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Gintama Manga Moves to Jump Giga Magazine

This year's 42nd issue of Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump magazine revealed on Saturday that Hideaki Sorachi's Gintama manga will end its serialization in the magazine as previously announced, but that it will continue on in Shueisha's Jump Giga magazine starting in its winter issue for "a little while longer."

Sorachi explained that he had actually been planning to end the manga for some time. He noted that Weekly Shonen Jump has a system where an author informs the editorial department that the author wants to end the manga about half a year before the ending, and then works toward that ending with the remaining time. But Sorachi said that he had been delaying the end for a while, before declaring that he would make it to the ending by August. However, Sorachi then explained that he needed a bigger page count to reach the ending, and that the page count for the weekly magazine was not enough. In the end, he apologized to the readers who "just skim over Jump," and for not ending the manga in the magazine.

Sorachi began the manga in 2004, and the manga has more than 55 million copies in print in Japan as of February. Viz Media published the first 23 volumes in English. Shueisha published the manga's 74th volume (seen right) on August 3.

The manga entered the "Silver Soul" arc, its final arc, in July 2016.

The current anime began in October 2017 with the "Porori Arc," before it entered the "Silver Soul" arc in January. The anime began a hiatus in March but returned in July for the "climax" of the arc. Crunchyroll is streaming the anime as it airs in Japan.

The manga also inspired two anime films, including the "final" Gekijōban Gintama Kanketsu-hen: Yorozuya yo Eien Nare film that opened in 2013, and various OVAs and event anime.

The manga also inspired a live-action film that opened in Japan in July 2017. The film also received a sequel that opened on August 17 in Japan. Each of two live-action films also received a live-action net spinoff series. The first film screened in the United States and Canada in January prior to a March 6 home video release from Well Go USA.

Source: Weekly Shonen Jump issue 42