It has been revealed that the cumulative circulation of comics, including the electronic version of Yasuhisa Hara's popular manga ``Kingdom'' currently being serialized in ``Weekly Young Jump'' (Shueisha), has exceeded 100 million copies. The latest 70 volumes of comics released on November 17th have sold over 100 million copies. "Kingdom" began serialization in 2006 and reached a milestone in about 17 years. The cumulative total of over 100 million copies is the first time in the history of Shueisha's youth magazine to achieve this feat. Shueisha's manga that has sold over 100 million copies in total are Osamu Akimoto's ``Kochira Katsushika-ku Kameari Koen-mae Hashutsusho'', Akira Toriyama's ``DRAGON BALL'', and Hirohiko Araki's `` JOJO'S BIZARRE ADVENTURE" series, "SLAM DUNK" by Takehiko Inoue, "ONE PIECE" by Eiichiro Oda, "NARUTO" by Masashi Kishimoto, "BLEACH" by Tito Kubo, Koyoharu Gotoge's "Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba".
Mr. Hara said, ``Seventeen years ago, the first volume of ``Kingdom'' started with an initial printing of 25,000 copies. Similar to the survey rankings of ``Weekly Young Jump'', which had a difficult time from the beginning of serialization, it was difficult for comics to do well. It wasn't reprinted, and by the third volume, the original copy had gone down to 15,000 copies.I was keenly aware of how difficult it was to get people to read it."But from then on, I didn't give up week after week, and kept drawing the manga tenaciously. I felt that the number of people reading ``Kingdom'' was increasing little by little.We have had many opportunities to mix media such as making it into a game, animation, movie, and stage, and ``Kingdom'' will further spread around the world. Along the way, we achieved our long-awaited goal of selling 1 million copies for the first edition of our new book, and before we knew it, we had reached a huge number of copies, reaching a cumulative total of 100 million copies.''
``This comic book that we are holding in front of our eyes now has 100 million copies sold nationwide, including the electronic version. This is an amount that is hard to imagine.To all the readers who have received ``Kingdom'' , I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude. Thank you very much. The story of "Kingdom" will continue. We will continue to depict the unification of China and the great generals of the world in an even more interesting and passionate way. I would be happy if as many people as possible would follow me until the final episode.''