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Are there any known lists of monthly/annual readership (e.g. top charts) of
different mangas in Japan or the US? Perhaps by category and age groups
(audience)?

What are some good English sources for looking up statistics of manga
readership and reviews?


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2013-07-21T19:41:41.067
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2013-07-22T00:14:42.267
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question
anime-history manga-production
List of mangas by readership and reception


In Japan, I don't know of any chart which tracks readership, and statistics
for that seem hard to gather. The next best thing is sales numbers, which
represent how many volumes were bought, but volumes purchased do not
necessarily directly correspond to readership. Comic sales numbers are
reported on a weekly basis by
[Oricon](http://www.oricon.co.jp/rank/obc/w/2013-07-22/), which is the go-to
source for Japanese entertainment media rankings. These are reposted across
the internet, including by [Anime News
Network](http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2013-07-18/japanese-comic-
ranking-july-7-13) in English (link to current most recent list). As one would
expect, the weekly rankings tend to vary a lot depending on what has been
recently released, so they also compile [half-year sales
statistics](http://www.oricon.co.jp/entertainment/ranking/2013/bookrank0603/index06.html)
([English via ANN](http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2013-06-02/top-
selling-manga-in-japan-by-series/2013-first-half)) which are probably more
useful for determining what's currently popular.

Overseas, even sales statistics aren't going to do a very good job indicating
what's popular because of the levels of manga piracy. They are still available
for the US via [NY Times](http://www.nytimes.com/best-sellers-
books/manga/list.html), but they miss a significant number of viewers who are
reading pirated manga (e.g. scanalations) and also don't report absolute
numbers, only relative positions. Various indexing sites like
[ANN](http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/ratings-
manga.php?top50=popular) or
[MAL](http://myanimelist.net/topmanga.php?type=bypopularity) do have data for
"most popular" manga based on their listings, which likely includes those who
are obtaining it illegally, but these are all-time rankings. Current rankings
are probably difficult to compile with the data they have.


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2013-07-22T00:14:42.267
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