In a matter of weeks, the world will welcome a new decade. 2019 is just about over, and that means numbers are being crunched around the world for sales and such. In Japan, the end of the manga sales year has come, and a fierce battle is brewing. A slew of conflicting reports have gone live about whether One Piece or Demon Slayer will take top prize this year, but it matter little to the former’s creator.
If anything, it seems Eiichiro Oda is happy for the competition. Not long ago, the artist gave his congratulations to Demon Slayer and its creator in light of their success in 2019.
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As you can see below, the message is a simple one which Oda wrote by hand before posting to social media. The note has been translated by iceemperor_mh for fans who doesn’t read Japanese, so you can read up on its message below:
Message from Eiichiro Oda, ONE PIECE’s author, congratulating Kimetsu no Yaiba and Koyoharu Gotouge for Kimetsu no Yaiba’s success. pic.twitter.com/zRBnKr0FAb
— Weekly Shounen Jump (@WSJ_manga) November 27, 2019
“Many people tell me nowadays that Juml [sic] is really interesting right now. In addition to Kimetsu, all the young mangaka in Jump are fired up.Of course, I am as well,” the artist shared.
Continuing, Oda went on to thank fans for their support. The artist says One Piece came first in individual volume sales, but the report is still being questioned by fans. Other outlets in Japan like Oricon have suggested Demon Slayer took the top prize, but either way, it seems Oda is simply grateful for all the excitement Demon Slayer has riled up.
What do you think about this on-going competition? Let me know in the comments or hit me up on Twitter @MeganPetersCB to talk all things comics and anime!
Eiichiro Oda’s One Piece first began serialization in Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump in 1997. It has since been collected into over 80 volumes, and has been a critical and commercial success worldwide with many of the volumes breaking printing records in Japan. The manga has even set a Guinness World Record for the most copies published for the same comic book by a single author, and is the best-selling manga series worldwide with over 430 million copies sold. The series still ranked number one in manga sales in 2018, which surprised fans of major new entries.
