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Kimetsu no Yaiba (Demon Slayer) in only 5 months will take the record for manga sold in 1 year

TiC

Banned
Jul 12, 2019
609
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The current estimates of Japanese manga sales from November 2019 to last week is:

1. Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba (Weekly Shonen Jump)
2. One Piece (Weekly Shonen Jump)
3. My Hero Academia (Weekly Shonen Jump)
4. The Quintessential Quintuplets
5. Kingdom
6. The Promised Neverland (Weekly Shonen Jump)
7. Haikyu!! (Weekly Shonen Jump)
8. Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun
9. Attack on Titan
10. Dr. Stone (Weekly Shonen Jump)

The previous record-holder was One Piece in 2011, having sold 37,996,373 copies between November 2010 and November 2011.

Kimetsu no Yaiba at 5 months into 2020's fiscal year is sitting at 37,147,105 copies sold, and it should snatch the crown next week. This is only April, so by November 2020, its sales will be absolutely massive and far surpass the current record, and with a highly-anticipated theatrical movie coming in a few months, its sales won't be slowing down in the foreseeable future.

Its individual volumes sales are approaching 3 million for each of its 20 volumes, many of its older volumes are outselling even new releases every week. Even in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, Kimetsu no Yaiba is an historic success story and has become the biggest manga in Japan.
 
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Brazil

Brazil

Actual Brazilian
Member
Oct 24, 2017
18,392
São Paulo, Brazil
After Shingeki no Kyojin and Kimetsu no Yaiba, it's become abundantly clear that shorter, quality seasons >>>> infinite Toei productions with trashy production values even when it comes to actually selling manga.
 
Earvin Infinity

Earvin Infinity

Member
Oct 27, 2017
6,884
They're going to keep that train going, aren't they? I thought they were nearing the end-game, but now I'm not so sure...
 
taro

taro

Member
Oct 25, 2017
622
I never sought out information on manga sales like I do with box office or new game releases. When there was chatter that KnY could hang with One Piece in terms of sales, I just had to start paying attention. Simply amazing how much this series has achieved in a short span.
 
Gustaf

Gustaf

Banned
Oct 28, 2017
14,926
we didnt have this same thread last year and it didnt happene?

or was something different?
 
yagal

yagal

Member
Oct 25, 2017
8,158
I'm currently watching the anime, good so far. The whining and crying of the guy with yellow hair is too much but it's better than Naruto and doesn't have the boobs of late One Peace (yet)
 
Rouk'

Rouk'

Member
Jan 10, 2018
8,125
Gustaf said:
we didnt have this same thread last year and it didnt happene?

or was something different?
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Confusing stuff. Mainly miscommunication. A One Piece editor made a statement in which he compared shipment data for both manga, except he did not have up-to-date shipment data for Demon Slayer since they were all happening so quickly/close to each others (and since he wasn't Demon Slayer's editor).

On the other hand, this third party sales tracker (Oricon) had Demon Slayer above One piece in terms of sales.

But what matters the most when talking about records is still Oricon, because they're the company we've been using. We have to compare what can be compared. So, according to Oricon, Demon Slayer beat OP in 2019. Which means that for the first time since 2007, once again, all according to Oricon, OP wasn't first.
 
RochHoch

RochHoch

One Winged Slayer
Member
May 22, 2018
18,863
Midramble said:
Haven't read it but I though this manga was pretty much wrapping up?
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What absolutely seems to be the final battle should be ending very soon.

That is unless editorial pressure pushes the mangaka to keep it going since it's making all of the money, but I have no idea how that would work without a serious asspull.
 
Saifu

Saifu

Member
Oct 27, 2017
7,865
Brazil said:
After Shingeki no Kyojin and Kimetsu no Yaiba, it's become abundantly clear that shorter, quality seasons >>>> infinite Toei productions with trashy production values even when it comes to actually selling manga.
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Yep, studios like Toei and Studio Pierrot needs to GTFO.
Shueisha needs stop being cheapskates and outsource all their anime adaptation to top tier studios.
The ROI is fucking there.
 
Ekid

Ekid

Member
Dec 21, 2017
1,638
I'm surprised how much this blew up.
Reading it I found the pacing at the start to be so fast it was like I could feel the pressure of the editor on the author. I think the manga only become really interesting with the spider arc.
 
Midramble

Midramble

Force of Habit
The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
10,450
San Francisco
RochHoch said:
What absolutely seems to be the final battle should be ending very soon.

That is unless editorial pressure pushes the mangaka to keep it going since it's making all of the money, but I have no idea how that would work without a serious asspull.
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With that being the case I wonder if they are going to be able to keep up the sales through the rest of the year after it ends. I assume animated releases will help. I hope they don't drag it along as manga always suffer when that happens. As soon as this finishes imma binge it. I've been eyeing it in the SJ for quite a while haha.
 
PeakPointMatrix

PeakPointMatrix

Member
Oct 25, 2017
19,011
The show was alright. It just never hit the highs of originality that a Naruto or Bleach did in their heydays, so this runaway popularity kind of shocks me. The fights were fucking some of the best animation in a shonen though!
 
NHarmonic.

NHarmonic.

▲ Legend ▲
The Fallen
Oct 27, 2017
10,290
PeakPointMatrix said:
The show was alright. It just never hit the highs of originality that a Naruto or Bleach did in their heydays, so this runaway popularity kind of shocks me. The fights were fucking some of the best animation in a shonen though!
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Consistent quality i think.

Even if the show's depicted world completely falls apart under scrutiny.
 
igordennis

igordennis

Member
Oct 25, 2017
385
Wait how the fuck has it sold 38m copies in 5 months? That seems completely insane? Because One Piece's record of 37m copies was always multiple times higher than whatever other manga had managed to achieve in a single year before it blew up during one of its climax (marineford war arc right?). And One Piece never even got close to its own record after that. This is blowing past what was already a pretty crazy record in less than half the time lol.
 
dsosarod

dsosarod

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 26, 2017
2,353
Blackie said:
Maybe I should watch more than episode 1. Is the anime or manga the best way to experience this story???
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Manga ALL the way! Read get up to date and then if you want, see the Anime. I don't watch anime, but I have been reading and hearing how good the first season is, but with probably at least two years between season, I think it is ridiculous not to read the manga, especially now that it is ending.
 
Maximo

Maximo

Member
Oct 25, 2017
9,149
The demon slayer song was playing everywhere in Tokyo, 2 weeks and even I was over it haha.
 
diakyu

diakyu

Member
Dec 15, 2018
17,518
Interested to see if they let the manga end now like it seems to be heading towards.
 
FF Seraphim

FF Seraphim

Member
Oct 26, 2017
13,681
Tokyo
igordennis said:
Wait how the fuck has it sold 38m copies in 5 months? That seems completely insane? Because One Piece's record of 37m copies was always multiple times higher than whatever other manga had managed to achieve in a single year before it blew up during one of its climax (marineford war arc right?). And One Piece never even got close to its own record after that. This is blowing past what was already a pretty crazy record in less than half the time lol.
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Because the anime caused it to blow up. Not many people knew who Nezuko even was until after the anime.
 
Mendrox

Mendrox

Banned
Oct 26, 2017
9,439
Saifu said:
Yep, studios like Toei and Studio Pierrot needs to GTFO.
Shueisha needs stop being cheapskates and outsource all their anime adaptation to top tier studios.
The ROI is fucking there.
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Eh I would rather let them work at Toei which has a great studio setup and lets their employees have breaks and good schedules. Don't know about Ufotable, but mostly other studios aren't that great in that regard. Just do seasonals for everything and it will be fine. Toei is a good studio and call pull out great things (see Digimon currently which seems to also have a good schedule or the new One Piece Wano arc which just has bad pacing which is the problem).

Maximo said:
The demon slayer song was playing everywhere in Tokyo, 2 weeks and even I was over it haha.
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Even that episode 19 scene was everywhere in Japan when I was there in November.
 
Dark Ninja

Dark Ninja

Member
Oct 27, 2017
8,070
There really aren't that many weekly anime left actually that I know of.
-Pokémon
-Boruto
-Black Clover
is One Piece weekly? I don't watch it.

But everything pretty much seasonal at this point. Demon Slayer anime is good I can see how it boosted sales since the anime won't be near the end anytime soon. I wonder if they'll force the manga to continue.
 
Mars People

Mars People

Comics Council 2020
Member
Oct 25, 2017
18,177
Dark Ninja said:
There really aren't that many weekly anime left actually that I know of.
-Pokémon
-Boruto
-Black Clover
is One Piece weekly? I don't watch it.

But everything pretty much seasonal at this point. Demon Slayer anime is good I can see how it boosted sales since the anime won't be near the end anytime soon. I wonder if they'll force the manga to continue.
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Yes One Piece is weekly.
And also an unwatchably slowly paced nightmare.
 
Calvarok

Calvarok

Member
Oct 26, 2017
3,218
how would coronavirus make one specific series more popular than others? surely if people had more free time to buy and read manga they would still buy roughly the same kind of manga?
 
Rouk'

Rouk'

Member
Jan 10, 2018
8,125
Major records that still need to be broken by Demon Slayer, from most likely to least likely:

- Best-selling manga in a year. Held by One Piece at 37,996,373 units, achieved in 2011. Challenger: Demon Slayer. It most likely happened in the past 5 days. Likelihood: 100%
- Best-selling volume in a year. Held by One Piece Volume 61 at 3,382,588 units, achieved in 2011. Challenger: Demon Slayer Volume 18, currently at 2,710,366. Likelihood: 99%
- Best-selling volume in a week. Held by One Piece Volume 66 at 2,275,453 units in 5 days, achieved in 2012. Challenger: Demon Slayer Volume 21, or any subsequent volume. Likelihood: 50%
- Highest first-print for a manga volume. Held by One Piece Volume 67 at 4.05m units, achieved in 2012. Challenger: Demon Slayer's final volume? Unlikely to be broken due to a different printing strategy being used. Likelihood: 10%
- Best-selling manga. Held by One Piece at 470m units. Challenger: Lol, not happening. Likelihood: 0%
 
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Hamchan

Hamchan

The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
4,960
So with sales like this I wonder if the manga will actually wrap up or will the Shonen Jump heads strongly encourage the author to keep going?
 
IHaveIce

IHaveIce

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
4,729
Shame that the current arc is such a decline in quality compared to the start of the series.

The anime did help the series a lot though without the grandios visuals this would be just a good shonen but no new worldwide hit.
 
Mendrox

Mendrox

Banned
Oct 26, 2017
9,439
Hamchan said:
So with sales like this I wonder if the manga will actually wrap up or will the Shonen Jump heads strongly encourage the author to keep going?
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Difficult to say, but Jump doesn't have anything else that sells as much except for One Piece and .... not a lot of other series currently that sell a ton of volumes. Promised Neverland will also end soon and Samurai 8 was one of the biggest flops the magazine had so I think they will try to push it further, but it depends on the author and this was suppose to be the final battle currently so nya we can't really tell. Author could have handled it better and the series could have been longer, but in the current state they will have to pull things out of their asses for that to work (or not depending on what will happen).
 
NeonZ

NeonZ

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 28, 2017
9,369
Brazil said:
After Shingeki no Kyojin and Kimetsu no Yaiba, it's become abundantly clear that shorter, quality seasons >>>> infinite Toei productions with trashy production values even when it comes to actually selling manga.
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Shingeki no Kyojin is a bad example though. It lost a lot of popularity during the gap between the seasons. That's the kind of scenario they fear when they make constantly running series.
 
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Sanka

Sanka

Banned
Feb 17, 2019
5,778
An impressive feat considering how mediocre it is apart from the beautiful animation and art direction.
 
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