The premiere issue of Shonen Jump also introduced the first official English translations of One Piece, Sand Land, Yu-Gi-Oh!, YuYu Hakusho, and Naruto.

Shueisha purchased an equity interest in Viz to help fund the venture, and Cartoon Network, Suncoast, and Diamond Distributors became promotional partners in the magazine.

Targeted towards young adult males, the first issue required three printings to meet consumer demand, with over 300,000 copies sold.

After the end of its physical circulation, sealed polybagged issues of Shonen Jump are now considered highly sought after among fans and comic book collectors.

Shonen Jump published its final issue in April 2012 when Viz decided to focus on a weekly digital manga anthology.

The remainder of the titles will be a combination of those on the verge of breaking out in this country, and those we feel will especially appeal to the target demographic.Jason Thompson, one of Viz's manga editors for series including Dragon Ball, was selected as the magazine's first editor-in-chief.

[7] With manga anthologies having met with little success in North America, Viz desired Shonen Jump to have a circulation of 1 million within its first three years.

To aid in this goal, Viz launched the magazine with a multimillion-dollar advertising budget, they advertised and distributed the title through mass market outlets rather than just pop culture stores, ensuring the magazine included series already popular with the North American audience due to their airing on Cartoon Network.

[4] To help fund the lengthy, expensive marketing campaign developed around Shonen Jump, Shueisha purchased an equity interest in Viz in August 2002.

[9] Cartoon Network began providing sample chapters and streaming video content to its Adult Swim website, along with prominent links to Shonen Jump's official site.

[10][11][12] With the launch of the magazine considered successful, Thompson was offered an opportunity to intern in Japan with Shueisha's editors, but declined, due to a lack of interest in the management aspects of the business and a desire to work on his own projects.

Reflecting back later, he states in an interview with The Comics Journal that "I basically told Viz that I wanted to work part time or I'd quit.

[13][14] In February 2005, Viz announced the creation of Shojo Beat, a sister publication of Shonen Jump geared towards female readers.

A second manga imprint, "Shonen Jump Advanced", was launched in April 2005 to target older teenage and young adult readers with more "mature themes.

[19] Though targeted towards "tween & teen male consumers", according to Viz Media the magazine enjoys a relatively high number of female and adult readers as well, comprising 36% and 37% of its readership, respectively.

[31] In addition to the unparalleled circulation numbers, the "Shonen Jump" manga imprint has had consistently high sales, with many of its titles being top sellers.

[11][41] In his coverage of the magazine's debut issue, John Jakala of Anime News Network, compared it to the debut issue of competing work Raijin Comics and was surprised to find himself preferring Shonen Jump, despite it being targeted for a younger age group than Raijin Comics.

[12][28] He did, however, note that the episodic nature of some of the series included had started to become repetitive after three issues, and that while the articles might appeal to many readers, he himself skipped over them.

[28] In addition to praising the value for the dollar, Comic Book Bin's Leroy Douresseaux felt that each of the chapters included were "a self-sustaining and satisfying tale with a beginning, middle, and end" that, coupled with the character and story summaries included for each series, made it easy for readers to keep up with a series even if they missed an issue.

Largely as a show of support for the anthology format, I signed up for subscriptions for both RAIJIN COMICS and SHONEN JUMP, but I was sure that I would enjoy the former much more than the latter since RC was promoted as being targeted for an older audience, and since SJ featured series that I associated with young children's cartoons.