The largest manga magazine in the industry is no more, and all because it grew too big for anyone else to keep up with.
Per PopVerse, Dokodemo Young Champion has officially closed its doors after being unable to find reliable distribution, albeit for no reason that any other entity could have reasonably accounted for. As it turns out, the hit seinen anthology series grew to the point where online distributors and ebook retailers had no way to get Dokodemo Young Champion into readers’ handswith a single download.
What Was Dokodemo Young Champion — And Why Was It Canceled?
One of the premier seinen manga magazines published by Akita Shoten, Dokodemo Young Champion has long been home to hit series such as From Old Country Bumpkin to Master Swordsman: My Hotshot Disciples Are All Grown Up Now, and They Won’t Leave Me Alone. The monthly anthology series regularly collected as many as 60 chapters of different series, the vast majority of which were originally published on Yanchan Live!.
As such, individual issues of Dokodemo Young Champion regularly ran upwards of 2,000 pages, far more than the industry standard, not to mention far more than most distributors proved capable of handling. Surprisingly, this massive page count was entirely by design and didn’t even come close to what the editorial staff of Dokodemo Young Champion had hoped to reach before the magazine’s cancellation.
In an official statement, the Dokodemo Young Champion editorial team wrote, “We wanted to keep going and grow the magazine to over 3000 pages, but we’ve come up with the problem of being unable to distribute via certain online bookstores due to the amount of content.”
Fortunately for fans, there are still plenty of Akita Shoten publications in circulation where the series previously published in Dokodemo Young Champion can find a new home. When it comes to seinen manga in particular, Akita Shoten’s original Young Champion, established all the way back in 1988, is still going strong, as is its sister publication Young Champion Retsu.
Akita Shoten also publishes seinen magazines Champion Red, Golf Comic, and Play Comic, although it still isn’t clear if any Dokodemo Young Champion series will be making the jump to another title, or if the now-defunct magazine’s former offerings will be split among entirely new titles instead. Presumably, the most popular Dokodemo Young Champion titles will have no problem making their way into the pages of other magazines at Akita Shoten.
From Old Country Bumpkin to Master Swordsman alone has amassed 12 volumes and counting across the mainline manga adaptation and its two ongoing spinoffs. This isn’t even to mention the hit anime from studios Passione and Hayabusa Film, nor the fact that the North American release date for the tenth volume of Shigeru Sagazaki’s original light novel series is approaching.
- Release Date
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April 5, 2025
- Network
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tv asahi, ABC TV, Nagoya TV, HTB, Kyushu Asahi Broadcasting, NCC, Niigata Television Network 21, khb, KFB, HOME, KSB, Kagoshima Broadcasting, Oita Asahi Broadcasting, Asahi Broadcasting Aomori, Iwate Asahi TV, Akita Asahi Broadcasting, Yamagata Television System, Shizuoka Asahi TV, Asahi Broadcasting Nagano, Hokuriku Asahi Broadcasting, Ehime Asahi TV, Yamaguchi Asahi Broadcasting, Kumamoto Asahi Broadcasting, Ryu-Q Asahi Broadcasting
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Hiroaki Hirata
Beryl Gardenant (voice)
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Nao Toyama
Allucia Citrus (voice)
