Shōnen Book

Shōnen Book

First issue of Shōnen Book, the cover features man standing next to an airplane, this was done for a feature film at the time. It also mentions Omoshiro Book.
Editor	Saburō Shibata
Categories	Shōnen manga
Frequency	Monthly
First issue	March 1958
Final issue — Number	April 1969 4
Company	Shueisha
Country	Japan
Language	Japanese

Shōnen Book (少年ブック, Shōnen Bukku^?, lit. "Boys' Book") was a manga magazine by Shueisha, which debuted March 1958 and ended in April 1969. Shōnen Book was originally a spin-off of Shueisha's Omoshiro Book (おもしろブック, Omoshiro Bukku^?, literally - "Funny Book"). Shōnen Book is famously known in Japan for being the predecessor to the company's famous Weekly Shōnen Jump magazine. The Shōnen Book tankōbon manga volumes are published under the Shōnen Speed Ō (少年スピード王^?) manga imprint. Shōnen Book was a part of Shueisha's former leading magazine line, Book, now Jump. Shōnen Book was created in 1958 as a male version of the short lived Shōjo Book. Omoshiro Book became an offshoot of the magazine, and eventually faded away in the middle of the Shōnen Book timeline. Shōnen Book also served as a root to many other magazines published by Shueisha.

Shueisha was just getting into the business of making manga magazines, creating the magazine Omoshiro Book and the Shōjo magazine Shōjo Book. The success of Shōjo Book, led to the publication of their wideley successful, Ribon. Shueisha was planning to make a Shōnen version of their Shōjo Book magazine, and they created Shōnen Book.Shōnen Book was created as a sister anthology to their already successful Omoshiro Book, on the front cover of the first Shōnen Book it announced that Omoshiro Book would continue as a special issue of Shōnen Book.Omoshiro Book had an Osamu Tezuka manga called Lion Books.Shōnen Book, historically had some of the most famous manga artists of all time, such as Tatsuo Yoshida whose Mach GoGoGo (Speed Racer) appeared in the magazine, and which ultimately was rereleased by Fusosha as two deluxe volumes. The magazine also serialized many of Osamu Tezuka's manga series. In the middle of Shōnen Book's publication, Shōnen Jump was created, making Shōnen Book a special issue.Shōnen Jump at the time was a semiweekly magazine. When it became a weekly magazine, the title of Shōnen Jump was changed to Weekly Shōnen Jump, and Shōnen Book was discontinued. The magazine of Shōnen Book was replaced with a special called Bessatsu Shōnen Jump, which was later changed to the title Monthly Shōnen Jump (branched of into its own magazine, discontinued, and was replaced with the current; Jump SQ.), and then finally Akamaru Jump (the latter of which is now a "Zōkan" (special) issue).