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Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump has gone through a lot of changes this year already with two of its marquee series coming to an end, and it seems like the third is on the way as one series is seemingly getting closer to its grand finale. Shonen Jump has gone through some big changes in the past couple of years alone as not only did My Hero Academia and Jujutsu Kaisen come to an end in 2024, but the start of 2025 also saw Mission: Yozakura Family and Undead Unluck come to their ends as well. These endings helped to spark a new era for the magazine.
Shonen Jump has been on the lookout for new icons for the magazine as many of their mainstays from the late 2010s and early 2020s have come to their respective ends. While it’s meant that some series have been cancelled early before they could actually reach their natural end, those lucky enough to keep getting to tell their stories are naturally reaching that point. That’s the case for Kouji Miura’s Blue Box as its story is likely to have gotten to its climax.
Is Blue Box Going to End?
When trying to figure out whether or not a Shonen Jump series is going to end, there are a few things to consider. Sometimes a series will announce an official final arc that fans are able to keep track of, and that’s the case for the majority of its series. But sometimes fans are more taken by surprise as it’s revealed ahead of the final chapters (and sometimes even before the final chapter is released) that the end is coming soon. When an ending has yet to be announced, there’s also a shift in tone that a series takes that can be picked up on as well.
It’s especially noticeable if a series is facing impending cancellation too as the case with manga like Ken Wakui’s Astro Royale. That series started speeding through its final tournament to get to its final battle, and then it was announced that the series would be cancelled after just a year of serialization. But that’s not the case with Blue Box as it has been able to tell its romance at a steady pace. As it reaches the 200 chapter mark, it’s also becoming clear that there also not much story left to tell with it anymore. It could be getting ready to bring itself to an end soon.
Blue Box has been telling the story of Taiki and Chinatsu as the two high school athletes found romance with one another while chasing their respective sports dreams. But as Chinatsu’s time in high school comes to an end, and her sports career is over, it’s Taiki’s time to get ready for the end as well. The two of them are going to be separated for a while, and their lives will take them in different directions from here on out. But as of Chapter 196 of the manga, their love has been fully, physically confirmed through a new show of love for one another. That’s kind of as far as this could go.
Blue Box might turn out to be the kind of series that’s meant to go on forever and follow its protagonists into adulthood, but that’s also not the message that the rest of the series has. It’s been such a great sports series as it has tackled the fact that people are meant to move on after their time in high school, and their goals change in the future. With that at its core, it wouldn’t be right to keep the series going just because fans aren’t able to say goodbye. Their time will have passed, so it’s time to let them go.
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What Will This Mean for Shonen Jump?
Blue Box does have a chance at continuing if the romance series is spread more to the secondary characters, but there’s not much ground to cover there either. There are other relationships that seemed to have sparked alongside Taiki and Chinatsu’s stories that the manga could decide to follow, but they are far from the real core of the series. It’s more likely that after a few more chapters to settle Taiki’s time in school, and maybe some more of the romances heading into the future, Blue Box is going to end.
It might not be ending as soon as it seems as there is some more ground that creator Kouji Miura could take their time with, but the central romance has reached such a peak of its development that it would lose its impact if it kept going. That means Shonen Jump will likely lose yet another series through the course of the year, and will need more hits to keep it going into the future. There are already some new releases that will seemingly take it spot thanks to great first impressions, but that’s a lot of pressure.
Shonen Jump is definitely going to feel it when Blue Box comes to an end. There are more romance stories in Shonen Jump that take a more traditional approach such as Genki Ono’s Hima-Ten!. That series is currently under 50 chapters, but has already filled its pages with a group of young women vying for the protagonist’s attention. It’s fairly nostalgic in the way it presents its idea as many of Shonen Jump’s classic romantic comedies come to mind, but it’s not the same itch that’s scratched by Blue Box.
Blue Box is a rare series that both offered romance and an intense high school sports story. Combined with Miura’s gorgeous art taking it to a much higher echelon, and there’s really nothing else in Shonen Jump like it. This could end up being the grand finale that’s fast approaching, and Shonen Jump fans are going to lose a series that brings quite a lot of joy each week as a result. But we’ll see soon enough if that’s the case.
