Demon Slayer: Mugen Train is going to break another long-standing, and incredible record when it surpasses 10 million admissions early into this upcoming Saturday, its 16th-day in release.

Fastest Films to 10 Million Admissions:

16 Days - Demon Slayer: Mugen Train (2020)
31 Days - Spirited Away (2001)
35 Days - Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001)
39 Days - Your Name. (2016)
40 Days - Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002)
41 Days - Ponyo (2008)
44 Days - Howl's Moving Castle (2004)
47 Days - Frozen (2014)
48 Days - Bayside Shakedown: Save the Rainbow Bridge! (2003)
66 Days - Frozen II (2019)
66 Days - Princess Mononoke (1997)
67 Days - Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004)
71 Days - The Last Samurai (2003)
75 Days - Weathering With You (2019)
157 Days - Avatar (2009)

Note: Only five other films have sold 10 million admissions, but the day in which they reached the milestone is unknown: Tokyo Olympiad (1965), Titanic (1997), Emperor Meiji and the Great Russo-Japanese War (1958), Godzilla vs. King Kong (1962), and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982). Not knowing how films performed on a daily/weekly basis back in the 50s and 60s, those will likely always be unknown, but both Titanic and E.T. would have taken quite some time to reach 10 million admissions and would be near the bottom of the list (Titanic was likely faster than Avatar, while E.T. is almost definitely at the very bottom).

15B is looking good by the weekend and with holiday being on Tuesday I expect Monday to have inflated gross as well specially towards evening shows (maybe even noon shows as I believe some folks might make it an extended weekend). Still not sure on 17B by Tuesday but it should be close regardless.

The records and achievements keep rolling in, this time for the movie's theme song (Homura) and anime theme song (Gurenge), both by LiSA.

"Homura" holds strong at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100, while "Gurenge" rises up to #2 to give Demon Slayer and LiSA the top TWO songs this week. Because just having the #1 song isn't enough, obviously.

"Homura" also broke the weekly streaming record in Japan, achieving 18,901,974 playbacks for the week (up 210% versus last week), a new all-time weekly record in the market.

And "Gurenge" has been on the Hot 100 for 79 weeks now (it may not have ever left the top 10, need to check), and also made history by exceeding 200 million playbacks (new all-time record in the market) last week after adding 7,021,682 more playbacks to reenter the top 10 (#4) on the streaming chart.

Hot 100: http://www.billboard-japan.com/charts/detail?a=hot100
Streaming article: http://www.billboard-japan.com/d_news/detail/93694/2

"Homura" was also #2 on the Global Billboard Hot 200, excluding the U.S., and #8 with the U.S. included (up from #62 last week).

First of all I had a mini-panick attack before posting this, I had been writting this post for some time before sending it and when I tried to send it the forum asked me to login and when I did the post was gone! Luckily it was saved (I hit the go back tab on my navigator). Lucky me haha..

Hello again guys Here to derail the topic a little bit yet again.. (I'm sorry, last time I promise )

Please don't feel obligated to comment on this or reply to this post, you may just ignore it, I just felt like contributing one final comment about the crazy/weird/unheard of growth the KnY manga had (As well as reply to some of your comments Corpse, last time I promise as I know this topic is derailing the main conversation which is Japan's Box Office in general), but at the same time I know talking about WSJ (Home of Kimetsu No Yaiba) while not completely box office related I felt like it would be of interest to some of you and maybe lurkers like I used to be.
Again, sorry for hijacking the thread, but it's historical, and wanted to contribute my .2 cents and give some perspective in the only way I could.



Ok, so it's easily streamable, that's where it probably got all the viewers after episode 19, which yeah I was aware trended on twitter worldwide with its "niche" audience..
So I guess this was similar to how Breaking Bad became super popular after it started streaming on Netflix (Here's an article if anyone's interested: https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/7/14/21 ... the-giants)
If you don't want to read the article: basically Breaking Bad didn't really have the bests of ratings, it would probably have been cancelled in other channels, but then after being available on Netflix its popularity grew... But it was more like a 2x to 3x growth... Unlike KnY's 25x lol



Yeah, that's what i think, too.. I don't think there has ever been a property in the history of humanity to achieve this level of explosiveness, for example in video games which are the biggest industry supposedly GTA V and Minecraft have sold 120m and 200m respectively, but over the span of a decade..
Sure there are things that have sold more than Kimetsu, there are even some manga that have sold more than KnY (Even if we go by volumes sold), it's not like Kimetsu no Yaiba is the highest selling manga ever (I'm talking per volume here), but it's explosiveness is unprecedented.
Maybe fidget spinners back in 2016 haha, perhaps Kimetsu no Yaiba is the fidget spinner of anime?

(BTW could you maybe send me a PM or post here the 5ch thread? I don't really know Japanese but maybe I can learn by reading haha (I learned english by just reading manga haha)

To give you guys an example, Dragon Ball's sales in Japan are estimated to be 160million (They have been estimated to be between 140mill-160mill since 2006, so perhaps it has sold more, but those are the numbers we have (This is the best source I could find from 2006, and the video I listed a page ago has it at 159'500,000 with April 2014 as the source)
https://www.comipress.com/article/2006/06/01/196.html

That's Dragon Ball.. THE Dragon Ball, it's also almost double the lenght of KnY in volumes (DB is 42 volumes vs Kimetsu's 23 volume run, which btw volume 23 still hasn't been released) so yeah that makes KnY's sales even more impressive.

As I said there are a couple of titles I can think of that Kimetsu hasn't beat in per volume sales, e.g. One Piece, Slam Dunk, Touch, Hokuto No Ken, Devilman, Black Jack, Astroboy...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_b ... ling_manga

But I have my doubts about the sales figures of the last 4 mentioned, I'm pretty sure the figures reported.. I don't think they are true.. Especially Black Jack and Devilman, I have never been able to find a reliable source on BJ and Devilman.. It supposedly has sold 50million with 5 volumes only, perhaps that's worldwide AND counting every Devilman title ever, not just the 5 main volumes..

Ehem.. Sorry I tend to get derailed when I write, back on topic, what I'm trying to say is, sure there are a handful of manga that still haven't "lost" in per volume sales to KnY but remember these are titles that have been selling backlog for decades, it will be very interesting to see the performance of KnY over the years, although it will probably be a classic for at least 1 or 2 decades, and its short length will certainly help it be recommended.

And more importantly ALL those titles had normal growth.. Kinda, like we don't really have data for the old titles but we have the information of the TOCs and the print runs for some titles..
Remember TOCs are basically the number of votes each manga received in their magazine and print runs indicate how well the title was selling.

As I previously said KnY was.. Average in its first year and its volume sales were "OK" but slowly got better.. Other "Stars" of Jump were likely selling a million, for comparisson KnY was selling 300K per volume when it had 9 volumes, check out other titles:
https://mangahelpers.com/forum/threads/ ... st-5038817

Parenthesis here: Guys check the boost Dr.Slump (The series Toriyama made before Dragon Ball) had after its anime premiered, that's the biggest boost a manga had received it went from 2.8million copies with 5 volumes to 17.5million copies with 6 volumes! 6x increase!
BTW its anime adaptation was Jump's best ranked anime adaptation ever, with 36.9% as its best rating and average of 22.8%
https://youtu.be/VRM-U6Dbaqk?t=610

Going back to Kny 300K is by no means bad, especially for this day and age, but by no means it had the attributed for becoming a "star".

KnY had sold 2mill by volume 9, by coparisson Slam Dunk (Jump's second best seller only after ONE PIECE) had sold 12million by volume 8.
Even comparing it to a recent title, because recent titles have not sold as well as titles in the past, we have data for My Hero Academia, which by volume 8 had sold 4 million copies (That's double what KnY had sold by volume 9).

Again.. Sorry for my super long post, but just want to give you an idea of how a "normal star" of Jump would have sold, backed by the data we have and some guesstimations on my part haha, let's go back with Slam Dunk.

We know three facts:
1.- It had sold 12 million by volume 8.
2.- It had the record for the first print run for its 21st-23rd volume, 2.5 million copies (1994), in fact we have data for the first print runs of volumes 6,2,11,14, 16,19,21,22,26 and 31.
3.- It had sold 100million copies by 2004.

With all that information a rough estimate of sales for Slam Dunk would be:
Year 1: 4-5 Million copies
Year 2: 8-10 Million copies
Year 3: 10-15 Million copies
Year 4: 15-20 Million copies
Year 5: 10-15 Million copies
Year 6: 5-10 Million copies

This is more or less every manga's normal growth, selling a nice amount, doubling (even triple) year 2, year 3 is where they usually get their manga so they get more sales and year 4 is likely where most of it sales will be.

This is same pattern is also true for Kimetsu no Yaiba, but the distribution... It's not.. (This is taken from wikipedia, because why not lol):
As of February 2019, the series had 3.5 million copies in circulation worldwide, over 10 million copies as of September 2019, over 25 million copies as of December 2019, over 40 million copies in February 2020, and as of May 2020, the franchise recorded over 60 million copies in circulation, including digital copies. As of July 2020, the franchise recorded over 80 million copies in circulation, including 71 million copies sold. With the release of the 22nd volume on October 2, 2020, the franchise recorded 100 million copies in circulation,

So this was Kimetsu No Yaiba's growth:
Year 1: Less than 1.5 million (Source:https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2016-11-30/top-selling-manga-in-japan-by-series-2016/.109352)
Year 2: 1'198,357 (Source: https://www.narutoforums.org/threads/to ... 7.1120456/)
Year 3: 1'345,053 Source: https://www.narutoforums.org/threads/to ... r.1153884/
Year 4: 12'057,000 Source: https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2 ... 19/.153758
Year 5 (This year:) So far it has sold.. Well, I have heard different numbers (Around 70-80mill) but I wouldn't put it past this juggernaut even 100million sold just this year depending on how much backlog it manages to sell.

But yeah, just wanted to give you guys perspective on the crazy numbers Kimetsu pulled out of nowhere, literally 95% of its fanbase was made within 2019-2020, which is insane and unheard of.. Like any other thing associated with this franchise.



Oh yeah no doubt about that, I just felt it was worth pointing out that the generation that made Yokai Watch a huge success is the one that's probably making KnY a huge success too.. Perhaps a very marketable generation?? Of course there is a bigger audience watching Kimetsu too, people of all ages, but it probably was this very impresionable audience that started boosting KnY like crazy on social media. Just a theory of mine.



Ey! It's my favorite too, Corpse, nice
As for this, my one hope is that Shueisha didn't have time to order that many books haha, if it obliterates even that record I'll be sad haha

Also I don't know if you guys knew about this one but Shueisha kind of "protected" One Piece last year, it said that One Piece was the best selling manga, while Oricon said it was Kimetsu No Yaiba, so I can totally see Shueisha under printing Kimetsu just so that One Piece still has the record haha.

I really do agree with the users of 5ch and you Corpse in that I don't think there's anything (and when I say anything I mean anything, not just manga/anime) that has grown such a humongous fanbase in such a short period of time, as I said 95% of what Kimetsu has sold it has done so in the span of a year, it's not normal growth.

I certainly think that Marketers in Japan will study Kimetsu No Yaiba's growth or something haha.

Edit: On a more box office related topic, I didn't know Ponyo had sold 10million admissions, it's the Ghibli movie I like the least so it's shocking for me it had such great numbers

Don't worry about "going off topic." At the very least this discussion is a means of trying to understand how a movie based on a manga that only became popular in late 2019 after an anime adaptation was able to likely become the biggest movie of all time in the market, and break pretty much every record (it basically has so far) on its journey there.

Not to mention doing so during a worldwide pandemic (though Japan is doing fine) that's caused the box office to collapse or even shutdown almost everywhere else.

I'll reply a bit more to your post soon. But I saw that you're not sure, or don't have a source, for Demon Slayer's 2020 manga sales, so I'll provide you with each volumes individual sales as of last week (note, this will be physical sales only).

Don't forget as well, that Demon Slayer was the first ever manga (since Oricon began weekly charts in 2008) to fill up every spot in the weekly top 18 or 19 (however many volumes were out at the time) earlier in the year on the sales chart, and it did so a couple of times, I believe, including once or twice I think over the summer/fall when volumes 20 and 21 came out.

Also... it's going to take the top 22 spots on the yearly sales chart when it comes out next month (volume 23 will count as 2021). All the backlog volumes before the year started (volumes 1-17) still sold more than copies in the past year than any other manga. Nothing has come anywhere close to doing something ridiculous like this, but here we are.

One Piece is my favorite manga as well

Here you go, rija! Here are the individual volume sales (digital sales EXCLUDED), as of Oct. 18th.

Kimetsu no Yaiba (Demon Slayer)
2020 Sales (Cumulative Sales) - Volume # (Release Date)

3,460,597 (4,141,384) - Volume 1 (06/03/2016)
3,361,888 (4,026,730) - Volume 2 (08/04/2016)
3,316,719 (3,967,190) - Volume 3 (10/04/2016)
3,282,916 (3,920,984) - Volume 4 (12/02/2016)
3,274,256 (3,909,898) - Volume 5 (03/07/2017)
3,281,525 (3,916,353) - Volume 6 (05/02/2017)
3,505,958 (4,073,436) - Volume 7 (08/04/2017)
3,513,950 (4,086,607) - Volume 8 (10/04/2017)
3,384,494 (4,051,907) - Volume 9 (12/04/2017)
3,477,427 (4,036,814) - Volume 10 (03/02/2018)
3.379.573 (4,036,862) - Volume 11 (06/04/2018)
3,372,362 (4,031,583) - Volume 12 (08/03/2018)
3,304,792 (3,998,723) - Volume 13 (11/02/2018)
3,172,058 (3,993,280) - Volume 14 (01/04/2019)
3,132,735 (3,966,207) - Volume 15 (04/04/2019)
3,088,339 (3,965,705) - Volume 16 (07/04/2019)
3,057,262 (3,983,708) - Volume 17 (10/04/2019)
4,019,701 - Volume 18 (12/04/2019)
3,862,833 - Volume 19 (02/04/2020)
3,858,019 - Volume 20 (05/13/2020)
3,725,198 - Volume 21 (07/03/2020)
3,131,075 - Volume 22 (10/02/2020) *After 3 Weeks*

2020 Sales: 75,664,677 (98,403,223 cumulative) [As of Oct. 18th, 2020]

This is PHYSICAL sales only. Digital sales aren't included, and while it was reported to be 100 million at the end of September sometime, my guess is that it's easily near 120 million as of October 18th.

Also, the series sold a ridiculous 3.688 million copies this past week (NOT included in the numbers above yet), for an average of 167,000 more per volume, so it's over 100 million physical now and likely around 125 million when digital sales are added. I'm estimating digital sales account for ~20% of overall sales, so each volume is probably nearing 5 million and will almost certainly get there by the end of the year.

I also think Oricon adds the official handbook that was released around the end of 2019, I believe. It's included on their manga sales chart versus their other categories. It was at 1.017 million as of last May, but I haven't seen it on the charts since. I didn't add it to the sales above.

Hi everyone

What are you expected for Demon Slayer by Sunday ? $150M possible ?

And what are you expecting for Demon Slayer's box office lifetime ? Something between $250M and $300M ?

It's very good to see during this crisis that box office records can be broken in some countries, the Japan people must love this anime to go and see it so many during this period. I didn't even know the existence of Demon Slayer before that.

I hope that cinemas in Japan will not be closed, I want that movie beat Frozen and Spirited away

¥25 billion (~$240 million+), or ¥26.21 billion if you will in order to become the #2 film all-time in the market, is the almost guaranteed target. It's already half-way there after day 13. It will need to experience some pretty sharp declines, and very soon, in order to miss this mark.

¥30 billion (~$280 million+), or ¥30.81 billion in order to surpass Spirited Away to become the #1 film all-time in the market, is the goal. Its chances remain over 50% likely to happen. I think it will get there, but it's too early to say with near certainty.

But higher is also possible. It's currently enjoying regular sub-20% declines, and dropping 20% on average on a weekly basis gets it around ¥35 billion (~$325-350 million).

And I wouldn't anticipate theaters to close or anything. The opposite is occurring, where restrictions were fully lifted back in September allowing theaters to resume 100% capacity (after being at 50% back in June). Japan is still only adding ~500 or so cases a day and ranks 51st in the world in overall cases (still under 100,000).

Hopefully today they wont fix the number again in the evening

No, this isn't about Netflix. There's a lot more to streaming in Japan than that one company! In addition to the usual TV airings, Kimetsu no Yaiba streamed on many JP streaming services, as does basically every single anime. In its case, 22 different services: https://kimetsu.com/anime/risshihen/onair/#net - all or nearly all of these services streamed it weekly from episode one, as is the norm.

As for its popularity in English-speaking regions when it initially aired, look to services like Crunchyroll, Hulu, and Funimation. It also received a televised English dub a bit later on Adult Swim. Smaller regional services also covered other countries.

Thank you rija and Corpse for the compiled research! I love reading them. I was even shocked with KNY's popularity back when it was airing- a lot of my officemates who weren't anime fans at all, knew or have watched it as well. My mother who is 60+ years old is also a fan of the show.

One Piece is my favorite as well

Thanks Corpse

The problem with the sales figures Sueisha has released is I think they also included other things like the novels (Which were also best sellers), so 100 million total physcal sales revealed in September was including the novels IIRC (I might be wrong).

So there are some problems with these sales, I really wish Sueisha would be a bit more specific on the sales, and just say what the digital sales are also, unless they are trying to avoid paying loyalties or something haha which I doubt

Like the wording on some of Shueisha's PRs is just confusing.. Are they only in Japan sales? Only in Japan physical sales? Physical+Digital? Are they taking into consideration only the tankobon (As in also the special volumes and/or the novels? Are they sold copies or printed copies? Is it worldwide?

The different wording can for example make a lot of difference, e.g. if its published (As in not sold) and some big account on twitter changes the info to "sold" now everyone will think that's true.. And thus everyone thinks x series sold x amount of volumes while actually those are volumes printed.

For example this article States that those 100million take into account digital sales and it's copies in circulation not sold:https://www.otaquest.com/demon-slayer-kimetsu-no-yaiba-sales-100-million/

This article on the other hand states is 100mill worldwide:
https://comicbook.com/anime/news/demon-slayer-anime-manga-sales-100-million/

Comic natalie (Which is a pretty authoritative source) states it's only circulation including digital sales:
https://natalie.mu/comic/news/397662

So what article am I to believe? (Natalie is the most trusthworty source)

I'm not talking specifically about Kimetsu No Yaiba, but manga sales as a whole are difficult to categorize because sometimes the PRs aren't really that clear as to what exactly they are talking about, but most times they refer to physical sales in Japan without taking into account anything other than the normal volumes, unless it states otherwise.

Yeah for a series like KnY which obviously has a younger demographic (Compared to for example One Piece which I assume is pretty much people 25 or older) I also assume at least a good 20% of sales could be digital for KnY, maybe even more..
Also I found this to support the 20% digital ratio (Ironic/Funny how they were calling KnY underrated, and now it's probably the most overrated thing ever lol):
https://www.reddit.com/r/manga/comments ... pies_sold/

I just summed up the numbers you provided and it adds up to 74'963,677 copies sold (I summed them up before reading there was a total sum lol), anyway you have 98'403,223 cumulative sales, but that doesn't add up, because this year alone KnY had sold 75'000,000 (A week ago) plus last year's sales which were 12'000,000, and in the previous years the series sold like 3'000,000 tops, so that's 90'000,000 so the extra 8'500,000 either is digital sales OR the novel sales.

Sadly we don´t have the digital sales of other titles to compare.. Or maybe we do? We don´t know.. We can´t know because Shueisha doesn´t disclose if it counts digital sales in the totals they release, which totally sucks.

In fact I know that certain popular manga get digital colored editions like Dragon Ball, One Piece, Naruto, maybe even Kimetsu, or perhaps Sueisha is waiting to re-release the digital edition colored so some people double dip..

BUT.. at the end of the day I guess it doesn't really matter, Kimetsu has at least sold at the very least 90million copies (Counting the 3'688,000 of last week) so perhaps the other 15million unaccounted for where the digital ones (And thus making 100million).. Again, at the end of the day.. 90 million or 100 million or 120 million lots of copies, and it doesn't matter much when we know nothing about digital sales of other manga, for example ONE PIECE's 470 million is supposedly copies in print worldwide (so not sales, and I guess no digital sales either?)
https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/daily- ... de/.158229

Again, I don't think there's any point in futher discussing this, let's just put it at 110'000,000 with digital copies included, middle ground, and it's likely getting there in a week or two if it hasn't yet, and if it's higher we will know in a month, hopefully the last tankobon let us know total sales before its release again to clarify things up a bit.

@WandaLegion:
Hello there felllow One Piece enthusiast!

@Somekindofthing:
Thanks for the info, much appreciated
And yeah, what I meant basically is that there was a way to stream it legally in Japan, like I thought maybe to watch it you would have to buy the BD, I had heard streaming wasn't too big in Japan so I assumed you must bought the BD to watch KnY, I was totally wrong and thanks for clarifying that there were different platforms in which it is available

The admissions look "fine" to me, but the percentage difference remains off. It's currently down 10/11% versus last Thursday, not up 4%. Do you have the link to the google spreadsheet bookmarked that has the ticket sales to compare to?

There were no adjustments made yesterday, and since today's admissions look fine, I'm going to assume for the time being that the updates are accurate except for the percentage difference. But today *should* be the last day this happens. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday have been accurate since they've been at 100% for a month now, but Monday-Thursday should be back to normal starting next week, too.

No problem. Streaming being rare in Japan is a pretty common misconception for some reason, even though almost every anime (and presumably non-anime but I only pay attention to anime) has been streaming on half a dozen different services or more for years now. If anything the streaming situation for anime in Japan is a lot better than outside of Japan, where we're usually stuck with a single company having an exclusive license per show. In Japan you have multiple options for each show.

DVD/BDs are dying out in Japan (as elsewhere) as physical media continues to decline. Sales are down year after year after year, but domestic streaming revenue (and even moreso international streaming revenue) is more than making up for it.

Shueisha's PR isn't really confusing, the problem is that some English site mistranslate it sometimes, For Kimetsu the 100M numbers is for the whole series in Japan (including the fan book and the novels) plus digital and do note that the physical portion is the print number not the copies sold so they count the numbers that are still in bookstores and warehouse and that is true for all other manga numbers(One piece for example still has 3 Million first print despite not selling that much )

rija: I guess I added one of the volumes twice AND the 3.688 million from this week to the cumulative total. LOL.

It's definitely sold (pure sales, not in circulation) a bit over 90 million (90-91 million) physical copies only in tankobon form, which includes the special editions of volumes 20-22 (their yearly/cumulative sales I posted includes the special editions, too) as of October 18th. And that's now ~94 million after the 3.688 million is included from this past week. Oricon releases the individual volume sales each week, so they're easily tracked. This figure does NOT include light novel sales or anything else, and just the tankobon physical releases. The 100 million they reported last month would include any unsold volumes out there, digital sales, and likely material like the light novels.

Note: In circulation typically refers to how many books have been distributed, not sold. Therefore the circulation number should always be comfortably above the sold figure.

Thursday is only down around 23% or so versus last week as of 2PM today. I think this is particularly notable (and quite good) as this could have easily been a "bad day" (when I say bad, I'm talking being down 35% or something) as it's after Ladies' Day, and fans and casual audiences alike could have waited for the weekend (Saturday has the stage greetings, and Sunday is a national discount day).

So if it can finish the day at 25%, or better, that'd be quite good. But I don't think that's exactly surprising now. It's been in release just about long enough, posting great/amazing numbers each day, that I don't think it's going to suddenly drop-off big in any impactful way

What's your opinion regarding Kentaro Ito's recent news?

It's not Kentaro Ito, the voice actor, but a different Kentaro Ito who's a relatively new actor and model.

I don't know much of the one in the hit and run, glad no one died though. And at least he admitted guilt and is taking responsibility for his actions (even if it began as an accident, he still fled the scene).

Thursday improved throughout the day (not that being down 23% versus last week earlier was poor or anything), and is looking at a sub-20% (18/19%) drop. Very impressive.

That's really good number heading into the weekend even though Friday isn't a weekend but it's still one of the strongest days.

Hello there!
Just created my account after time lurking this forum.
Looking forward to see the movie make history.

Welcome to the forum!

Thursday estimate will be up soon. I'm also working to better organize the Records list a bit (it's gotten very long), which I haven't posted in a couple days, and will have it updated and posted soon afterwards.