Did Black Clover leaving Weekly Shonen Jump improve the manga's quality? Explored

Black Clover author Yuki Tabata's decision to leave Weekly Shonen Jump and switch to Jump Giga in August of 2023 was a watershed moment for the franchise, at least in terms of what it represents for the manga medium. For the most part, Weekly Shonen Jump is often regarded as the mecha of the manga industry, where most mangaka want to publish their work, but Tabata chose to leave the industry due to health reasons.

While Weekly Shonen Jump has a bi-monthly release schedule, Jump Giga's seasonal quarterly release system, which has been running since 2020, was the main reason for the Black Clover author to switch to that magazine.

Therefore, he now has a lot more time to work on every chapter of the series and get some rest, which is something that has led to the question of whether the manga has improved because of this or not. However, it is diffcult to answer what the nature of this change might be.

Disclaimer: This article contains spoilers for the series. Any opinion expressed here belongs to the author and not Sportskeeda.

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Exploring if the Black Clover manga has improved after leaving Weekly Shonen Jump

It is difficult to claim that the series has gotten better or worse after leaving Weekly Shonen Jump since only one chapter has been published on Jump Giga. That was chapter 369 of the manga, which mostly showed Luck and Magna defeating some of Lucius' clones, which did spark some discussions online regarding how strong these entities truly were.

Be that as it may, the most surprising reaction was the one regarding the art, with a lot of people stating that Yuki Tabata's drawings and paneling, which were always celebrated in the fandom, were back to being the best. That is probably a direct result of him now working on a seasonal quarterly release, which gives him more time to rest and draw in better conditions.

On paper, leaving Weekly Shonen Jump to have more time to work on his series should give Tabata the space to improve the quality of the manga and end the story, which is nearing its conclusion, on a high note. Of course, that is all just mere speculation, and fans will have to wait and see on April 30 when the next two chapters are going to be published.

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Tabata and the nature of mangaka in Japan

The Black Bulls in the anime (Image via Studio Pierrot).

Upon its announcement, there were a lot of different reactions to Tabata's decision to leave Weekly Shonen Jump. However, the most prominent was that of concern about his health. The manga industry has a lot of different cases of authors who have dealt with pressing health problems, which not only reduced their output but sometimes led to their untimely demise, such as the case of Kentaro Miura, the author of Berserk.

However, regardless of opinions of what this means for Black Clover as a franchise moving forward, all of that becomes less important when considering Tabata's health and that of his loved ones. Therefore, it is positive to see some manga authors making decisions of this kind to take care of themselves and not work themselves to a point where both their series and health suffer greatly.

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Final thoughts

There is not enough information at the moment to suggest that the Black Clover manga has gotten better or worse after leaving Weekly Shonen Jump because only one chapter has been published ever since. However, Yuki Tabata having more time to rest and work on his series should elevate the quality of the manga.

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