One of Japan’s biggest cons finally opens to the rest of the world.

Jump Festa is an annual manga convention held by Shueisha, the publishers of the leading publication Weekly Shonen Jump among others. Although this manga con primarily focuses on the works that appear in magazines like Jump, since it began in 1999 it has grown into an event that incorporates some video game producers as well.

▼ Kingdom Hearts III revealed some brand new gameplay footage at Jump Festa 2016.

Nearly every year it’s been held at the Makuhari Messe convention center, but like every event of its scale it was greatly disrupted by the pandemic. In 2020 Jump Festa was forced to move online, and in 2021 it evolved into a live and online format that tied in with various e-commerce businesses. Ironically, this change in format might have made it one of the most prosperous events yet.

This turned out to be a great thing for people in the rest of the world too, because it appears to have inspired Shueisha to expand Jump Festa even further. For the first time, they will be releasing videos of stage shows from Jump Fest 2022, which was held on 18 and 19 December, 2021 on YouTube and giving them full English subtitles.

A total of 15 stage shows will be made available from midnight on 8 March to 11:59 p.m. on 21 March, Japan Standard Time. All stages are available at any time on demand and cover the following Jump titles:

・Spy x Family
・Dragon Quest The Adventure of Dai
・World Trigger
・Boruto: Naruto Next Generations
・The Prince of Tennis II
・Dragon Ball Super
・Bleach
・Chainsaw Man
・Platinum End
・World’s End Harem
・Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba
・Jujutsu Kaisen
・Dr. Stone
・My Hero Academia
・One Piece

They can be viewed from the official Jump Comics Channel on YouTube or via the Jump Festa website.

The details about what happens on each stage have not been announced, but it is usually a panel discussion with several big names attached to each series and some other fun surprises in store.

It appears as if this is a first step in a plan to turn Jump Festa into a global event and bring even more people into the Festa-tivities. Past conventions have seen the amazing talents of manga artist Kentaro Yabuki and a life-sized, solid gold Millennium Puzzle on display, so there’s sure to be some great things revealed this time.

Images: SHUEISHA Press Release
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