It seems like no matter where you look in the manga world these days, Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba is on the lips of everyone as the manga and subsequent anime adaptations continue to set new records and milestones!
Demon Slayer started as a manga series created by Koyoharu Gotouge. It began serializing in Weekly Shonen Jump from February 2016 to May 2020 and was collected in 23 volumes (the last of which hit store shelves in Japan in December 2020). The manga is being released in English by Viz Media, who has released 20 volumes as of February 2021. In 2019 the series was adapted into an anime by studio ufotable before also receiving a movie adaptation (Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba the Movie: Mugen Train) in 2020 which, at one point, was the highest-grossing movie at the time in the entire world. The movie later became the highest-grossing movie of all time in Japan, beating out the classic Spirited Away. The series has already been confirmed to be receiving a second television season in 2021.
The period action-drama story follows a young man named Tanjiro who is training to become a demon slayer after his family is brutally murdered by demons. The lone survivor, his sister, was changed into a demon though, so his real primary mission is to find a way to turn her back into a human.
Back in 2019, publisher Shueisha noted that Demon Slayer was their second best-selling manga series behind only One Piece. To paraphrase a famous saying though, within the last two years business has picked up! In a new report that hit the internet on Sunday, February 14th, it was revealed that the Demon Slayer manga now has 150 million copies in circulation around the world (which includes digital copies). This was certainly helped by the series selling over 82 million copies in 2020 alone according to Oricon. It added 30 million copies alone within the last two months when the series ended in December 2020. That figure was high enough to beat out the next four series combined (which includes the previously mentioned One Piece). It was also noted that the series has increased in popularity by 43 times since the anime adaptation first started airing back in 2019.
No matter how you feel about Demon Slayer (and there are some very strong opinions out there in the wilds of the internet), it’s impossible to deny that this series has become a runaway hit with fans around the world. It’s kind of amazing to think about but this is the series that will inspire the next generation to come which already has a segment of fans excited to see what the next big thing is going to be.
Source: Anime News Network