Demon Slayer continues its reign as Japan's best-selling manga in the first half of 2021, though Jujutsu Kaisen is gaining in popularity as well.
Koyoharu Gotouge's historical action fantasy series was the top-selling manga of 2019 and 2020. Demon Slayer continues its success in the first half of this year, selling 26,351,483 copies between Nov. 23, 2020 and May 23, 2021. These numbers don't include the light novels, art book and coloring books, which have also been best-sellers in their respective categories. Demon Slayer's final volume, Volume 23, is the best-selling manga volume of the year so far with 4,982,832 copies sold.
Demon Slayer is getting some close competition, however, from Gege Akutami's Jujutsu Kaisen. Jujutsu Kaisen was already the fifth best-selling manga of 2020, and with the anime adaptation airing from Oct. 2020 to March 2021, the manga's popularity has only increased this year. The manga has sold 23,797,483 copies between Nov. 23, 2020 and May 23, 2021. All 15 regular volumes plus the Jujutsu Kaisen 0 miniseries rank among the top 25 manga volumes sold.
Rounding out the list of the top five best-selling manga franchises this year so far are Ken Wakui's Tokyo Revengers (5,007,825 copies sold), Hajime Isayama's Attack on Titan (4,635,754 copies sold) and Tatsuki Fujimoto's Chainsaw Man (4,181,650 copies sold). Tokyo Revengers currently has an anime adaptation airing and the first half of Attack on Titan's final anime season aired this past winter; Chainsaw Man will be receiving an anime adaptation later this year from MAPPA.
Both Attack on Titan and Chainsaw Man's first part also benefitted from the hype around their final chapters being published within the November-to-May timeframe that Oricon counts as the first half of 2021. However, Attack on Titan's final chapters have yet to be published in volume form. Attack on Titan Volume 34 will be published in Japan on June 9 and is likely to show up in the end-of-year sales rankings.
Eichiro Oda's perennial best-selling pirate epic One Piece did not make the top five best-selling manga series for the year so far, though One Piece Volume 98 ranked as #5 on the top-selling volumes list with 1,876,047 copies sold. The only other manga series not in the Top 5 series list to place in the Top 25 volumes list is Tatsuya Endo's Spy X Family Volume 6, which placed at #23 with 1,086,102 copies sold.
Source: Oricon, via Anime News Network
