Why did Shueisha reprint old Jump issues in 2017?

Weekly Shonen Jump turns fifty in 2018, and through the summer of 2017 Shueisha published the Fukkokuban, the reprint edition programme: three monthly packs, each bundling two landmark issues reproduced as they originally ran, manga, and, with documented exceptions, even the period advertisements.

The packs were a cover archive in themselves. Pack 1, on sale July 15, 2017, paired the two ends of the circulation story: the first issue of 1968 and the 1995 No.3-4, the 6.53 million copy peak. Pack 2, on sale August 12, paired the two most collected debuts: the 1987 No.1-2, JoJo chapter 1, and the 1997 No.34, One Piece chapter 1, priced at 833 yen plus tax. Pack 3, in September, turned to pivotal chapters: the 1986 No.26, where Raoh falls in Fist of the North Star, and the combined 1991 No.21-22, carrying the Dragon Ball chapter the programme singled out.

A reprint had to confess itself somewhere, and the confessions are the collector value of the programme. Inside the facsimiles, the survey postcard is blacked out where a 1968 or 1997 reader would have mailed it, prize pages carry a notice that the promotion has ended, and advertisements Shueisha could not reprint are replaced by a printed notice that the ad was withheld. The covers match the originals by design, which is why this Library authentication pages for the 1997 No.34 and the 2018 No.14 rest on the interiors. One distinction matters: the 2016 Kochikame reprint came first historically, a current issue reprinted within its own year; the 2017 packs were the first time the magazine reached back into its archive.