One Piece, Eiichiro Oda’s manga, has exceeded half a billion copies sold, taking second place from Batman
one piece has achieved the record of staying as the best-selling manga of the year for decades until it came demon slayer from Koyoharu Gotouge. After losing his position in recent years, some fans began to question the popularity of the manga. However, One Piece is back in the news, breaking new records, this time worldwide.
It was difficult for the best-selling manga in history to break even more records, and yet the great adventure story created by Eiichiro Oda 25 years ago it just did, selling over 500 million copies worldwide, making it one of only two literary works in history to do so (the other being Harry Potter). Incidentally, One Piece has outsold the second best-selling American comic book character, Batman.
During the summer of last year, some publications were quick to announce that the popular manga had sold more copies than the comics of the year. Dark Knight, something that was not true then. What happened in June 2021 is that the 490 million copies in circulation (ie printed) but that did not imply that they were all sold copies of One Piece. Another issue is that these figures are also following different formats. The figure of 490 million accounts only for the number of collected tankōbon volumes. However, the number of 460 million Batman records only the sales of the weekly periodicals. It omits both the paperback segment and digital sales, which are very important in the modern comics industry.
What’s more, Superman and Batman (like most superheroes) are written and drawn by different creative teams over the years, and as we said, their sales figures are mostly from serials, not compiled volumes or digital copies. However, it can still be argued that One Piece has surpassed the two powerhouses of DCas a thread shows from Twitter user and expert in this manga, Artur – Library of Ohara:
First off, Batman was clearly outclassed, as reported sales for all of his comics (as of his first appearance in 1939) “only” come in at 484 million. Although Superman is still ahead, with more than 600 million approximate sales, if the sales of the Weekly Shōnen Jump for every year that One Piece has appeared in it, the figures would be much closer. Still, surpassing the Dark Knight in terms of sales is no small feat, considering the character has been around for 83 years and is one of the world’s most recognizable icons of popular culture.