Currently Running Manga Discussion

[gunswordfist]

 

[LumRanmaYasha]

I recently checked the most recent Jump rankings, and wow, Bleach has been in the bottom two a lot recently. The only series that tend to rank lower than it are new series that don't have a chance of making it past three months anyway. Yep, it's curtain time. It's unlikely the series will get cancelled, per say, because of this recent performance, but no doubt this'll mean that the editors at Jump are going to try and accelerate the story as quick as possible to reach the ending faster. So yeah, I predict that before the end of the year, Bleach'll be done. It's only a matter of time now.

[LumRanmaYasha]

So, apparently I missed that there were two new translated Detective Conan chapters, so I decided to read them and HOLY FUCKING SHIT IT'S FINALLY HAPPENED BOURBON HAS FIGURED IT ALL OUT OKIYA IS AKAI CONFIRMED CONAN HAD EXPECTED GIN WOULD FORCE KIR TO SHOOT AKAI HE HELPED HIM FAKE HIS DEATH OH MY FUCKING GOD EVERYONE IS SO SCREWED!!!!

Yeah...so, shit is going DOWN! I haven't been THIS excited for the series since the Bell Tree Murder Express arc 70 chapters ago. Finally, finally the plot is moving forward and there's no going back. Akai isn't going to die, since clearly the Okiya Bourbon is confronting right now is not Akai but someone else in disguise (the face mask is a dead giveaway, since Haibara did the same thing before in the Desperate Revival arc), but man, I have no clue how anyone is going to be safe after this, since Bourbon has no doubt pieced together Conan is Shinichi and Kir's cover is blown. The manga has to be going into an endgame now, and even if it's not, I'm excited for what's basically going to be Clash of Red and Black 2.0. Yeah, these next few weeks, DC is going to be amazing. I cannot hold my anticipation of the things to come.

[LumRanmaYasha]

Top 20 most popular manga in Japan based on the number of copies in circulation.

For those who don't want to click the link, they are:

1. One Piece - 300 million
2. Golgo 13 - 200 million
3. Black Jack - 176 million
4. Dragon Ball - 157 million
5. Kochikame - 155.3 million
6. Detective Conan - 140 million
7. Naruto - 140 million
8. Oishinbo - 130 million
9. Slam Dunk - 119 million
10. Doraemon - 100 million
11. Astro Boy - 100 million
12. Touch - 100 million
13. Fist of the North Star - 100 million
14. Kindanchi Case Files - 90 million
15. Sazae-san - 86 million
16. Captain Tsubasa - 80 million
17. Hajime no Ippo - 75.5 million
18. Bleach - 74.6 million
19. Sangokushi - 70 million
20. Rurouni Kenshin - 70 million

There are more listed according to the original link, but since everything is in japanese there are a few I can't recognize and I can't tell the circulation numbers for. But I'll list the ones I do know anyway.

21. Hunter X Hunter
22. JoJo's Bizarre Adventure
25. H2
26. Bad Boys
27. Ranma 1/2
29. Rokudenshi Blues
30. Dragon Quest
31. Baki the Grappler
32. Great Teacher Onizuka
33. Yu Yu Hakusho
35. Initial D
36. The Prince of Tennis
37. Nana
38. Shin Chan
40. Vagabond
41. Be-Bop Highschool
42. City Hunter
45. Major
46. InuYasha
47. Yu-Gi-Oh!
49. Gintama
50. Attack on Titan
52. 20th Century Boys
53. Dr. Slump
55. Cobra
57. Urusei Yatsura
58. Bastard!
62. Death Note
65. Shaman King
69. Hitman Reborn
70. Saint Seiya
71. Boys Be
73. Hikaru no Go
74. Fairy Tail
77. Zatch Bell!
78. Kimagure Orange Road
79. Rookies
81. Eyeshield 21
82. Ashita no Joe
85. Gantz

Stray Thoughts:
1. Wow, One Piece pretty much trounces everything else in how many copies of it are in circulation. You can't really use the "it's been running so long and it has lots of volumes excuse" because both Golgo 13 and Oishinbo have run for over 30 years and have double it's volume count, and it still beats them by a landslide. Yeah...this kinda much confirms OP is the most popular manga ever in Japan, and for the most part I do think it earned that honor, though the post time-skip stuff makes me not feel like it totally deserves it.

2. It pleases me to no end that Oishinbo is so popular, and really impresses me that Black Jack is the third highest circulating manga. Seriously, that's awesome, and well-deserved. 

4. The fact that Bleach has sold more copies and is on this list over better popular series like Ashita no Joe,  Urusei Yatsura, and JoJo's annoys me. 

5. Damn, despite all it's production problems, HXH is still really fucking popular! No wonder Togashi gets away with so many hiatuses. 

6. As a fan, I am of course happy to see Ranma 1/2 in the top 30 (though I wish it was UY instead, of course). 

7. Didn't expect AnJ to be so low. 

Overall, this list is surprising in some respects but not in a couple other. Some of these I believe truly deserve their popularity, others I think are a bit overrated, but it is what it is since this is based on data and whatnot. I wonder if something will ever come along to knock OP off #1 though...since nothing currently running or in the past comes even close....

[Spark Of Spirit]

They could probably get those RK sales even higher with a new anime. Just saying.

Bleach being so high is disappointing. The rest of the top 20 is fairly expected and deserved.

[gunswordfist]

I didn't know Golgo was so popular. I thought it was just some obscure series. I'm actually surprised to see Fist Of The Northstar that high, for some reason. Or Grappler Baki. Hell, I'm genuinely surprised about Baki, especially seeing what popular series it's above.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I wasn't expecting AnJ to be a top 20 or anything, but I would've figured it'd at least be in the top 50 based on how iconic the series is, but I guess Japanese readers who like shounen manga are apparently more interested in Bleach and stuff.

Hunter X Hunter may eventually crack the top 20 in a few years as it continues to have volumes sold in the millions with each new release, as infrequent as they may be.

Also, you CAN make the argument about series length influencing ranking in some cases, if you go by an average of copies sold per volume. For instance, Rurouni Kenshin sold 70 million copies with only 28 volumes, while Hajime no Ippo only sold about 5 million more with over 100 volumes currently out, which means that RK sold well over 2 million copies per volume on average, while HnI sold well under a million copies per volume on average. Going by that logic, RK is clearly the more popular series, but if you are just going by total volumes sold regardless of how many there are per series, the ranks will come out much differently.

[LumRanmaYasha]

I wasn't expecting AnJ to be a top 20 or anything, but I would've figured it'd at least be in the top 50 based on how iconic the series is, but I guess Japanese readers who like shounen manga are apparently more interested in Bleach and stuff.

That or AnJ hasn't been reprinted in a while, and hence hasn't had any new copies sold in a long time.

And considering this list is overwhelmingly dominated by them, I'd say most japanese manga readers enjoy shonen series. 

Also, you CAN make the argument about series length influencing ranking in some cases, if you go by an average of copies sold per volume. For instance, Rurouni Kenshin sold 70 million copies with only 28 volumes, while Hajime no Ippo only sold about 5 million more with over 100 volumes currently out, which means that RK sold well over 2 million copies per volume on average, while HnI sold well under a million copies per volume on average. Going by that logic, RK is clearly the more popular series, but if you are just going by total volumes sold regardless of how many there are per series, the ranks will come out much differently.

That's true. In fact, by average copies per volume, the top 20 would look like:


Black Jack - 10.4 million
Astro Boy - 4.3 million
One Piece - 4.1 million
Touch - 3.8 million
Dragon Ball - 3.7 million
Slam Dunk - 3.7 million
Fist of the North Star - 3.7 million
Rurouni Kenshin - 2.5 million
Doraemon - 2.2 million
Captain Tsubasa - 2.2 million
Naruto - 2.1 million
Sazae-san - 1.9 million
Detective Conan - 1.7 million
Kindanchi Case Files - 1.4 million
Oishinbo - 1.2 million
Bleach - 1.2 million
Sangokushi - 1.2 million
Golgo 13 - 1.2 million
Kochikame - 0.86 million
Hajime no Ippo - 0.71 million

..which as you can see, is quite different. I don't know the numbers for anything past the top 20, but I can imagine quite a few series past there that would be more popular than some of these series in here.

[Daxdiv]

Oh cool, Looked at the list and saw that Kinnikuman was like 23rd best seller. But wow, One Piece really is the most popular series in Japan right now. Kochikame can't even touch it and it's been in print for a long amount of time, like 1976.

[gunswordfist]

Ah sweet, Ultimate Muscle.

[LumRanmaYasha]

No Shonen Jump this week, so I didn't have much to read. I already fangasmed over the awesomeness of the new Conan chapters earlier, and I have nothing to add there, so all that's left is...

Magi chapter 223 - Ah, this chapter more than makes up for last week. In order to help Solomon make the right choices, Arba and Sheba plan to be pillars of support for him, Arba helping him in the times he must be a tough leader, and Sheba being there for him when he's on the verge of losing his way. Lots of nice scenes, emotional and humorous, here, and the chapter also gets me wondering if Arba might actually be Gyuokuen (they do look kinda similar..). I'm curious to see if that's the case in future chapters.

Peephole chapter 22 - I don't get why Miyachi doesn't see cops as people so she thinks it's okay to kill them, but it did make for some funny scenes, so okay. She certainly is pretty devious, having devised a way to pin the murder of the cop on Fuyjiura in a split-second before she killed him. This manga is honestly starting to become legitimately good now, and I'm actually excited to see what crazy shit'll go down next time. Well done, Peephole.

Rankings:

1. Detective Conan - 10/10
2. Magi - 10/10
3. Peephole - 9/10

Quality over quantity this week, I'd say. Still would've loved to read a new Toriko, but alas, I can wait 'till next week.

[LumRanmaYasha]

This week was rather lacking...

Assassination Classroom chapter 88 - Nice to see Itona fitting in with the rest of the class. His role is likely going to be that of a tactician or inventor of sorts for the group considering his expertise in building things and his high intelligence. And so Korosensei's weak spot is his heart, which is in the same spot as his tie is. I'll be interested in seeing how they exploit that information. Shiro, on the other hand, continues to be a creepy bastard (what with eating a live mouse and all that), and his plans to exploit the natural assassin in the classroom, whoever that is, is curious, as is his backup plan. This manga sure knows how to keep interesting, I can say that much.

Bleach chapter 579 - So Gremmy was a brain all along. Okay. Nothing really happened in this chapter except Yachiru is missing and that female group of Quincies have appeared to fight Kenpachi. Eh. How many enemies do we have to see get beaten until Ichigo can fight Uryu and Juha Bach already, seriously?

Naruto chapter 675 - Madara manipulating Rin's death and stuff is just stupid, as is Naruto suddenly being able to heal people's body parts for no good reason. I'm calling it now, but Naruto probably has the ability to bring people back from the dead too, because he's teh messiah super sugoi or whatever. Really, really stupid chapter.

One Piece chapter 746 - I laughed so hard at "God" Ussop having the highest bounty. That alone made this chapter. Other stuff here was just okay, though.

Peephole chapter 23 - And now Kurosou is hiding Fujiura in his house. Not too much happened this time outside from this, though.

Stealth Symphony chapters 10-11 - So the Mermaid boss is defeated by Troma and Jig is assured that he helped out the situation despite not being able to protect people as well as he wanted to. And then a bunch of convoluted stuff about the Assassin's Guild and Police having manipulated the whole scenario to take down the slave traders and pharmaceutical company. Whatever. I'm not sure if this manga is canned or not since 11 seemed like a wrap-up chapter. Kind went out on a lame note if that's the case, but too bad, it had some potential. Well, we'll see next week or not if it's continuing or not, I suppose.

Toriko chapter 276 - Toriko is more of a badass than ever and can take down level 600 beasts without even fighting them now and the Frog approaches the group all chill like on his motorbike. Ah, how fun this manga is.

Rankings:

1. Assassination Classroom - 9/10
2. Toriko - 8.5/10
3. One Piece - 8/10
4. Peephole - 7/10
5. Stealth Symphony - 6.5/10
6. Bleach - 3/10
7. Naruto - 1/10

Not one of the better weeks of late, I must say. There's usually at least one 10/10 worthy chapter of the bunch, but nothing that good this week. Oh well.

[gunswordfist]

Whoa, a modern day Bleach chapter that's better than a Naruto chapter?

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Whoa, a modern day Bleach chapter that's better than a Naruto chapter?

That....isn't really saying much....

[gunswordfist]

Hmm, I did hear that Naruto has been getting even worse so I guess you're right.