Shueisha announced and started the run of the first new Shonen Jump manga series of 2025, and it is Waiting for the Sunlight. It is available via Shonen Jump+ and is being released in Japanese and English. The first chapter is available to read on MangaPlus worldwide for free.
Waiting for the Sunlight is a historical manga from Haruka Nanase, as the new Shonen Jump series is set during World War II. The official site even noted the 80th anniversary of the day that war falls this year. (It ended on September 2, 1945.) The story is set in Nagano, Japan, during 1941. The tale begins with a family visiting an 80th Anniversary Peace Memorial Exhibition and a child visiting with his family and seeing ceramic weapons made by students. It lingers on a weapon made by a fourth grader named Yoko Matsubara. It then flashes back to Yoko as a child, talking to a tanuki statue that ended up at that exhibit, about how she’ll be making items at Oyama Ceramics.
Once Yoko ends up at Oyama Ceramics, which is run by her friend Yuki’s family, she learns her new master won’t be making Shigaraki vases and tanuki statues anymore. Because of World War II, he’s instead making kitchen utensils to replace iron ones for the war effort. She also learns her master’s son Junpei is going to take the exam to enlist in the Imperial Army.
It’s at that point that we also learn Yoko and her family are already suffering due to the war. Her father died in Manchuria, and her other died recently. Now she lives with her uncle, grandma, and older cousin Shizuko. The first chapter also suggests things will get harder, as sanctions from America come in and the war starts in earnest.
Chapter 1 of Waiting for the Sunlight is available via Shonen Jump now, and the next new chapter of the manga will debut on January 8, 2025. Two of the last additions in 2025 were the one-shots Pretty Guardian Stress Magical Girl and Wanted Police Officer.
Published: Jan 2, 2025 05:00 pm