Demon Slayer has been crowned the Most Popular Anime and TV Show in Japanese Streaming for the sixth consecutive month.
GEM Partners’ have recently released their Monthly Streaming Popularity Rankings. And, Demon Slayer, which concluded Season 2 of the anime with the climax of its Entertainment District Arc in February has remained the Most Popular Anime and TV Show in Japan as it just narrowly edges out Attack on Titan Season 4 to conquer the first spot in the streaming charts for a sixth consecutive month.
Demon Slayer has been at the top of the Monthly Charts ever since the premiere of the TV Version of Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba: Mugen Train in October. The series was also on top of the Weekly Charts for 21 consecutive weeks prior to the second week of March in almost every single streaming and SVOD service before Attack on Titan managed to dethrone the cultural sensation.
Despite Attack on Titan being the Most Popular Anime and TV Series for three consecutive weeks, Demon Slayer has edged out the colossal giant by a narrow margin in overall viewership for March.
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Attack on Titan was the second most popular title on Japanese streaming services in March and was also the Most Popular TV Show amongst the male demographic. While the anime’s position and popularity don’t come as a surprise knowing the insane hype that has surrounded the series ever since the premiere of Part 1 of Attack on Titan Season 4 in December 2020 and the anime living up to all the hype and delivering some of the best episodes of television you’ll ever see, the anime has not yet topped the Monthly Streaming Charts in the past two years.
Part 2 of Attack on Titan Season 4 came to an end on April 3 with the 87th episode of the series as the anime is set to wrap up its run with a third and final part next year that will cover the remaining 9 chapters of the manga series.
The demographic breakdown confirms that Attack on Titan was the Most Popular Anime of March 2022 in Japan amongst teenagers and adults aged 18-49 while Demon Slayer was favoured amongst the elderly and the female demographic.
WIT Studio’s passionate and enchanting adaptation of Ranking of Kings remained in the third spot for March as well. Ranking of Kings has slowly developed a huge following in Japan and has left several big titles behind despite the fact that it is only available to stream exclusively on Amazon Prime Video.
Despite the second cour of the anime having been met with its fair share of criticism after a remarkable first half, the series has simply been phenomenal and has delivered some truly stellar episodes of television within the last six months.
Doraemon saw a humongous rise as it rose from the 170th spot to claim the 4th place in the list following the inclusion of all 40 Doraemon movies in Amazon Prime Video’s library with the theatrical release of the new Doraemon Movie, Doraemon: Nobita’s Little Star Wars 2021 last month. The movie has already made more than 2.38 Billion Yen at the Japanese Box Office and is the 5th Highest-Grossing Film of 2022 in Japan.
Meanwhile, Detective Conan and One Piece remain as consistent as ever as they take the next two spots on the list respectively.
One Piece was on hiatus for the majority of March following an unfortunate hacking incident at Toei Animation where the culprits accessed the studio’s network and main website long enough to shut down several of its systems, which resulted in the studio delaying several of its big titles such as One Piece and Digimon indefinitely.
The anime is finally scheduled to be back from hiatus this week and will air Episode 1014 in its regular broadcasting slot.
My Dress-Up Darling was the biggest new hit of the Winter 2022 anime season and is in the 7th spot on the list. The series has turned out to be the Most Succesful Romance hit since the anime adaptation of Kaguya-sama: Love is War with the manga getting a huge boost and selling almost 1.5 million copies since the start of the anime.
Volume 9 of the series, which was released last month sold over a whopping 127,089 copies in its first three days even surpassing the latest volume of Kaguya-sama: Love is War, which sold over 85,000 copies in the same time frame.
Meanwhile, with nothing new on the horizon, Jujutsu Kaisen has fallen to the 8th place. The movie still continues to do decent business though, after more than three months at the Japanese Box Office, and remains amongst the Top 10 Weekly Movies Domestically. The movie has grossed over $180 million worldwide.
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Some more recent releases also continued to be amongst the Top 20, with Heike Monogatari taking the 11th spot and the Winter 2022 release Police in a Pod going down to the 12th spot.
Police in a Pod is a seinen Slice of Life Comedy by Madhouse. The series follows Mai Kawai, a new police officer who only decided to take the job due to a desire to have a stable income. But as she becomes frustrated and disappointed with her boring career path, she decides to resign from the police force. On the day she planned to submit her resignation, she meets Seiko Fuji, who had been reassigned to serve as the director of her station.
Seiko’s dedication to the police force inspires Kawai and gives her fresh hope as she decides to delay her resignation and give her career as a police officer another shot. The series follows the two and other members of her police force solving crimes in their local area.
Police in a Pod previously won the 66th Shogakukan Manga Award in the general category for 2021 and is available to watch in Funimation around the world and Muse Asia in Southeast Asian countries.
Pokemon has also fallen down even further and to the 14th spot but the Pokemon Legends: Arceus Special Anime Episodes, which are exclusively available on Amazon Prime Video still continue to be one of the Most-Watched Anime Titles in Japan this year.
Meanwhile, Teasing Master Takagi-san entered the Top 20 for the first time this season following the broadcast of the final episodes of Season 3 in March. You can see the full list below.
Top 20 Most Popular Anime and TV Shows on Japanese SVOD services in March 2022:
- Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba
- Attack on Titan
- Ranking of Kings
- Doraemon
- Detective Conan
- One Piece
- My Dress-Up Darling
- Jujutsu Kaisen
- Thirty-Nine
- Solitary Gourmet
- Heike Monogatari
- Police in a Pod
- Crash Landing on You
- Pokemon
- Gintama
- Teasing Master Takagi-san
- Squid Game
- The Blood of Wolves
- JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure
- Forecasting Love and Weather.
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GEM Partners is a Japanese marketing firm that is centred around the entertainment industry and gathers data by surveying thousands of people every week aged between 16 and 69 regarding what they watched that past week on Netflix, Hulu Japan, Disney+, docomo anime store, Amazon Prime Video, ABEMA Premium, Paravi U-NEXT, and dTV.
What are some of your favourite anime from this list of the Top 20 Most Popular Anime and TV Shows of March 2022 in Japan? What are your favourite anime from the Winter 2022 Anime Season? Comment below and let us know.