My Hero Academia and Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Cement Top Spots in U.S. Sales

2019 saw a big-time shift in the anime/manga genres, as some new titles broke out and rose to prominence. As sales charts indicate, My Hero Academia and Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba are the undisputed champions of manga, dominating no less than 13 of the top 20 US sales slots for the genre, as of May 2020. The top five spots included Demon Slayer‘s latest manga volume (12) and it first volume, as well as the first two volumes of My Hero Academia, Uzumaki HC coming in fifth. Other titles grabbing the charts include JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Beastars, Splatoon, and Tomie HC.

These are not surprising stats to see; both My Hero Academia and Demon Slayer became mainstream hits in 2019, thanks to their respective anime / film projects. MHA season 4 hit with its big “Overhaul Arc” battle, while studio Ufotable blew fans’ minds (and reaped many rewards) for its stunning work bringing the Demon Slayer anime to life.

It’s becoming clear that Shonen Jump Magazine and Viz Media’s plan to create stronger bonds between series anime and manga counterparts is working. As the My Hero Academia and Demon Slayer manga have both shot up the sales charts as their anime grew in popularity. For many fans just discovering Demon Slayer through the anime, the manga is a nice indulgence until more anime content is produced; meanwhile, My Hero Academia’s manga has entered a major war arc storyline, which is in many ways the culmination of many of the series major storylines, to date.

…And it doesn’t look like things are slowing down anytime soon. Even though Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba is about to end its manga, the anime series still has several years of content to run, some of it as animated features, no less. My Hero Academia is about to hit a major inflection point in the manga, which will no doubt renew fan interest in the series, in a big way. Meanwhile, My Hero Academia has at least another season of some exciting anime content until it gets to the big war arc, meaning that it is pre-loaded for even bigger popularity in the coming years.

…With these younger series now making such big grabs in the genre, Dragon Ball Super may want to get off its hiatus, sooner before later.

Demon Slayer and My hero Academia are available to stream on Hulu, Crunchyroll and Funimation.