Manga Title “Blue Lock” Sells Over Eight Million Copies
Those who haven’t read the manga can still enjoy the show thanks to the anime adaptation. Anime typically lasts for a set number of episodes that only cover a small portion of the manga and just hint at what will happen in the rest of the series. More people may decide to read the manga if the anime is successful.
The first season of the anime “Blue Lock” seems to be at a similar point, where it has piqued the audience’s interest enough to make them want to know what happens next.
On Tuesday, Oricon announced the 25 manga volumes that sold the most copies in the first six months of 2023. Printed copies sold between November 21st, 2022 and May 21st, 2023 are included in the tally. With a total of 8,046,032 copies sold, “Blue Lock” took first place.
On May 17, Muneyuki Kaneshiro’s ‘Blue Lock’ reached its 24th volume of publication. The six books that made the cut are numbers 21–23 and 12–14.
Multiple volumes of other manga also landed on the bestseller list. You may find a complete rundown, with volume numbers, below:
| Title | Volumes | Total Estimated Sales |
| Chainsaw Man | 12, 13, 14 | 4,492,906 |
| Slam Dunk | Completed Series, THE FIRST SLAM DUNK re:SOURCE | 4,199,966 |
| Jujutsu Kaisen | 21, 22, | 3,757,215 |
| One Piece | 104, 105 | 3,550,097 |
| Tokyo Revengers | 30, 31 | 2,622,078 |
| Kingdom | 67, 68 | 1,569,434 |
Other successful first-half manga include Oshi no Ko, Spy x Family, and My Hero Academia, however no single volume from any of these series stands out as a sales leader. Volume 37 of ‘My Hero Academia’, however, sells 726,883 copies and comes in at number six on the list.
Take note of how each of the aforementioned works has been adapted into an anime series. Slam dunk may have gotten a boost in popularity because to the movie ‘THE FIRST SLAM DUNK’. Which manga series do you think deserved an anime adaptation more?
Blue Lock
Muneyuki Kaneshiro and Yusuke Nomura are the creators of the Japanese manga series Blue Lock. Since August of 2018, it has been serialized in Kodansha’s Weekly Shnen Magazine. The shonen manga Blue Lock was awarded the 45th annual Kodansha Manga Award in 2021.
When Japan was knocked out of the 2018 FIFA World Cup, the Japanese Football Union launched an initiative to identify talented high school students for the national team’s training camp for the 2022 World Cup.
Forward Isagi Youichi is invited to participate in the program soon after his team is eliminated from Nationals playoff contention due to his pass to a less capable teammate.
There, 300 teenage strikers will be isolated in a prison-like institution named “Blue Lock” and coached by Ego Jinpachi, who plans to “destroy Japanese loser football” with this unique training method.
