I'm growing too impatient to see Arlong translated, but too bandwidth-challenged to download it.
So I'm looking somewhat wistfully at the coupons in the back of the English volumes which announce "Subscribe to (american) Shonen Jump for USD 30 a year"
I'm trying to figure out what sort of value this represents.
I've heard they run four chapters a month of OP in it. Since that's the draw for me, and I don't know about any of the other included series, I figure I pay $30 a year for 48 chapters of OP. In volumes, OP costs $6.50 to 8 for 9 chapters.
On that basis alone, the subscription seems a good value. However, if they discontinue OP, or decide to only run two chapters a month (as I gather they did in the past), it becomes a far worse value than the volumes. Has any indication of commitment to the present publication schedule been issued?
Are the chapter-start pages (I'm addicted to the Buggy ministory, it's so cute) reproduced in SJ? The SBS column? The fanart page they started including as of volume 7? the bizarre "things we put where the SBS goes when we don't have an SBS" like the colouring page and "build a stand-up luffy" that some of the earlier volumes had?
Also, I know for most magazines, even the "cheap" rates on cards in the magazines tend to be not the best available– my favourite computer magazine is nominally like $30 a year, or $12 on the card offer, but $3 to 5 per year from a site which offers subsidized subscriptions in exchange for spamming you. Is there somewhere which offers a cheaper (possibly subsidised as described before) ASJ?
