By Isaac Shapiro

Shueisha's Shounen Jump, the long running weekly manga anthology, has just announced they will run a series of one-shot manga created by 6 famed mangaka (the Japanese term for manga author/artist). Beginning October 9th and running throughout the rest of the Fall, each week will feature a new original one-shot manga.  Kicking it  off will be Naruto creator Masashi Kishimoto's "Bench," a manga about the American past time that has become so prevalent in Japan, baseball.  Following him will be:

Hideaki Sorachi's  "Gintama" on 10/18
Takeshi Konomi's "Prince of Tennis" on 10/25
Kyosuke Usuta 's  "Pyu to Fuku! Jaguar" on 11/1
Osamu Akimoto's "Kochira Katsuishika-ku Kameari Koen-mae Hashutsujo" on 11/8 (which literally translates to "This is the police station in front of Kameari Park in katsushika Ward")
and Akira Toriyama's  "Dragonball" on 11/15

While all of these may not be household names in the states, these are famed creators of long running manga series that have all been adapted into anime, movies, and spawned oodles of merchandise. It's fascinating because usually the one-shot manga is the domain of young up-and-coming artists and to see professionals with firmly entrenched characters and franchises jumping in is always exciting. (Imagine if George Lucas decided to step away from his billions and billions of dollars for just a second to try and create something completely new and non-star wars related, you'd probably wanna know what it is.)

Unfortunately, chances are that none of these one shots will make it outside of Japan, but if we're extra lucky and keep our fingers crossed maybe they'll be picked up and translated by the extensive scanlation community and they'll see the western light of day thanks to the all-mighty power of the internet.

Which one do you think you'd be most interested in seeing?

via: ANN

Tags Akira Toriyama, Dragonball, Gintama, Hideaki Sorachi, Isaac Shapiro, Kochira Katsuishika-ku Kameari Koen-mae Hashutsujo, Kyosuke Usuta, Manga, Masashi Kishimoto, Naruto, Osamu Akimoto, Prince of Tennis, Pyu to Fuku! Jaguar, Shounen Jump, Takeshi Konomi