Solo Leveling Dominates Japan in New Sales Ranking

Solo Leveling is one of the most popular anime and manga franchises all over the world. The series witnessed a huge surge in popularity after the incredible adaptation into anime by A-1 Pictures in 2024. Evidently, Solo Leveling has been a bigger phenomenon outside of Japan than inside. However, its influence in the country is now growing rapidly, as is quite clear from its growing sales. Last week, Solo Leveling ended up as Japan's highest-selling series, and that's not easy to achieve for a series not made in the country. This is incredibly impressive and it showcases that Solo Leveling is only growing in the homeland of anime. Jinwoo’s story will end up reaching new heights both in Japan and abroad over the next decade.

Solo Leveling Volume 24 Was The Highest Selling Series In Japan Last Week

Every week, Japan's Oricon reveals which manga series rack in the most sales. The results for the sales from March 31 to April 6 were released recently, and it is safe to say that Solo Leveling has raised quite a few eyebrows with its impressive performance. During this particular time period, Solo Leveling ended up topping the charts, becoming the highest-selling series with the latest release that granted it decent success. Solo Leveling recently dropped Volume 24, and this new boost in sales comes through it. This is definitely an impressive feat for the series that many considered not too popular in the Japanese market.

This feat is even more impressive when considering the fact that Solo Leveling has not had any new animated content for over a year. This shows the series is persevering in Japan and selling incredibly well. Its total number of sales last week was around 50k. For some additional context, some die-hard Solo Leveling fans might be confused by Volume 24 of the series topping the chart in Japan. Outside of Japan, there is no Volume 24, and the Solo Leveling series technically only has 15 main volumes. The main difference is due to Japan cutting down on the number of chapters per volume to adapt more to the Japanese manga market.

Assessing The Franchise's Gradual Growth In Japan

Solo Leveling is not the most popular story in Japanese markets, but if there's one thing that can be said with certainty, it's that it has experienced great growth over the last two years. Japan is the land of manga and anime, and here, Solo Leveling has experienced an unprecedented amount of competition, whereas it has been the dominating force in places like South Korea.

Nevertheless, Solo Leveling's massive anime success, which featured stunning animation and direction by A1 Pictures, helped propel it to this level. Season 2 of Solo Leveling was even ranked in the top five best anime of the year through the Newtype Awards that occurred last year. All that said, Solo Leveling still has a long way to go.

Why Sung Jinwoo's Story Will Grow in Popularity

Solo Leveling is already popular but it's nowhere near the levels of the giant series that Japan has pushed out over the years. To paint a proper comparison, Solo leveling Volume 24 got a cumulative 53k sales in total, while One Piece volume 114 achieved over 900k. This is a massive discrepancy and shows that the series still has a long way to go to even achieve a quarter of these numbers in Japan. Solo Leveling will, however, experience a new boost in sales once its animated projects return. There have been massive hints towards a Solo movie being up next, and seeing the previous success of the likes of Chainsaw Man: Reze Arc, as well as Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle, this project could be what propels Solo Leveling to the top.

The next project, while still shrouded in mystery, is anticipated by fans to be released sometime around 2027 at the earliest, as indicated by the committee report leaks and various comments from producers. There is also the possibility of a third Solo Leveling season for the future. At the moment, no information concerning a TV anime continuation has been revealed, but it is sure to come in the future, be it before or after the upcoming movie release. Either way, fans are excited to see Solo Leveling grow and get the recognition it deserves in Japan.

All episodes of the Solo Leveling anime are available to stream on Crunchyroll.