The manga “Blue Lock,” published by Kodansha, has achieved a historic sales milestone. For the first time since Oricon began compiling yearly best-selling manga lists in 2008, a Kodansha title has ranked number one.
Specifically, Blue Lock sold an impressive 10.5 million copies over the course of 2023 to take the top spot. It surpassed the previous year’s winner, Demon Slayer, by a substantial margin to claim the throne.
Trailing behind Blue Lock on the 2023 list was Jujutsu Kaisen in second place with 8.5 million copies sold, followed by the perennial powerhouse One Piece in third with 7.1 million copies sold.
Blue Lock’s meteoric rise to become the highest-selling manga is remarkable, considering Kodansha has never been the best seller until now.
In achieving over 10 million print volumes in a single year, Blue Lock demonstrates the popular appeal of its sports-themed story and charismatic characters.
Blue Lock Manga Achieves Historic Success as Kodansha’s Top Manga of 2023
Its unprecedented sales figures point to a growing fanbase and suggest it may have the momentum to compete for the top spot again in future yearly rankings.
In addition to Blue Lock’s record-breaking sales, another manga called Oshi no Ko by Aka Akasaka had an impressively strong year as well. It sold 5.4 million copies, enough to secure the #4 ranking on the 2023 best-seller list.
The success of Blue Lock comes alongside the release of its anime TV series adaptation. The manga was created by writer Muneyuki Kaneshiro and artist Yusuke Nomura and was first published in Kodansha’s Weekly Shonen Magazine in August 2018.
Since then, it has been serialized weekly up to the present time. In its native Japan, 20 collected volumes have been published so far.
Internationally, Blue Lock is also finding an audience. North American publisher Kodansha Comics has been translating the manga into English, and they’ve printed 14 volumes to date for the Western market.
Given the popularity of both the manga and anime, it wouldn’t be surprising to see even more ambitious sales numbers for Blue Lock in the years ahead. Its growth trajectory suggests further domination of the lists is likely.
More About Topping Oricon’s 2023 Best-Selling Manga List
Blue Lock has claimed the number one spot as the best-selling manga in Japan for the period spanning December 5th, 2022, to November 27th, 2023, according to authoritative industry sales tracker Oricon.
While last October’s anime adaptation brought in many new fans, Blue Lock’s engaging storyline and dynamic artwork have resonated in Japan and internationally, driving its impressive sales figures.
With over 10.5 million copies sold this year, Blue Lock is the first Kodansha-published series to top Oricon’s yearly manga rankings since they began compiling the list annually in 2008.
It beat out previous frontrunners Demon Slayer and Attack on Titan to make history.
Behind Blue Lock, Jujutsu Kaisen took second place on the 2023 list with 8.54 million copies sold. The ever-popular series One Piece claimed the number three position by selling over 7 million volumes.
Best-Selling Manga of 2023
In fourth place was Oshi no Ko, with 5.41 million copies sold, demonstrating the strong performance of manga creator Aka Akasaka across multiple hit series.
Additional standouts were Chainsaw Man in fifth with over 5 million sales, the classic basketball manga Slam Dunk in sixth thanks to a recent film release, and the reliably strong showings of My Hero Academia, Tokyo Revengers, and Kingdom rounding out the top ten.
With its meteoric rise to the peak of manga popularity in Japan, Blue Lock seems poised to continue dominating the competition in future rankings.
Blue Lock’s top ranking in 2023’s full-year manga sales data shouldn’t come as a huge surprise. Earlier sales reports for just the first half of 2023 showed Blue Lock outpacing all other series by nearly double its closest competitor.
Over that initial 6 month span, it already demonstrated the momentum necessary to claim the best-seller crown.
Record-breaking sales and Market Dominance
Legendary series One Piece also showed impressive strength in 2023, surging from 5th place in 2022 to 3rd in the full-year rankings.
On the flip side, 2022’s top seller, Jujutsu Kaisen, fell to 2nd place in 2023 with 12 million copies sold, down from its 2022 high of around 12 million.
Remarkably, Blue Lock was the only series this year to break 10 million units moved. In the monster sales year that was 2022, four separate titles passed that coveted threshold.
While the overall manga market may have cooled slightly in 2023, Blue Lock is burning brighter than ever.
For the uninitiated, Blue Lock is written by Muneyuki Kaneshiro and illustrated by Yusuke Nomura in Weekly Shonen Magazine.
Kodansha has published the popular soccer-themed storyline since 2018, with over 26 collected volumes available currently.
This runaway hit has also spawned the spin-off Blue Lock: Episode Nagi, an anime adaption, and even a Blue Lock: Episode Nagi anime movie on the horizon, along with a second core story season greenlit.
