If you placed any bets on Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba’s final volume being a massive success, then chances are you aren’t getting a massive payout. The odds of the series not continuing to beat its own records considering the success of the movie and the hype generated thus far were second to none, so it’s not really that surprising to learn that Kimetsu no Yaiba volume 23 has become of Oricon’s biggest ever successes.
The shocking thing is, though, how little time it has had to do so.
According to figures from an Oricon BiZ article published on 10 December , sales for Kimetsu no Yaiba volume 23 managed to total 2,855,000 units in the first week of its release. That alone makes it the highest-selling volume in Oricon’s history in terms of weekly sales.
Furthermore, the special edition (costing 8000 yen extra and bundling in one of four special figures) sold around 576,000 copies, bringing the series’ total sales for that week up to 3,431,000. Ryouji Hirano’s Kimetsu no Yaiba: Gaiden also managed to sell 859,000 copies, meaning that the series occupied the number one, number two, and number three spot last week.
Here’s the kicker: Kimetsu no Yaiba volume 23, and the other assorted volumes, only had two days to make up those sales numbers. The Oricon article in question only deals with the sales figures reported in the week November 30 to December 6, and the latest batch of Jump volumes released on December 4. Kimetsu no Yaiba volume 23 has therefore become the highest-selling volume in Oricon’s history in just two days.
If the pace for Kimetsu no Yaiba volume 23 keeps up, then we could be looking at the series breaking its own volume sales record sooner rather than later. What’s more, it could topple such titans as Kochikame and Black Jack in the near future, given that their total sales stand at 157 and 176 million respectively (Kimetsu’s total 120 million).