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Eiichiro Oda Gives a Nod to Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba
posted on by Kim Morrissy
One Piece creator Eiichiro Oda left a message to commemorate the release of the top-selling manga of 2019. He wrote: "Lately, a lot of people have been telling me that the Jump these days is great. The popularity of Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba goes without saying, but the young creators at Jump these days are all fired up! And so am I, of course! Please do pick up the magazine. Thank you for making One Piece the best-selling manga volume! It's an honor!"
One Piece attained the top four spots on Oricon's annual comic ranking chart by volume. It is the 12th year in a row that a One Piece volume has topped the chart — a new record. One Piece has also attained the top three spots for the 11th year in a row, and the top four spots for the ninth year in a row.
Koyoharu Gotouge's Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba manga was the top-selling series in Japan overall in 2019, according to Oricon. This is the first time in 12 years that One Piece has not topped Oricon's annual comic ranking chart by series. Shueisha reported earlier this week that Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba sold 10.8 million volumes, while One Piece sold 12.7 million volumes, in the same time period of sales as Oricon's surveying.
Oda began serializing the One Piece manga in Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump manga on July 19, 1997. The manga will have more than 460 million copies in print worldwide when the 95th volume ships on December 28. That total includes 390 million copies in print in Japan, and 70 million copies in print outside of Japan across 42 territories. The manga won the 41st Japan Cartoonist Awards in 2012, and set a Guinness World Record in 2015 for "the most copies published for the same comic book series by a single author."
Gotouge launched Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba in Weekly Shonen Jump in February 2016. Viz Media is publishing the manga in English digitally and in print. As of December 4, the manga will have 25 million copies in circulation. The manga inspired a television anime that premiered on April 6, and aired its 26th and final episode earlier this month. The anime will receive a sequel anime film.
Source: Oricon
