With more than 8 million people tuning in to Episode 10 of SPY x FAMILY, the series has become the Second Most-Watched Anime of recent years on Japanese television, only behind Demon Slayer.
Demon Slayer is undoubtedly the biggest anime title of the modern era in Japan. The series is practically a cultural phenomenon in the country and has already registered itself as one of the biggest anime franchises of all time in just a few years.
While SPY x FAMILY is not nearly as impressive and as huge of a hit as Demon Slayer, what it has been able to accomplish over the last three months is impressive in its own league. The series has quickly made its name as one of the biggest new anime to have come out in recent years and has been insanely popular not just in Japan but globally as well. The hype for the series is more prominent than ever, especially in Japan, and the series has become the talk of the anime community around the world.
The success this anime has witnessed right from its debut is unlike anything we have ever seen from a Slice of Life series. Even in the case of Demon Slayer, it certainly took more than half of the series before it blew up, but both the SPY x FAMILY manga and anime have gained massive traction right since the very first episode aired.
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SPY x FAMILY Viewership hits record figures of 8 million.
According to Video Research Ltd., Episode 10 of SPY x FAMILY has not only become the Most-Watched Episode of the series but is also the Most-Watched Anime Episode of the past few years on Japanese television, apart from the encore and Season 2 broadcasts of Demon Slayer.
The latest episode saw an insane viewership of 8.428 million viewers with Live+7 DVR figures and scored an individual rating of 6.7% amongst 5.341 million households.
It’s noteworthy that the series has gained more than 1.5 million viewers since its premiere. SPY x FAMILY debuted in April with Live+7 DVR figures of 6.919 million viewers amongst 4.468 million households.
The anime has also been the country’s Second Most-Viewed TV Show on DVR during the last three weeks.
Within the last two decades, only a handful of TV anime have scored more viewership than what SPY x FAMILY is pulling off right now, and those are mainly the classic titles such as Detective Conan and Sazae-san, which have had years to build a loyal fanbase. SPY x FAMILY’s television ratings in the age of streaming are more than just remarkable, as Shonen Jump adaptations continue to thrive everywhere.
SPY x FAMILY manga has already sold more than 6 million copies this year.
With the anime off to a staggering start and the release of Volume 9 of the manga series coinciding with the premiere of the anime as well, SPY x FAMILY has now become the 3rd Best-Selling Manga of the year in Japan, surpassing One Piece. It was also the Best-Selling Manga Series for April and May.
The series has sold over 6 million copies this year, over 2.3 million copies just in April, and over 1.7 million copies in May. Volume 9 has sold over 1.3 million copies already, more than any of the three individual volumes of Tokyo Revengers released this year.
All the previous volumes of SPY x FAMILY have also been consistently charting amongst the Top 20 Manga in Oricon every week for the last two months, with the very first volume now having sold more than 2 million copies.
The series currently has over 21 million copies in circulation in Japan, and with its humongous success, it certainly wouldn’t be a stretch to say that the series is well on its way to crossing 10 million copies in sales for 2022 and even surpassing Tokyo Revengers by the end of this fiscal year.
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Sazae-San remained as consistent as ever and was the Second Most-Watched Anime broadcast of the week. The episode scored a live rating of 5.3%, with 6.667 million viewers tuning in to the latest outing of the anime.
It should be noted that with Sazae-san having an evening primetime broadcast slot on Sunday and being a rather family-friendly anime than a late-night series, the anime has little to no DVR viewership.
Meanwhile, Detective Conan’s latest broadcast saw a slight dip of 0.2%, with the anime scoring a live viewership of 4.78 million.
The latest sports anime, “Love All Play”, continues to surprise everyone as it remains one of the Most-Watched Anime broadcasts on Live TV. The viewership for the penultimate episode of the anime even outscored the latest episode of One Piece, reeling in 2.39 million viewers on Nippon Television Network in its regular evening broadcasting slot.
The anime debuted with 2.012 million viewers, and despite the fact that the series doesn’t have much buzz surrounding it, it has somehow not only remained consistent but even gained viewers by the end of its run.
One Piece has also been steady ever since its return from hiatus. Episode 1021 of the anime scored an individual viewership rating of 1.7%, with more than 2.138 million viewers tuning in to the episode live.
READ MORE: Top 25 Best-Selling Manga of 2022 So Far; Spy x Family surpasses One Piece
SPY x FAMILY is based on the Shueisha-published manga by Tatsuya Endou, which began its serialization in 2019 on the Shonen Jump+ app and has been collected into nine tankobon volumes as of April 2022.
The anime follows a spy named “Twilight”, aka Loid Forger, on an undercover mission where he must investigate Ostanian politician Donovan Desmond by infiltrating his son’s school: the prestigious Eden Academy. In order to do that, Loid must take cover with a wife and a child, so he quickly adopts the unassuming orphan Anya to play the role of a six-year-old daughter and prospective Eden Academy student. For a wife, he comes across Yor Briar, an absent-minded office worker who needs a pretend partner of her own to impress her friends. Little does he know, his wife and daughter have secrets of their own, and under the guise of “The Forgers,” the spy, the assassin, and the esper must act as a family while carrying out their own agendas.
The anime is being done in collaboration by WIT Studio (Attack on Titan) and Cloverworks (My Dress-Up Darling) and also sees Saori Hayami and Takuya Eguchi reunite once again after Oregairu (My Youth Romantic Comedy Is Wrong, As I Expected).
The series has been licensed in the US by VIZ Media, with the latest English volume set to be released sometime in the Summer of this year. You can stream the anime on Crunchyroll and on Netflix and Muse Asia (Free) in Southeast Asia.
Source: Video Research Ltd.
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What are your thoughts on the first cour of SPY x FAMILY? Who’s your favourite character from the anime so far? Comment below and let us know.