According to the figures released by Oricon on Friday, Eiichiro Oda’s epic manga series “One Piece” was the most popular Japanese manga in 2009.
It was reported that 14.72 million volumes of One Piece were sold, Naruto was ranked 2nd with 6.83 million copies and Bleach was ranked 3rd with 6.47 million copies.
It is estimated that the entire manga industry is worth 270.5 billion yen. Shueisha managed to top the industry with 68.8 billion yen in sales, followed by Kodansha with 50.9 billion yen and Shogakukan with 37.6 billion yen.
Source: Mainichi Mantan
Its been a long while since I caught up with the manga or the anime series but I must say One Piece is a really great story with its focus on friendship and the epic adventures that Luffy and his crew go through just keeps fans going back again and again.
I just caught up to Japan in the anime last night. I really love this series a lot. My collection seems to be becoming a dedication to One Piece, I can’t get enough One Piece figures.