I loved Shonen Jump during that era.
I wished they had gotten more titles and differentiation/localization from the Japanese iteration like perhaps promote North American manga-ka with some Japanese titles.
The biggest problem with Viz's version was that the magazine was a dust collector more than anything since it offered titles you could already get in volumes complete months earlier. IT was in that itself that made the magazine fail.
In Japan, manga series ran in the magazine long/soon before they were published per paperback volume and thus their comic book magazines were the major promoter of potential anime material and if the titles are worth their grain in salt ,they get published in volumes to meet the demand much like how comic book volumes do so for collectors in the States/The West.
They fucked themselves royally by releasing the volumes before the Shonen Jump covered them. Just imagine how much more successful the Shonen Jump would be if it was done like its Japanese counterpart as well as promoted it outside of bookstores and in the mainstream ones like Target , Meijer.....
Sure they focused more on those two titles , but Viz should have delayed the volume paperbacks at least 2-4 months after the end of the corresponding volume's run in the magazine like it is done with American comic publishing.
The Japanese releases have nothing to do with the English version, so bringing them up holds no grounds as who would seriously consider subscribing or buying the Japanese version if they knew about it? It would just be a headache. It's only a difficult battle against themselves since they are releasing the paperback volumes too early and thus making the Shonen Jump impractical as a purchase alongside manga scans and scanlations.
Their poor mismanagement of the title is no wonder why the manga isn't as big as it should be.
