Chainsaw Man is under controversy again as manga sale stats have been revealed. Unlike virtually every other hit anime series, Chainsaw Man’s manga sales dropped compared to previous volumes after the anime series was released.
This is a huge surprise to many in the industry, as typically when an anime is released the manga comes into high demand and sells additional copies. The details of the decline and unexpected results are highlighted in the chart below.
As can be seen above, other popular anime such as Jujutsu Kaisen and Spy x Family skyrocketed in manga sales of the next volume after their anime was released. Jujutsu Kaisen manga sales increased by over 190% for the next volume after the series aired! While not every anime can have as much impact as Jujutsu Kaisen, if we look at other popular series such as Spy x Family, we see an increase of a respectable 22% in manga sales for the next volume.
For Chainsaw Man, sales went in an entirely different direction. The series sold approximately 426,671 copies of Vol 12. Then the anime aired and Vol 13 sold only 285,118 copies in its first week. In the same time frame, Vol 13 has sold fewer copies in its first week than Vol 10 or 11. It did surpass Vol 12 in first-week sales, but barely.
Why was there such a decline? Naysayers argue that the anime series failed to live up to the hype. Over 2,000 people signed a petition asking for Chainsaw Man anime to be remade. Whether it delivered on the hype or not, Chainsaw Man was arguably the most hyped anime ever. After all, the series had the most-watched anime trailer in industry history. Given the hype, many fans point out that people likely already purchased their manga volumes prior to the series release.
Other potential reasons given for the decline criticize the series for only having a single 12-episode cour. Anime such as Spy x Family and Jujutsu Kaisen were given two cours and double the episodes. This gave people more interest and time to get into the manga.
Despite the decline in interest vs previous volumes, Chainsaw Man is still one of the top manga in terms of sales. For the first week of January, Chainsaw Man Vol 13 was the #1 most purchased volume on the Japanese Manga Charts.
Did Chainsaw Man anime live up to the hype, or was it impossible from the start? Let us know in our discord server.
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