As usual, manga dominates the adult chart, and My Hero Academia dominates the manga titles, but the number 2 title in January was Marie Kondo’s The Life-Changing Manga of Tidying Up, a 2017 release from Ten Speed Press. There’s no question that this manga got a boost from Kondo’s Netflix series Tidying Up with Marie Kondo, which launched on January 1. It’s likely that savvy bookstore managers placed the manga next to Kondo’s other books, generating some sales synergy.
The top selling title is volume 4 of Dragon Ball Super, the continuation of Akira Toriyama’s classic Dragon Ball, which also gets a boost from video: The anime runs on Adult Swim and is available on Crunchyroll and other streaming sites as well. Dragon Ball has always been a popular title, and Toriyama continues to sketch out the plot for the new anime and manga series, although the manga is drawn by a different artist.
It’s good news for VIZ Media that volume 1 of My Hero Academia is in third place; that means people are still coming to the series. Volume 3 of the spinoff My Hero Academia: Vigilantes, a January release, checks in at number four. This series is still finding its audience, so it’s not selling in the same quantities as the original. Vigilantes is set in the same world as My Hero Academia, and it has the same theme of the regular guy striving to be a superhero, but it’s developed differently and the lead characters are different as well. The most recent volume of My Hero Academia, volume 16, is in the fifth slot.
The first graphic novel that’s not a manga doesn’t appear until number 9 on the chart, and that’s the gaming-podcast-based The Adventure Zone. Nick Drnaso’s Sabrina continues to sell well enough to get into the top 20, despite being a bit of a niche title, and two book adaptations, To Kill a Mockingbird and Anne Frank’s Diary, make the chart as well. There are only two superhero titles, one of which is Watchmen, and only one Image Comics title, volume 9 of Saga.
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NPD BookScan Top 20 Adult Graphic Novels – January 2019 (12/30/18 - 2/2/19) |
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Rank |
Title |
Author |
Publisher |
|
1 |
DRAGON BALL SUPER VOL. 4 |
AKIRA TORIYAMA |
VIZ MEDIA |
|
2 |
THE LIFE-CHANGING MANGA OF TIDYING UP: A MAGICAL STORY |
MARIE KONDO |
TEN SPEED PRESS |
|
3 |
MY HERO ACADEMIA VOL. 1 |
KOHEI HORIKOSHI |
VIZ MEDIA |
|
4 |
MY HERO ACADEMIA: VIGILANTES VOL. 3 |
HIDEYUKI FURUHASHI |
VIZ MEDIA |
|
5 |
MY HERO ACADEMIA VOL. 16 |
KOHEI HORIKOSHI |
VIZ MEDIA |
|
6 |
ONE-PUNCH MAN VOL. 15 |
ONE |
VIZ MEDIA |
|
7 |
MY HERO ACADEMIA VOL. 2 |
KOHEI HORIKOSHI |
VIZ MEDIA |
|
8 |
MY HERO ACADEMIA VOL. 15 |
KOHEI HORIKOSHI |
VIZ MEDIA |
|
9 |
THE ADVENTURE ZONE: HERE THERE BE GERBLINS |
CLINT MCELROY |
FIRST SECOND BOOKS |
|
10 |
MY HERO ACADEMIA VOL. 3 |
KOHEI HORIKOSHI |
VIZ MEDIA |
|
11 |
TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD: A GRAPHIC NOVEL HC |
HARPER LEE |
HARPER |
|
12 |
SABRINA HC |
NICK DRNASO |
DRAWN & QUARTERLY |
|
13 |
WATCHMEN |
ALAN MOORE |
DC COMICS |
|
14 |
MY HERO ACADEMIA VOL. 14 |
KOHEI HORIKOSHI |
VIZ MEDIA |
|
15 |
MY HERO ACADEMIA VOL. 4 |
KOHEI HORIKOSHI |
VIZ MEDIA |
|
16 |
SAGA VOL. 9 |
BRIAN K. VAUGHAN |
IMAGE COMICS |
|
17 |
FUN HOME: A FAMILY TRAGICOMIC |
ALISON BECHDEL |
MARINER BOOKS |
|
18 |
ANNE FRANK'S DIARY THE GRAPHIC ADAPTATION HC |
ANNE FRANK |
PANTHEON BOOKS |
|
19 |
TOKYO GHOUL VOL. 1 |
SUI ISHIDA |
VIZ MEDIA |
|
20 |
BATMAN: WHITE KNIGHT |
SEAN MURPHY |
DC BLACK LABEL |
|
Source: The NPD Group/BookScan |
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For charts of January graphic novel sales from NPD BookScan:
January 2018 NPD BookScan – Top 20 Kids Graphic Novels
January 2019 NPD BookScan - Top 20 Superhero, Manga, Author Graphic Novels
For the charts with the actual sales numbers from NPD BookScan, see these articles on the ICv2 Pro site:
January 2018 NPD BookScan - Top 20 Adult Graphic Novels with Actual Sales
January 2018 NPD BookScan - Top 20 Kids Graphic Novels with Actual Sales
January 2019 NPD BookScan - Top 20 Superhero, Manga, Author Graphic Novels with Actual Sales
NPD BookScan collects weekly point-of-sale data on print books from over 16,000 locations including e-tailers, chains, mass merchandisers, independent bookstores, and more. NPD BookScan covers approximately 85% of the U.S. trade print book market. The ranks on this chart are based on piece sales. Some publishers classify titles that are primarily text, or art books, as graphic novels; we've removed those titles from the ranking above.
For past BookScan Top 20 Graphic Novel lists, see the "BookScan Top 20 GN Index."