Summary
- Sakamoto Days has found success as a top anime on Netflix globally and in Japan for weeks.
- Despite anime success, manga sales for Sakamoto Days have slightly decreased recently.
- While sales may not be surging, anime adaptations can still bring profit through merchandise licensing.
It could be said that Sakamoto Days has already become a flagship anime for Netflix. It has been featured in the streaming service’s global weekly top 10 for five weeks straight.
In Japan, the series is even more successful – Sakamoto Days has ranked among the most watched shows for six weeks, and topped the chart in most of them.
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Great Streaming Audience, But Manga Performance Seemingly Not Following
However, despite the great ratings, all this success apparently has not converted into manga sales at the same pace. In the latest Oricon weekly chart for manga sales, the series is ranked at third, which is not a bad position, but the sales have been slightly decreasing.
Oricon numbers are estimates based on sales numbers that the company is able to collect. While they might not be “official” or “perfect” (there would hardly be “perfect numbers” anyway), they are great indicators of market tendencies.
An X (formerly Twitter) account specializing in compiling Oricon weekly charts points, people buying volumes 1-19 represent 90% of the sales, while those buying the latest volume (Volume 20) represent only 10% – that is expected, as newcomers who buy the manga while or after watching the anime generally start from the first volume.
However, given that the anime has become a hit, and it has been airing for a few weeks, sales were expected to grow steadily. A 7% sales decrease is not an alarming number, but given that Sakamoto Days was expected to become a flagship title for Shonen Jump after the anime started airing, the results might be disappointing.
Is Sakamoto Days Doomed?
Once again: these numbers are not bad. They might be lower than expected, but selling 75,000 copies in a week is not a bad result. However, it feeds the part of the fandom worried about the anime production, who are generally disappointed with the adaptation.
There could still be time for Sakamoto Days to increase sales, though. Demon Slayer was popular when Season 1 aired, but it was shortly after the anime finished broadcasting that the series exploded in an unprecedented way. It’s a different trajectory, because Demon Slayer had a significant increase in sales while airing, but it is an example of how things might change suddenly (as the anime was no longer airing on TV, sales were expected to drop, and not to grow).
However, it’s important to understand that the tendency for Sakamoto Days now is not one of sales surges, and if the manga suddenly starts flying off shelves, it will be unexpected.
It’s also important to notice that manga sales are not the only way that the publisher can profit with an anime adaptation. If the anime is able to attract companies wanting to sell Sakamoto Days merchandise (and customers who want to buy them), the investment might be worthwhile – licensing contracts and royalties are key to the way the anime and manga industry function today.
As we don’t usually have numbers of these contracts, manga sales are generally taken as a good parameter to measure or predict how successful a series can be from a broader commercial perspective. And the results for now suggest a less impressive performance than originally expected.
Sakamoto Days latest chapters can be read for free on Manga PLUS and Shonen Jump services. The anime adaptation is currently streaming on Netflix.
Source: X (formerly Twitter)
