#Manga Sales at Japanese Bookstores in 2020 Up Huge 31.5% from 2019

On February 22, Nihon Shuppan Hanbai (Nippan), a major publishing agency in Japan, announced that last year’s in-store sales rose 4.3 percent over the previous year according to a survey of store sales (covering about 1,700 stores). This is the first time since the survey began in 2000 that the sales number has exceeded that of the previous year. Overall sales were positive in all months except April, which was affected by the closure due to the declaration of a state of emergency.　

Among them, the sales of manga increased significantly by 31.5 percent. The huge success of Koyoharu Gotouge’s Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, which has sold a record-breaking 150 million copies since 2016, boosted sales of manga at Japanese bookstores. On the other hand, book sales declined by 1.0 percent, magazines also struggled, down 8.7 percent.

As reported last month, The Publishing Science Institute, which conducts research and surveys on the publishing industry, announced that the estimated combined book sales of paper and digital editions in Japan in 2020 was 1,616.8 billion yen (15.59 billion USD), which was up five percent from 2019, also thanks to Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba.

Source: Nihon Shuppan Hanbai New Release, Reuters

“Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba” image ©Koyoharu Gotouge/SHUEISHA