US manga sales more than double in 2021

Geek business site ICv2 has reported that US Manga sales increased by 160% in 2021, up by 15 million units from 2020's 9million units to 24.4 million units. 

This rapid growth should come as no surprise to anyone following the US sales charts, where manga titles have dominated the graphic novel lists consistently, while US companies like DC, Marvel and Image have all suffered drastic failures in sales for their top books. In December of 2020, 9 of the top 20 were books from 2 series: Jujutsu Kaisen and Chainsaw Man.

In September 2019, Kelly Sue DeConick gave an interview lamenting the current state of US comic books. "From our perspective the industry has contacted and we're very worried about comics right now." Pressed further she continued"Because stores are closing at an incredible rate. Independent comic sales are down. Mainstream comic sales are down except the top three of five books are up. Everything in the mid list is way down".

Clearly not a trend shared by Japanese manga.

The figures come from NPD BookScan, which collects sales data for printed books from over 16,000 locations, both online and on the high street.