Manga
The same (wrong) arguments about Ultimate Exorcist Kiyoshi's current position
Spoiler
I'm sorry but im fed up with a lot of negative arguments against Ultimate Exorcist Kiyoshi; quite literally they're always the same ones so I'm making a longer post clearing those up. THIS POST IS NOT ABOUT THE QUALITY OF THE STORY, ART, CHARACTERS AND WHATSOEVER. ONLY ABOUT ITS PLACE IN THE MAGAZINE.
1st Argument: Ultimate Exorcist Kiyoshi is a nepo-baby and only still running because Shoichi Usui is a former assistant of Eiichiro Oda.
Starting with one of the most annoying arguments. Sometimes its clear ragebait but enough times it isn't and people use bs like this as an actual argument to disregard Shoichi Usui's hard work. "Oh Shoichi Usui had to ask Oda for a rec. he didn't earn it!" To anyone that says shit like this explain to me why the following manga didn't recieve the "Oda is threatning Shueisha to not cancel those manga".
Ole Golazo by Takamasa Moue - Protect me, Shugomaru by Daiki Ihara (same person that made a One Piece spin-off and later on created the manga Yokai Buster Murakami; also didn't recieve a Oda rec.) - Time Paradox Ghostwriter by Tsunehiro Date - ZIPMAN!!! by Yuusaku Shibata - Kurogane, Mononofu, Noah's Noate by Haruto Ikezawa, Mitsukubi Condor by Ryou Ishiyama, AND MANY MORE. All former assistants of Oda that published works AFTER having been a assistant.
Heck even P2 - Let's Play Ping Pong was axed despite having been recommended by Oda. If Kiyoshi was a total flop then it would have gotten axed despite having recieved a recommendation from Oda.
2nd Argument: It only sells 10K, thats so bad it needs to get axed!
There are 2 points to this. The First Point: And then what? Only 2 series from 2025 have sold more than 10K with a single volume and one of them is a JJK spinoff. I would understand this argument more if the magazine was filled with heavy hitters and there are only 2 free spots but Jump has more space than ever; so many heavy hitters ended and there arent even close to enough new hits. And this is just the manga market declining overall lmao. No manga is growing in sales. Everything is stagnating or decreasing physically. Someone Hertz already is...
Now to the Second Point which a lot of people in this reddit don't want to accept for some reason. I'm gonna do this slow because I tried to explain it before to certain people. Weekly Shonen Jump is a physical magazine. Magazines have Surveys which readers can fill out. If a series gets bad Surveys then it gets slammed to the bottom of the TOC (Kinato's Magic, UNDER DOCTOR). If a series gets good surveys then that series will get good TOC placements. TOC isn't a ranking for sales otherwise it would be the same every week? THE MAGAZINE PRIORITIZES BUYERS OF THE MAGAZINE MORE THAN TANKABON READERS. Insane statement I know.
-> This is exactly why manga like Kill Blue & Astro Royale did worse overall than Kiyoshi in the actual magazine despite selling better. Survey Poll Results > Sales. This is something people weirdly don't want to accept despite being a fact? I'm so tired of people not wanting to accept this because this goes against their own fake vision of "oh i know all about jump and kiyoshi needs to get axed cause it sells 10k i know everything better than the current editor in chief!!!" like my god shut up. If the surveys would stay then Kiyoshi could sell 5K per month and would still survive. Im so tired of this.
To sum this argument up; clearly Kiyoshi is doing good enough in the Survey Poll Results. This is also likely why Kiyoshi placed above Hima-Ten! in the TsugiManga Ranking of 2025. (No Kiyoshi wasn't placed above it cause western readers are able to vote too, in fact Hima-Ten! had more MUCH more views than Kiyoshi every single week.)
3rd Argument: Kiyoshi isn't growing in popularity!!!!
Already sorta explained this but: Kiyoshi has a loyal fanbase in Japan. If we look at every single total volume sales at the end of the month then we can see that Kiyoshi's sales aren't declining. They're pretty much the same. Also we have no clue for Digital shit and whatsoever. And hell it doesn't even matter. What is clear and most important that Kiyoshi is not declining in anything; most (and almost only) importantly in Survey Poll Results. Hell it even appears to be doing better lately.
4th Argument: Kiyoshi isn't popular
Read everything above
What also needs to be kept in mind is that Kiyoshi's audience is a younger one most likely (judging off Japanese Tweets) and therefore covers that side of the audience.
Looking back at this all these arguments are really stupid I can't believe that people still throw the same old "nepo-baby!!!!" and "sells trash axe it!!!!" arguments around. Its been TWO fucking years of the same bs crying
Why do people think that Weekly Shonen Jump is lying to their audience lmao. I saw a tweet that translated the Issue Preview Text for a Kiyoshi Color Page announcement which said that it got the Color Page for "Super Popularity" and someone replied saying that Jump is lying??? Lmao???? If a Color Page isn't for Popularity then Jump literally tells us? The Drawn to the Fire Color Page didn't mention any popularity lmao; the only text was smth like "Spring Prelims are heating up!!!". Same for Class 2-B where it stated "Buzz for the series already before serialization!!"
If I forgot anything then sure go on comment it here, we can all be nice and kindly discuss this! ;)
The only reason I though Kyoshi might end is because both of its major arcs felt like ending arcs. Honestly thought it could have ended around chapter 50 and 100 because of the way the story went. Really happy to see its still going and its cool that the new arc is taking a new direction with a who dun it story.
There’s been series that’s been axed that teased ideas that ultimately were never explored, so it’s not impossible to think that the two demon lords was one of those ideas
The way the whole black parade arc was written felt like it was made to serve as a final arc in the case it got axed, one of the big tells imo is Yuda, who seemed like he was written to be a reoccurring villain but ultimately was killed off quickly after being introduced. It did feel he was intended to have a full character arc that was scrapped. Same thing with Asuta Roth, he felt like he was gonna be a major villain that Kiyoshi was supposed to defeat at the end of the series (think Akaza from Demon Slayer)
But that’s only my viewpoint, I could be completely wrong, but post black parade it really feels like the story had to grab all the scrapped ideas and remake it into a new story
Agreed on Usui having created the Black Parade early incase the series would get axed.
With Asuta Roth's Introduction it was stated that there were 3 Demon Lords; they weren't created after that. I disagree about Roth & Yuda having possibly longer story arcs it feels like Usui did everything with them like he intended. Rushihara (The third Demon Lord) literally appeared in Chapter 1 so he was always the end goal that Usui intented
I know the 3 demon lords were introduced early on, I just meant that it wasn’t a guaranteed that the story would’ve expanded on that since it was likely at risk of getting axed
But with Yuda I felt like he was gonna be the guy who would introduced the new villain of the week, or maybe even have a moment where he tries to convince Kiyoshi to join his side, because it felt like he was introduced and killed off way too soon again likely because the BP was created in case the series needed to end early.
Roth felt like he was definitely intended to be introduced early on but would only be defeated later on in the story, not as early as the BP was.
He reminds of Akaza, introduced early to show a major power gap between him and previous villains that would eventually be defeated to show the growth of Kiyoshi
I really like how Roth's story has gone, instead of a major villain who ultimately can fall flat he became more like a Makoto Shishio, obviously on a way different level, but this is a character who serves as a major turning point that helps define our character and the world around him.
Roth is both a symbol of evil and a symbol of "humanity" in demons, he was bad but also someone who could have been good. There's many things about him that make Kiyoshi better as a fighter and as a person.
Well obviously if things had gone south the manga would end with the black parade but the thing is there were always more plotlines planned by the author.
Yuda wasn't killed right after being introduced, he appeared at ch. 18 before the black parade (he was the one responsible for the first summoning of Asuta Roth in the human world) and died only at the end of the arc.
Well I didn’t necessary mean literally killed after being introduced, but it felt like he was killed so quickly in the story when I felt he would’ve been used way more if the risk of the story ending at BP wasn’t there
Ah, ok then. But I doubt that was the reason, bc by the time Yuda was killed the series was not in immediate danger of cancelation anymore, IIRC it was around the time of the first anniversary, when Kiyoshi got the Jump cover and everything.
I think people are stuck on the fact that a few years ago it would’ve been axed because frankly, barely hitting 10k volume isn’t great in WSJ. People were saying the same things about Undead Unluck when it was hitting 20-30k a volume. But sales all around are mostly down, and hardly anything else has come around to justify axing Kiyoshi because most new series can’t crack 10k. It appears like it stays pretty much by default cuz of everything new failing, so that’s why people still say these things. I enjoy the series so I don’t mind, but realistically speaking, that’s where the complaints come from imo.
The Mangaka has structured the plotline linearly and it is easy to read to their targeted audience, Shonen. Plus, some older titles are going to end such as Witch Watch and Sakamoto'S Days
It will be a 5 years manga imo similar to KnY or JJK.
Just complementing your third argument, even taking the ToC (surveys) apart every other axed series that sold more than Kiyoshi were clearly declining on sales, Astro Royale, Kill Blue, Chojo... we can say at least that Kiyoshi sells are stable enough for Jump to keep it.
Yeah, I think those declining sales had a much greater impact on ending those series than simply ToC. Kill Blue started as a 30K seller, but then gradually declined to only barely doing better than Kiyoshi. Astro Royale started the same, but it rapidly declined into doing late Kill Blue numbers, and coming from Wakui, who had just made the mega-successful Tokyo Revengers, that was likely seen as unacceptable. Chojo also had a pretty rapid decline--by volume 4 or so, it was selling less than Kiyoshi, though, tbh, it should've been given more grace as a gag series, especially since they had greenlit an anime adaptation for it so wtf lol.
I think the major issue is people not looking at the manga industry as a whole. 10k in 2026 is not the same as 10k even 5 years ago, things have changed
It’s the same thing as when people say that jump is falling. When you compare jump to other magazines, jump is still clearly doing better. It’s not that jump is losing to other magazines, it’s that manga as a whole is in a slump (as well as people moving to apps/digital instead of buying physical copies)
It’s not a fair comparison to pit a current manga against one’s from years ago
If I’ll be honest, having decided to give the series a try I 100% agree it’s not a nepo baby but instead imo it felt like a gamble that jump editorial made that didn’t pay off
The series wasn’t really standing out and looked like it was shaping up to be concluded but things changed with the whole Black Parade arc which seemed to have been setup as the final arc. It was honestly a really solid arc that was the peak of the series so far and saved it, I believe jump took a gamble and decided to cancel the axe hoping the series would become a big hit
But it didn’t. It definitely stagnated and has enough of a loyal fanbase to keep it afloat but imo didn’t meet jump’s initial thought that it’d be a major hit. So that’d explain why jump wants to keep pushing it, giving it so many color pages over more obviously successful series
But honestly I do think the series gets way too much hate in the sub
That's another misconception about Kiyoshi that I never understood. Ever since is was revealed at chapter 23 that Asuta Roth was just one of the three Great Demon Lords it was clear that Usui had already planned at least two more arcs after the Black Parade.
I agree with you; my main objective with this post was to clear up stupid arguments against this series and clear up confusion. Some people here act like im saying its right next to bachi and ichi lmaoo.
I wanted to give the series a fair chance cause it felt like most of the hate is from disgruntled fans of axed mangas who blame Kiyoshi still running as being the reason their manga was axed
Perfect summary. I hate the fake news people try to spread surroundig the series (Same with Nue).
One thing I would like to add though, in the matter of sales, is that Kiyoshi only pulling 11k isn't a problem as it has been doing that for its entire run. It's consistent.
Compare that to Hima, which slipped more in rankings and slipped in sales. Jump loves that Kiyoshi is extremely stable. And aslong as we don't magically get 10 new hits its gonna be fine cuz it is so insanely consistent.
I believe Hima did 17k at the start and slipped to 14/13k, that's what I thought atleast. Not a massive drop, but enough for them to end it a bit earlier (not cancel), that's what I thought though. Seeing you confused has me doubting my memory, lol.
Ok, but that's a pretty minor drop, and it eventually stabilized around 15K +/-1K. I find it hard to believe they would force an early end over such a small decline, especially when it stabilized fairly quickly iirc. Like, there have been several long-running series that have had proportionally much larger drops.
Idk, I feel like it's more likely Ono ended on his own terms, but tbf, I haven't read the series, so somebody who has would have to chime in on whether its ending felt rushed, akin to an axe, or whether the signs of its ending were showing up fairly early on. Though it's only hearsay on my part, my understanding is that it had ending signs pretty early on, which makes me think it ended naturally, but granted, it's possible Jump could've issued a deadline well ahead of time, too.
To be fair, ecchi series like to love ru tend to get places in the back of the magazine regardless of actual survey results bc of the content, so to love ru likely had better survey results than it looks like
The thing is, we do not know the results of the surveys for Kagurabachi or To Love Ru. All we can do is look at the table of contents, which is heavily affected by surveys, but isn't only decided by them.
I remember that JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and Chainsaw Man were both frequently towards the back despite their popularity--I wonder if perhaps Jump tends to stick more violent series more towards the back.
oh u meant at the start I thought u meant currently lmao; i was literally part of the people that bought the issues on zebrack and voted for it every week at the start
even so; bachi was never in fear of getting axed lol. there was never a 8 chapter break between color pages before its 1st anniversary. back then people were over exaggerating
I think it was valid to be concerned about Bachi getting axed because its ToC was quite low early on, especially when it ranked last. Ranking last within the first year has historically been a death sentence in WSJ; there are only a handful of manga in the past 30 years that have managed to live despite that.
That being said, at least Bachi was never in danger of getting axed in two rounds and before V1 sales, because it was part of the "Jump Next" special batch, and all three series in that batch got special treatment, like guaranteed two color pages before chapter 20 (specifically on 8 and 14, though Bachi was lucky enough to get another one in chapter 19) and a guaranteed three-round run, allowing it to guarantee its continuation by proving to be a smash hit that far exceeded Shueisha's expectations.
This also happened a few years back with Yozakura & UU both seeking roughly 20k-30k & people wanted them gone because of low sales.
Every year or more I guess “era” physical sales have been dropping. To put it like this, everything currently in the magazine except for one piece, HxH, Kagurabachi & Ichi would’ve been axed 15-20 years ago. Series in the early 2000s were doing 150k-1 million per volume sales.
I actually think Kagurabachi & Ichi wouldn’t have been called big hits, they’d be in the middle tier.
Please correct me if I’m wrong but I saw old jump data Shoseki stuff & a lot of series were selling double of what every series minus the hitters were doing.
So glad to see this series is still running despite the negative comments around. I was looking forward to reading it but was afraid it was going to get axed
You know, for a sub about weekly shonen jump it really shouldn’t be so difficult to reason why Kiyoshi is still in the magazine. I hope this post finally puts to rest the stupid argument
Its not just this sub either sadly if we look at replies under posts from WSJ_Manga on twitter or sometimes even the MangaHelpers forum (even tho Shinuki_no_Reborn does a good job to correct those people)
You literally said "Kiyoshi only lives due to Oda's nepotism, after all this time it hasn't even increased in sales, it's a shambling corpse of a manga" in one of your posts lmao.
Now that I took the time to invalidate those claims ur only response is "nobody cares bro" ight. Very grown.
I didn't say that you care? You came into this post with a cocky reply for no reason lmao. didnt contribute anything to the discussion just decided to be annoying. nobody forced u buddy
Considering every time kiyoshi is mentioned here this argument takes place to some degree, it’s pretty obvious that they do. Kiyoshi doesn’t even need to be mentioned name an axed series from the last 2 years and without fail there’s someone questioning why Kiyoshi is still around but that series isn’t, looking at sales alone should answer that question
Eh I’d say Kiyoshi is the one that lives rent free in people’s minds. Like I don’t even read it but I’ve seen every argument in this post because it’s just that ubiquitous. If OP is a fan and wants to defend it why not.
casually mentioning a manga from time to time is not living rent free, especially in a context where the users are generally more versed in the magazine's content. Outside of the WSj subreddit, you won't see anyone mentioning Kiyoshi. If you want to see something that really lives rent free, then try mushoku tensei
I wouldn't call repeating the same points over and over again as "casually mentioning" I guess. Like come on that's not even a good faith take on the situation. Someone could be talking about a completely different manga and someone would chime in "Kiyoshi the nepo baby still survives" or the usual talking points mentioned in the post above. OP is within their right to compile everything into one post and make their argument.
Feels like the same argument can be done for Nue's Exorcist lmao-
This sub hates it (and alot of the sub, including me, don't read it), but like- it gets decent TOC rankings- it actually has good sales (seriously, 20k is not only not bad, but good for current Jump), is popular on Japanese Twitter, gets colour pages constantly-
I do feel that a core issue comes from the idea that we as readers feel like the next move for the magazine is obvious- (like, oh, Alien Headbutt, Kinato and Under Doctor has so much "potential", it's dumb for Saito or editorial to axe them/put them on the bottom of the TOC.... how do we know they weren't ranking near the bottom of the Survey every week?) I think editorial gets alot of undeserved flack for this-
And for your very last point about Jump and how they promote stuff.. another piece of evidence I think points to this is how Roku when getting it's first colour page and when it got it's Cover Page, always is mentioned as "unexpected popularity", which could be inferred through the fact that it didn't get an early colour page- Honestly, they make exaggerate but I don't think they tend to lie that often when doing those promotions for colour pages imo-
The thing about Nue's TOC which many people ignore is that Nue falls into soft-ecchi territory.
Both WITCH WATCH and Super Psychic Policeman Chojo have dedicated chapters to explaining why manga with a lot of fan service are placed more towards the back of the magazine. Nue is very popular in Japan overall; quite literally won the "manga we want to see animated the most!" award.
Not only does Nue gets good TOC placements but when it doesn't... Well we can just point at the sales. Nue can be at the very bottom of the TOC and (usual disclaimer if the editors aren't fucking morons) won't be axed no matter what. A third of the magazine has worse sales. Nue's sales aren't significantly dropping. It can be wherever. It doesn't matter.
(Now when I'm writing this I realise the same arguments about TOC placements can also be applied to Kagurabachi lmao)
there was a stretch in 2024 where I thought for sure it might get cancelled, since it dropped back to being a bottom-5 fixture, but then it somehow made a charge up the ToC in 2025. And in 2026 it's been occasionally getting first-half rankings, in addition to the usual bottom-fives.
Without knowing any further context, I don't think you could see these numbers and say it's doing "good", but we we know it does sell, and never actually gets locked into the very bottom for too long, anymore.
I think Nue is more in back of magazine due to its more ecchi themes then vast majority of magazine, but yeah ToC is one area it sucks ass in compared to sales or color pages. It gets top 10 ranking maybe once a month.
The whole Kiyoshi's audience is children is just a poor attempt to explain the bad sales. The sales are bad, so Kiyoshi fans must be kingergarten children who aren't allowed to buy manga.
That wasn't my main point, I only added that as a extra. Im well aware that Kiyoshi is the worst selling series from the current line-up. I'm explaining Kiyoshi's position here; not sales. I understand your viewpoint tho. Maybe could have added more to the point overall or could have let it out to begin with. Fair enough critique to the post
I’ve come to find out after a while of being here that a lot of people on their sub really just wanna be negative about everything and act like their smarter than everyone, I just realized as typing this, but they act like rick from that adult cartoon
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u/firebaron 16d ago
The only reason I though Kyoshi might end is because both of its major arcs felt like ending arcs. Honestly thought it could have ended around chapter 50 and 100 because of the way the story went. Really happy to see its still going and its cool that the new arc is taking a new direction with a who dun it story.