One Piece is on the cusp of becoming the first manga series in history to have a circulation of over 500 million copies, which means it's also about to surpass some sales records set by some other pop culture icons as well, including Harry Potter and Batman.
That's according to new sales data and predictions compiled by reddit user OHandS. Using the recently release Oricon sales charts for 2021, as well as sales data collected from other outlets and previous years, OHandS shared a number of charts that detail One Piece's sales from 2008 until now. The mathematically inclined One Piece fan concluded that Oda's pirate epic should surpass the total sales of Batman comics -- about 495 million copies -- and may even break the half-a-billion mark before the end of the year. One Piece is also set to surpass the approximately 500 million copies sold record set by the best selling book series of all time, Harry Potter, if current sales trends continue.
One Piece will break these records despite actually experiencing a slow decline in overall sales. OHandS notes that despite all of the hype for the series' 1000th chapter and 100th collected volume, the series has been experiencing a small but steady drop in sales every since the start of the current Wano Country arc. While it's pretty much guaranteed that the series will surpass the 500 million mark, this slow decline may hamper the series' chances of surpassing Superman's 600 million issues sold figure. OHandS speculates that the series could see a spike in sales if the series' next and potentially final story arc builds up enough hype for the series' finale, or if the upcoming live-action Netflix adaptation manages to draw in new audiences.
Despite that decline, One Piece was still overall the sixth best selling manga series in Japan in 2021, placing it just behind Kohei Horikoshi's My Hero Academia, but still placing the 24-year old series ahead of newer hits such as Spy x Family and Chainsaw Man. The overall best-selling manga series for the year was Gege Akutami's Jujutsu Kaisen, which managed to sell 30 million copies in 2021, despite taking a two-month hiatus this summer. Akutami's dark fantasy shonen series managed to just barely outsell Koyoharu Gotouge's Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba, which sold 29.5 million copies in its final year of serialization.
One Piece is localized and distributed in North America by VIZ Media. The anime adaptation of the series, which recently aired its landmark 1000th episode, is available for streaming through Crunchyroll and Funimation.
Source: Reddit
