Attack on Titan Manga: 50 million copies sold but trails One Piece

As we all know, Hajime Isayama’s Attack on Titan has been the shock trooper in the recent manga bounce back here in the US and Japan. A story from the Japanese language Eiga.com reported at ANN reveals AoT has 50 million copies in print worldwide , a healthy number of which 2.5 million copies are in English. Attack on Titan has 16 volume available, with a new one due soon, as well as a live action film which just opened in Japan expected pull in ¥5 billion (about $40.3 million). A second film, Attack on Titan: End of the World, opens in September. It’s expected these films will boost sales even more.

As impressive as these numbers are, AoT has a ways to go to beat past Japanese hits according to this Wikipedia chart which shows One PIece the all time leader with a staggering 320 million copies in print. Of course there are 79 volumes of Eiichiro Oda’s masterpiece out — and more to come. But One Piece beats Attack on Titan on a per volume basis as well.

Actually it’s interesting to look at the top 10 chart as shown on Wikipedia — I’ve added a column showing sales per volume on the end for the statistiucally minded.

Manga series	Author(s)	Publisher	Demographic	No. of collected	Serialized	Approximate sales	Sales per Volume
				volumes
One Piece	Eiichiro Oda	Shueisha	Shōnen	79	1997–present	$320,000,000	$4,050,633
Dragon Ball	Akira Toriyama	Shueisha	Shōnen	42	1984–1995	230,000,000	$5,476,190
Naruto	Masashi Kishimoto	Shueisha	Shōnen	72	1999–2014	205,000,000	$2,847,222
Golgo 13	Takao Saito	Shogakukan	Seinen	177	1969–present	200,000,000	$1,129,944
Black Jack	Osamu Tezuka	Akita Shoten	Shōnen	17	1973–1983	176,000,000	$10,352,941
Kochira Katsushika-ku Kameari Kōen-mae Hashutsujo	Osamu Akimoto	Shueisha	Shōnen	195	1976–present	156,000,000	$800,000
Detective Conan	Gosho Aoyama	Shogakukan	Shōnen	86	1994–present	140,000,000	$1,627,907
Oishinbo	Tetsu Kariya and Akira Hanasaki	Shogakukan	Seinen	111	1983–present	130,000,000	$1,171,171
Slam Dunk	Takehiko Inoue	Shueisha	Shōnen	31	1990–1996	120,000,000	$3,870,968
Astro Boy	Osamu Tezuka	Kobunsha/Kodansha	Shōnen	23	1952–1968	100,000,000	$4,347,826

No surprise that Dragonball and Naruto are #s 2 and 3. What may be more of a surprise is the presence of the food manga Oishinbo on list. The only property in the top 10 that isn’t in print in English is #6, Kochikame, as it’s known, a long running comedy manga about Japanese life that presumably wouldn’t translate very well.

None of which means to undermine the immense success of Attack on Titan, which has revitalized manga publishing both in Japan and the US. The story itself concerns a bunch of kids fighting an invasion of Earth by horrific monsters who are held in check by a giant wall. So yeah it’s got survival, teen angst and staggeringly visual violence, an unbeatable formula that hit it big in the US with the Hunger Games and the like, but which US comics have yet to discover. Pacific Rim 2?

The manga publishing industry in Japan has a lot of problems to work out, including a glacially paced and stubborn reaction to the rise of piracy, a recent lack of hits, and readers moving to mobile. It’s hard to draw any direct comparisons between the US and Japanese comics reading markets— the US market has pivoted far more quickly and successfully than the Japanese, but Japan has been doing it bigger for way longer. Anyway, none of this is a competition. It’s all about great storytelling.

COMICS!