According to Oricon, Jujutsu Kaisen is the Best-Selling Manga Series of 2021, with over 30.91 million copies sold during the fiscal year. Meanwhile, One Piece sits just outside the Top 5, with over 7 million copies sold.
While many would just dismiss One Piece as Jujutsu Kaisen’s biggest competition as the Best-Selling Manga in Japan right now, the numbers actually would like to differ as One Piece might have taken back its place as the Most Popular Ongoing Manga from the Shonen Jump lineup.
Jujutsu Kaisen has sold an insane amount of copies in backlogs this year, but One Piece is head-to-head with the Best-Selling Manga Series of 2021 when it comes to sales per volume for the year. Which one is truly the Most Popular Manga in Shonen Jump right now? Let’s take a deeper look.
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For this analysis, we will take a look at the last three volumes of Jujutsu Kaisen and One Piece manga and their sales performance.
Most Popular Ongoing Manga in Shonen Jump: Jujutsu Kaisen Vs One Piece
First up, we have Jujutsu Kaisen Volume 16 and One Piece Volume 99, which came out in June.
Jujutsu Kaisen Volume 16 was the final volume for what many consider the peak of the series, The Shibuya Incident Arc. The sales are very well proof of that as Volume 16 for Jujutsu Kaisen has sold 2,098,087 copies so far.
In comparison, One Piece Volume 99 has sold 1,863,574 copies. As you can see, Jujutsu Kaisen had a clear advantage during that period of time with the hype surrounding the series being at an all-time high.
However, when their previous volumes, Volume 100 for One Piece and Volume 17 for Jujutsu Kaisen, came out in August and October, respectively. The odds were completely reversed, and One Piece edged over Jujutsu Kaisen.
Volume 17 for Jujutsu Kaisen was the first volume for the manga post its Shibuya Incident Arc, and it saw a significant decrease from the last volume for the first time since the anime had begun, selling 1,600,867 copies after six weeks of release. Meanwhile, the milestone Volume 100 for One Piece sold 1,765,067 copies in just five weeks of release.
Further, according to Oricon’s year-end chart, One Piece Volume 100 has sold 1,839,886 copies so far and is very consistent with the previous volumes. While Jujutsu Kaisen Volume 17 has sold only 1,628,943 copies seeing a huge drop from the Shibuya Incident Arc.
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Moving on to the most recent releases, Volume 101 of One Piece was released earlier this month and sold over 986,727 copies in its first week (an initial release period of three days).
And Jujutsu Kaisen’s recent volume was released last Saturday and has sold 789,861 copies in its two-day long first week period.
But while Jujutsu Kaisen has a slight advantage over One Piece if you look at the per day average sales, it should be noted that these are still the weekend sales where the manga sales out the most amount of copies, and this is also including a special edition release so the chances of overtaking Volume 101 of One Piece without the new movie would have been very slim.
The movie will help boost the sales for this volume of the Jujutsu Kaisen manga and the series as a whole. But as of right now, One Piece has taken its place as the Most Popular Manga in Japan and among the Weekly Shonen Jump roster during the last few months.
Another notable thing to remember would be the pecking order of Table of Contents in Weekly Shonen Jump, where the most popular manga has its chapters before the lesser popular ones. This system is based on the popularity ranking survey from Shonen Jump. Where in the last few months, Jujutsu Kaisen has rarely been able to overtake One Piece and My Hero Academia.
Most Popular Ongoing Manga in Shonen Jump: What about Copies in Circulation Per Volume?
The Jujutsu Kaisen manga currently has 60 million copies in circulation, averaging 3.15 million copies per volume, while One Piece has 490 million copies in circulation, with an average of 4.85 million copies per volume.
Jujutsu Kaisen will likely continue to see a boost in the sales for its backlogs, but when the series has already seen this massive success and rise to fame, it is very unlikely that it will be able to get to anywhere near One Piece. Furthermore, One Piece will also be releasing a live-action TV series and an anime film titled One Piece: RED (featuring Shanks) soon, which is almost certainly going to have a positive impact on the series globally.
Jujutsu Kaisen might still regain its position as the Most Popular Manga in Shonen Jump but when all things are settled once again, it will take a cultural phenomenon like Demon Slayer to truly compete with One Piece.
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