color" manga for that issue was Bleach. Eyeshield 21 would get a solo cover five issues later, where it didn't acknowledge reaching 300 chapters at all, despite still being just close enough to count; it even got "Lead Color" the following issue, but not acknowledgement. If it sounds like I'm not giving this achievement much fanfare it's only because it's clear that Jump no longer cared, especially after that whole situation regarding Bleach just previously. But, wait... it gets BETTER!!
Remember, way back at the beginning of this overview, how Issue #29 of 1974 saw Jump's first ever 200th chapter, but in reality it saw TWO in the very same issue? Well, Issue #15 of 2010 would be the first (&, so far, only) time that Shonen Jump had TWO 300TH CHAPTERS appear in the same issue!! Yeah, due to how often it would go on hiatus, it took this long for Hunter × Hunter by Yoshihiro Togashi to finally reach Chapter 300, "Insurance", while just two slots earlier in that same exact issue Gintama by Hideaki Sorachi reached Chapter 300, "It's Not Only Ghosts That Run Wild in the Graveyard"; in between the two was the penultimate chapter of Hetappi Manga Kenkyujo R by Yusuke Murata, which ran irregularly. Clearly, a chance of fate like this, something that's so utterly inconceivable & could more than likely never happen again in the entire life of Shonen Jump would get celebrated... right?! You already know the answer to that, but at least in this case it's another fairly understandable situation, as Issue #15 also marked the (literal) second anniversary of Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan by Hiroshi Shiibashi, so that got the cover & "Lead Color" status; yeah, Jump actually wasn't late for this celebration. Gintama would get a solo cover five issues later to promote Gintama: The Movie, but naturally the mythical double rainbow of 300th chapters was never acknowledged; seriously, my mind was blown when I realized this had happened. The next 300th milestone would happen in Issue #35 of 2010 when Reborn! by Akira Amano saw Chapter 300, "Ver. Up", but the cover was given to both Toriko & Beelzebub, as both received anime pilots as part of the Jump Super Anime Tour that was happening around that time; interestingly enough, Beelzebub would get color pages in that issue, but not Toriko. However, what is more than a little messed up is that Reborn! wouldn't get another solo Jump cover... until 50 issues later!
After Reborn! it'd take over four years for the next 300th chapter to happen in Shonen Jump, but there was one last close call when SKET Dance by Kenta Shinohara ended in Issue #32 of 2013 after 288 chapters, i.e. roughly three months away from 300 chapters, becoming the third-longest sub-300-chapter Jump manga; this is the last "close call" I'll be bringing up, since anything shorter than Shaman King was nearly half a year away from 300. As for the next actual 300th chapter, we have probably one of the most fully understandable situations for a snub. In Issue #50 of 2014 Toriko by Mitsutoshi Shimabukuro had Chapter 300, "Attack and Roar!!", where it (once again) was given absolutely no fanfare or recognition. However, there were two big reasons for that (beyond the usual snubbing, of course), with the first being that Assassination Classroom was on the verge of having both TV anime & live-action theatrical adaptations debut in early 2015, so that manga got the cover. As for the second reason, well... this was the issue where Naruto had its two-part finale, with Chapter 699 getting "Lead Color" status, while Chapter 700 later in the issue became the first final chapter in Jump history to be serialized in full, digitized color. Yeah, when compared to that, Toriko making it to 300 chapters felt like less of a big deal, though Toriko would get a solo cover 26 issues later to celebrate its seventh anniversary. After that it'd take roughly 3.5 years for the next milestone of this type to happen in Jump, when Issue #23 of 2018 featured Chapter 300 of Haikyu!! by Haruichi Furudate, "Excitement", with the issue itself having a solo cover dedicated to One Piece, and no acknowledgement of Haikyu!!'s achievement in any of the cover badges; Haikyu!! wouldn't get a solo cover after this milestone until 22 issues later. At this point it's been around 10.5 years since Pyu to Fuku! Jaguar's 300th chapter milestone had been acknowledged by Jump & nearly 24 whole years since Rokudenashi BLUES got the cover & "Lead Color" treatment for its 300th, so it's clear that Shonen Jump no longer saw this milestone as anything worth celebrating.
Still, we have four more 300th chapters to cover, so let's finish this up. The last 300th milestone of the 2010s would happen in Issue #13 of 2019, when Food Wars!: Shokugeki no Soma by Yuto Tsukuda (story) & Shun Saeki (art) reached Chapter 300, "A Premeal Grace", and the cover for said issue was for Dr. Stone; much like with Yu-Gi-Oh!, Food Wars! would never get a solo cover again after this milestone was reached. With that we now enter the current decade of the 2020s... and it's entirely possible that there will only be three 300th chapters in Weekly Jump in this entire decade, a number even lower than in the 80s, since that had Kimengumi's cumulative 300th alongside the single run trio of KochiKame, Kinnikuman, & Captain Tsubasa. Anyway, it all begins with Issue #10 of 2021, where My Hero Academia by Kohei Horikoshi had Chapter 300, "The Hellish Todoroki Family, Part 2". However, this issue also saw the debut of Witch Watch by Kenta Shinohara, which coincidentally enough is now nearing its own end (but likely won't hit 300 chapters, a la SKET Dance), so this was an understandable enough reason to not acknowledge MHA's 300th; MHA would get a solo cover six issues later to promote its then-ongoing TV anime adaptation. It'd only take another 22 issues for the next 300th milestone to happen in this decade, and it understandably came from the manga that was generally seen as the Naruto to MHA's One Piece. In Combined Issue #33-34 of 2021 Black Clover by Yuki Tabata saw Chapter 300, "Beyond Tenacity", but naturally this milestone saw no pomp & circumstance... though like with MHA there was at least a rather good reason for that. Here, this combined issue was celebrating One Piece's 24th Anniversary, as that manga had debuted in Issue #34 of 1997, and while 24 isn't necessarily as monumental as, say, a 25th Anniversary it's still an accomplishment that only KochiKame had previously achieved in the magazine, so it made sense to celebrate it on (what was essentially) the literal anniversary issue. That being said... Black Clover wouldn't get a solo cover for over an entire year after hitting 300 chapters, not getting one until Issue #17 of 2023 to celebrate both its eighth anniversary & the then-upcoming anime movie, Sword of the Wizard King.
Anyway, after two 300th chapters in 2021, the decade would continue on in Jump without any other 300th chapters, as numerous long-running titles that could have maybe (potentially) hit 300 all ended with at least another year to go, if not more. Jujutsu Kaisen ended at 271 chapters, & even the spin-off/sequel manga Jujutsu Kaisen Modulo ended after only 25 chapters, resulting in a cumulative total of 296 chapters; missed it by a hair. Meanwhile, Mission: Yozakura Family ended at 258 chapters, while Blue Box ended at 250 chapters, followed by Undead Unluck & The Elusive Samurai ending at 239 & 238, respectively. However, in Issue #46 of 2026 the 2020s finally saw another 300th milestone in Jump after five years when Me & Roboco by Shuhei Miyazaki saw Chapter 300, "Bondo & Style". However, just as with MHA & Black Clover, Roboco's 300th was also overshadowed by another manga, in this case Shinobi Undercover by Ippon Takegushi (story) & Santa Mitarashi (art), which had reached 100 chapters that same issue. Jump was also celebrating Shinobi Undercover's second anniversary that same issue... three issues late, but that's never stopped Jump before, now has it? It's since been an additional two issues since Me & Roboco made it to 300 chapters, and Jump has still not acknowledged the milestone... despite Me & Roboco actually getting color pages for Chapter 301, so they had a perfect excuse to do so only one issue later, especially since Roboco got a cover badge to promote its color pages; it's seriously Bleach in 2007 all over again.
Anyway, as I mentioned, it's entirely likely that Me & Roboco will be Weekly Jump's final 300th chapter of the 2020s, as both Sakamoto Days & Witch Watch are pretty much at their respective ends by this point, & at 280 & 267 chapters respectively neither will likely continue on long enough to make it to 300; that being said, maybe Sakamoto Days can at least surpass Shaman King in length. Beyond them would be Akane-banashi, which is currently at 227 chapters & would theoretically reach Chapter 300 in 2028, but who knows if the rakugo manga will continue to have legs to stay going for another 73 chapters. Following that would be Nue's Exorcist, which is currently at 166 chapters, only a little past the halfway point right now, while Kagurabachi is currently at 135 chapters, a little before the halfway point; both are hypothetically possible in terms of time frame, but are also too early to call as plausible. And that's it for any potential 300th chapters for the rest of the 2020s after Me & Roboco, as nothing else would be able to reach that milestone before hitting 2030.
So I mentioned at the end of the introduction that I'd explain why Shonen Jump itself hasn't celebrated 300th chapters as much as you'd think, and here's why I feel that's the case. First, let's continue on that tally of manga I did at the very beginning. Out of the 26 manga that managed to reach 300 chapters in a single run only 18 would surpass 350 chapters, while only 13 would surpass 400, & only seven would surpass 500. So, really, while Shonen Jump's "300 Club" is indeed rather exclusive half of them would go on to eventually reach the next hundredth milestone, while half of the back half would wind up ending within a year of joining said club. Therefore, it creates a bit of a weird scenario once a manga reaches 300 chapters, as there really seems to be a 50/50 chance that upon reaching the milestone the manga will either end within the next year or it'll actually wind up making it to 400, which itself is worth celebrating. And, no, I did not bother to check how often Jump celebrates later hundredth milestones, aside from when it overlapped with a 300th, like KochiKame's 500th. From the perspective of Jump I can understand maybe deciding to hold back on celebrating 300th chapter milestones, since it creates an awkward scenario where they'd either be celebrating something that's already nearing its end, or they can just celebrate the next milestone when that happens, as 400th, 500th, 600th, & so on are much, much, MUCH rarer chapter counts in Jump. And, as we've seen in this overview, there have been numerous moments where another manga reaches 100 or 200 chapters around the same time as a title reaches 300, and it makes sense to celebrate the younger guard, whereas by Chapter 300 a manga has definitely turned into a bit of an "old guard" that everyone kind of just expects to see in each issue.
That being said, though... I DON'T CARE. I'd love to see Jump celebrate 300th chapters more regularly, even if only because there once was a time when the magazine actually did celebrate them on occasion. I'm not even asking for the grand celebrations that KochiKame, Kinnikuman, & Rokudenashi BLUES got, i.e. both a solo cover & "Lead Color" status, but at the same time they should be given some sort of acknowledgement. Either give that series a solo cover to acknowledge the occasion even if the chapter itself gets no color pages (a la Kimengumi, City Hunter, or Otoko Juku) or, at the very least, give it what Pyu to Fuku! Jaguar got with a simple badge on the cover acknowledging the milestone & some color opening pages for the chapter inside, i.e. "Center Color"... but don't go making it feel like it was done in sarcasm; it worked for Jaguar, but wouldn't necessarily work with every title. Sure, 26 (or 29) chapters within 58 years averages out to nearly one every two years, which admittedly doesn't sound all that impressive, but when compared to the sheer amount of manga that has been serialized in Weekly Shonen Jump it's definitely nowhere near a "regular" occurrence, and it should be treated as a momentous occasion when it does happen.
Weekly Shonen Jump © Shueisha
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