Can't wait for the incessant "wow, the newbies sure did sell badly" comments here and on Twitter because of people ignoring the global pandemic that's obviously affecting sales of every series.
I get this idea but... is it really affecting all series in
such a noticeable way? Don't get me wrong, it's pretty obvious that given this situation the most normal outcome will be low performances all over this upcoming month and what comes next, but I don't really think they have had that much of an effect for these first days/first week? I honestly can see every single series drop as something expected, for One Piece and Black Clover for example; and Bokuben and Yuuna is pretty much logical if we take in mind that Bokuben is not in its most popular moment and Yuuna is just Yuuna? And that their drops overall are not
that big, for now. But this is not all, because there's
Dr. STONE that in all of this has kept growing, and up to a point that it already has planned reprints along with every newbie?
Anyway, it's a given Coronavirus situation will take effect, but I also think that we can't really deny the fact that this month is full of series that have had a serious track of less sales with every volume that comes out. Don't think we can clearly speak about newbies, because we already know
their prints are most likely low thanks to this early reprints, which is not bad, but means copies were kinda limited. In the end, I think there are way more important variables that may have caused these numbers other than Coronavirus, being them:
1. Prints for newbies
2. 3 days on stores
3. Already low performances for these series
4. Existence of series that have had growth despite the situation
5. And lastly, undoubtedly, but maybe in a lesser way, Coronavirus has probably kept more Japanese people at home.
TL;DR: Coronavirus situation in Japan will be more clearly reflected in sales from next week on, IMO.
alu.jp
