One Piece is now the 2nd highest selling ongoing comic series behind Superman

[URL="https://thenewspocket.com/one-piece-beats-batman/"]https://thenewspocket.com/one-piece-beats-batman/[/URL]

This week it was announced that One Piece's worldwide sales have reached a total of 490 million units. This puts the massively popular shonen series ahead of Batman's lifetime sales, which currently stand at around 480 million according to various sources. Now that Batman has been moved down to the third best selling series, it's possible One Piece could overtake Superman to become the best selling comic series of all time. Since his creation in 1938, Superman has currently sold approximately 600 million units in total, yet One Piece has managed to surpass Batman and Spider-Man's lifetime sales since its debut in 1997. Although the One Piece manga is nearing the end of its story according to the mangaka Eiichiro Oda, who has stated that One Piece will continue for another 5 years. Nonetheless, given the recent lacklustre sale rankings of Philip Kennedy Johnson's Superman titles, this news highlights the ever growing sales of Japanese manga and the possibility that one series could take the top spot away from the world's first superhero.

Any thoughts or insights on the sales trends of comics versus manga and how these two media are distributed are always welcome.

It's completely deserved.

It makes sense, One Piece has been going on for years and has established a loyal fan base.
I can certainly see it overtaking Superman.
Saying that, it's purely down to population and culture. Manga not only appeals to Japan, but to America and parts of Europe. American comics get a lot of their fanbase from America and the UK.

Also, Manga is self contained, if you wanted to read One piece, you start at volume 1 and go from there.
Superman has numerous volume 1s, stories get dropped out of canon and come back in canon, numerous titles and writers.
It starts to become unappealing to a larger audience.
That and the fact American publishers are terrible ay advertising their own books. So yeah, it makes sense.

No shade to Lvenger, who is simply posting an article, but this is just meaningless wordage. Obviously websites have to generate content. So writers have to put strings of sentences together to fill the word quota, so they can get paid. And it has to have enough content words in the post that make it searchable. But it's just a jumble of factoids that add up to nothing.

What is the thesis? What is proven? It's not worth anything. A search online tells me that Lipitor is one of the highest selling items of all time. Petroleum is another thing that sells in high quantities. Putting these two factoids side by side, I must be a genius.

[QUOTE=Jim Kelly;5645171]No shade to Lvenger, who is simply posting an article, but this is just meaningless wordage. Obviously websites have to generate content. So writers have to put strings of sentences together to fill the word quota, so they can get paid. And it has to have enough content words in the post that make it searchable. But it's just a jumble of factoids that add up to nothing.

What is the thesis? What is proven? It's not worth anything. A search online tells me that Lipitor is one of the highest selling items of all time. Petroleum is another thing that sells in high quantities. Putting these two factoids side by side, I must be a genius.[/QUOTE]

I think the subtext is "here's more proof that manga is outselling American (Big Two) comics." Also that One Piece is still a juggernaut in its native Japan.

American comic book publishers need to pay attention to how Japanese publishers are marketing and pushing their stories. First and foremost, the anime doesn't overtake the source material like it does in American comics and the stories are actually adapted. Rather than loosely inspired by or the (TV/film) writers take elements from here and there.

Comics are in a decline, and it saddens me. Manga is killing it, and there's no good reason comics shouldn't be in better shape.

[QUOTE=Hizashi;5645335]Comics are in a decline, and it saddens me. Manga is killing it, and there's no good reason comics shouldn't be in better shape.[/QUOTE]

I mean, I'll happily enjoy manga in the decades to come if it turns out that DC and Marvel are too stubborn to change.

Great sequential art is not going away. DC and Marvel might (although it's very unlikely still), and if so, they will have deserved it.

[QUOTE=hairys;5645339]I mean, I'll happily enjoy manga in the decades to come if it turns out that DC and Marvel are too stubborn to change.

Great sequential art is not going away. DC and Marvel might, and if so, they will have deserved it.[/QUOTE]

I get that, but I love Superman and DC and the X-Men and I wouldn't want them to just go away.

I think it's obvious what this means: [B]THEY NEED TO STICK SUPERMAN ON A PIRATE SHIP![/B]

[QUOTE=superduperman;5645558]I think it's obvious what this means: [B]THEY NEED TO STICK SUPERMAN ON A PIRATE SHIP![/B][/QUOTE]

[IMG]https://i.pinimg.com/originals/8d/82/52/8d8252a438939224d128e7da06c1cf92.png[/IMG]

[QUOTE=superduperman;5645558]I think it's obvious what this means: [B]THEY NEED TO STICK SUPERMAN ON A PIRATE SHIP![/B][/QUOTE]

Actually,siegel's superman and luffy would get along fine.Besides, it's the adventure and romance of lifetime..i hope oda keeps himself healthy..Clark should atleast get back the man of action title..
[QUOTE=Jim Kelly;5645171]No shade to Lvenger, who is simply posting an article, but this is just meaningless wordage. Obviously websites have to generate content. So writers have to put strings of sentences together to fill the word quota, so they can get paid. And it has to have enough content words in the post that make it searchable. But it's just a jumble of factoids that add up to nothing.

What is the thesis? What is proven? It's not worth anything. A search online tells me that Lipitor is one of the highest selling items of all time. Petroleum is another thing that sells in high quantities. Putting these two factoids side by side, I must be a genius.[/QUOTE]
These are graphic novels/comics still, that's finding an audience and stories are being told no matter what format.They both use visuals..

One piece isn't even "it" right now. It's demon slayer..Btw,mugen train movie felt like superman "for the man who has everything" with all the dreams and things like that..

Manga has been popular in North America for the last few decades--and around where I live even longer than that. And I've been coming to this forum for more than a decade now. Yet it's only in the last few months where I see several posts about Manga in opposition to other comic books--as if to drive a wedge and polarize comic book fandom. I don't know why this is happening now. People who like comic books like all kinds of comic books--it's not a competition.

If some Manga property has sold a lot of units that doesn't surprise me--even though I've never heard of "One Piece." If you told me that a Bollywood film I never heard of was actually the movie in the world that has been seen by the most people in all of history--that would not surprise me. There are a billion people in India and Bollywood is really popular there (also very popular around where I live). Manga is really popular so it makes sense that some Manga property has sold a lot of units.

That has nothing to do with American super-hero comics. It's a different market and a different history.

The only reason for making the comparison is to create a false equivalency and promote a conflict where none exists.

[QUOTE=Jim Kelly;5645629]Manga has been popular in North America for the last few decades--and around where I live even longer than that. And I've been coming to this forum for more than a decade now. Yet it's only in the last few months where I see several posts about Manga in opposition to other comic books--as if to drive a wedge and polarize comic book fandom. I don't know why this is happening now. People who like comic books like all kinds of comic books--it's not a competition.

If some Manga property has sold a lot of units that doesn't surprise me--even though I've never heard of "One Piece." If you told me that a Bollywood film I never heard of was actually the movie in the world that has been seen by the most people in all of history--that would not surprise me. There are a billion people in India and Bollywood is really popular there (also very popular around where I live). Manga is really popular so it makes sense that some Manga property has sold a lot of units.

That has nothing to do with American super-hero comics. It's a different market and a different history.

The only reason for making the comparison is to create a false equivalency and promote a conflict where none exists.[/QUOTE]

I think you're mostly correct, but we have to consider that Americans are reading manga both in physical and digital format, they're watching anime and even reacting to it on YouTube (it's its own genre basically), and all ages and cultures are doing so. Can the same be said about American comic books in Japan? I have family that are immigrants who have watched some anime, but they've never read a comic book or watched any animated series based on one. At most they've seen the Hollywood films, and even then it was little more than a fun diversion. What is manga doing right that comic books aren't?

I mean, Superman is popular, everyone in the world knows who he is, but how many people read his ongoing adventures? I'm not acting in bad faith, I genuinely want to know what can be done to improve the state of comics.

[QUOTE=Hizashi;5645689]I think you're mostly correct, but we have to consider that Americans are reading manga both in physical and digital format, they're watching anime and even reacting to it on YouTube (it's its own genre basically), and all ages and cultures are doing so. Can the same be said about American comic books in Japan? I have family that are immigrants who have watched some anime, but they've never read a comic book or watched any animated series based on one. At most they've seen the Hollywood films, and even then it was little more than a fun diversion. What is manga doing right that comic books aren't?

I mean, Superman is popular, everyone in the world knows who he is, but how many people read his ongoing adventures? I'm not acting in bad faith, I genuinely want to know what can be done to improve the state of comics.[/QUOTE]

American comics isn't about storytelling.it's about ips,franchises...etc what people like is a good story with a start,middle and en end..American superhero comics wants both serialized and episodic storytelling..that has problems.the middle road btw tom&jerry and game of thrones leads to spikes in sales with each status quo change.But that's it..American superhero comics is just never-ending soap opera.