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What do you need to know about Weekly Shonen Jump crossover fighters?

By Jenni Lada //

More and more Japanese games are being localized every year. Especially as anime and manga series develop larger, worldwide audiences. Jump Force is the latest to show up worldwide. While it might not be the best crossover title or have the most diverse character roster, it might be a good introduction into this sort of world. So, let’s go a bit deeper and learn more about Weekly Shonen Jump crossover games.

What is Jump?

Many of these Jump crossover titles have "Jump" in the name, but someone might not realize why. This is taken from the name of the Shueisha manga magazine. More specifically, Weekly Shonen Jump. It started out in 1968 as Shonen Jump, before transitioning from a biweekly release to weekly, the becoming Weekly Shonen Jump.

Every week, new installments of popular manga series appear, accompanied by special sections focusing on specific products, maybe interviews, looks at fan-art, and little asides. Each week, different series could appear, as Boruto: Naruto Next Generations is one of the series that appears once every month. All of the manga series’ target audience is young men, though a lot of the series could appeal to a wider audience.

Some of the most notable current Weekly Shonen Jump series are Black Clover, Boruto, Food Wars!, Hunter x Hunter, My Hero Academia and One Piece. The two most recently added series are The Last Saiyuki and Yui Kamio Lets Loose.

How many Jump crossovers have there been?

There are seven Weekly Shonen Jump crossover games available so far. Most of them haven’t been released outside of Japan. You can find the two most recent releases in

Famicom Jump: Hero Retsuden (NES, 1988)

Famicom Jump is an action-RPG that involves recruiting 16 heroes from various Weekly Shonen Jump series and having them work together to fight enemies from over 30 series. Some of the most notable characters appearing are Dragon Ball‘s Goku, Dr. Slump‘s Arale, Fist of the North Star‘s Kenshiro, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure‘s Joseph Joestar and Saint Seiya’s Pegasus Seiya.

Famicom Jump II: Saikyo no Shichinin (NES, 1991)

Evil has once again returned in Famicom Jump II. The gameplay is similar, though the graphics are a bit better. You also get to choose whose story you start with as you go through different locations from different worlds and have characters team up. The seven characters appearing here are Charge! Men’s Private School‘s Momotaro, Dragon Ball‘s Goku, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure‘s Jotaro, Jungle King Tar-chan’s Ta-chan, KochiKame: Tokyo Beat Cops‘ Ryotsu, Magical Taruruuto-kun‘s Taruruuto and Rokudenashi Blues‘ Maeda.

Jump Super Stars (Nintendo DS, 2005)

Jump Super Stars takes the idea of manga to the next level with a Smash Bros. style, 2D fighting game for one to four players. You create a koma deck on the bottom screen, made up of panels that show your playable battle koma characters, the support koma you can call in temporarily by tapping to perform a special ability and help koma that can provide a more passive boost. There are 27 Weekly Shonen Jump series represented, with titles like Bleach, Death Note, D.Gray-man, Dragon Ball, Gintama, Hikaru no Go, Hunter x Hunter, Naruto, One Piece, Reborn and The Prince of Tennis appearing. Of those 27, there are 160 characters appearing and 34 of them as playable fighters.

Battle Stadium D.O.N. (GameCube and PlayStation 2, 2006)

Another fighting game for one to four players, this time only involving 20 playable characters from Dragon Ball Z, Naruto and One Piece. People battle it out as characters from these series, trying to be the ones holding all of the orbs in play. Once you have most of the orbs out there, your character will be powered up.

Jump Ultimate Stars (Nintendo DS, 2006)

Consider Jump Ultimate Stars an upgraded version of the previous game, again allowing up to four people to fight it out. It has 41 Weekly Shonen Jump series represented, more arenas and challenges, and 305 total characters. Of those 305, 56 of them are battle koma playable characters. Some of the new series in this installment are Captain Tsubasa, Fist of the North Star, Kinnikuman, Majin Tantei Nogami Neuro and Muhyo & Roji’s Bureau of Supernatural Investigation.

This is one of the few games here to have a fan translation! 

J-Stars Victory VS (PlayStation 3 and Vita, 2014)

This one-to-four player fighting game puts people on a 3D battlefield and has them fight it out. There are 39 playable characters here, with 52 characters total including supports. 32 Weekly Shonen Jump series were tapped. Some of the major series appearing here are Assassination Classroom, Bleach, Dr. Slump, Dragon Ball Z, Gintama, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Naruto, One Piece, Toriko and Yu Yu Hakusho. It is available worldwide, and eventually a PlayStation 4 version known as J-Stars Victory VS+ was released.

Jump Force (PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC, 2019)

Another fighting game, this one involves tag team matches where each side has three characters on their team. (Up to two people can play at once.) Players get to make an original character that can use outfit items and moves from iconic characters. 40 characters from 16 Weekly Shonen Jump series are available at launch, with people from series like Bleach, Boruto, Dragon Ball Z, Hunter x Hunter, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Naruto, One Piece, Saint Seiya and Yu Yu Hakusho. It is available worldwide.

What about the Weekly Shonen Jump Famicom Mini?

This is more of a crossover device, but let’s go ahead and salute it here too. Especially since it does have two of the notable titles above! The Nintendo Classic Mini Family Computer Weekly Shonen Jump 50th Anniversary Version is a variant of the NES Classic Edition Famicom Mini released in Japan. It was released on July 7, 2018 and is a golden version of the original system with only games based on Shonen Jump series on it.

Here is the full list of games on it.

  • Ankoku Shinwa Yamato Takeru Densetsu
  • Captain Tsubasa
  • Captain Tsubasa 2
  • Destiny of an Emperor
  • Dragon Ball: Shenron no Nazo
  • Dragon Ball 3: Gokuden
  • Dragon Ball Z: Kyoshuu! Saiyajin
  • Dragon Quest
  • Famicom Jump: Hero Retsuden
  • Famicom Jump II: Saikyo no Shichinin
  • Hokuto no Ken
  • Hokuto no Ken 3: Shin Seiki Souzou Seiken Retsuden
  • Kinnikuman: Kinnikusei Oui Soudatsusen
  • Magical Taruruuto-kun: Fantastic World
  • Rokudenashi Blues
  • Saint Seiya: Ougon Densetsu
  • Saint Seiya: Ougon Densetsu Kanketsuhen
  • Sekiryuuou
  • Tag Team Match: Muscle

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