Takenori Ichihara Retires After 6 Years as Shonen Sunday’s Editor-in-Chief

Experience stands above all when it comes to practical skills, but sometimes you need to step down and give the stage to the emerging new talent. With this thought in his mind, one of Shonen Sunday’s most iconic editors-in-chief has officially retired after six years.

Shogakukan’s Weekly Shonen Sunday is one of our favorite magazines that brought us manga like Detective Conan, Inuyasha, and Komi Can’t Communicate. The magazine flourished in the past few years, gaining more popularity than ever.

Now that the reason behind its fame is gone, I’m not sure if things will be the same.

Takenori Ichihara announced his retirement as Shogakukan’s Weekly Shonen Sunday’s editor-in-chief on October 13, 2021. Ichihara served in the position for six years, from 2015-2021.

As of October 13, I retired as Editor-in-Chief of Weekly Shonen Sunday. I am pleased that Shonen Sunday, who was in an unprecedented crisis, has dramatically improved his business performance during his six-year and three-month tenure and successfully passed it on to the next generation. I am just grateful to the readers and writers who supported the editor-in-chief’s life, which has become unusually long in the history of Sunday <(_ _)>

English Translation, Twitter Translate

He had the second-longest tenure as the editor-in-chief at the magazine after Kazuki Tanaka, who holds the record for eight years in the position. Tanaka’s time as the editor was from 1976-1984.

The new editor-in-chief and Ichihara’s successor would be Kazunori Oshima. The former describes Oshima as a sincere and talented man who can take Shonen Sunday even further than where it is right now.

Oh, by the way, I’m graduating from Team Sunday, but the new editor-in-chief, Kazunori Oshima, is a sincere and talented man. I believe that he will support the writers firmly and realize a wonderful boy Sunday many times as much as I did. Everyone, thank you for your continued support of Weekly Shonen Sunday <(_ _)>

English Translation, Twitter Translae

Ichihara also stated the magazine was in an unprecedented crisis when he was appointed and is happy that Shonen Sunday had a dramatic improvement in its business. 

The credit of the magazine’s success truly goes to Takenori as he handpicked the kind of content the magazine published. Everything was analyzed and decided by him, from one-shots and manga from old mangakas to introducing new talent in the industry.

The former editor-in-chief believes in bringing out fresh talent and giving them the platform so that the manga industry can grow more. He thinks that debuting new artists should be the magazine’s priority and continues to work in that direction.

Everyone will miss Takenori as he got us several manga titles that are now our favorites. The man never missed a story that was worth to be seen by the world, and we’re grateful for his service.

What remains is to see how the new editor-in-chief continues the legacy of bringing us legendary content.

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