Do we have data on the physical circulation as of now? Because with that we could determine more or less how many volumes it has sold digitally, I had guessed previously that it might be 20% digital and would like to be sure, so do we have physical data of
circulation (Not sales)?
Ehem... I'm kinda having weird November '19 deja vu vibes lol
So first of all I'll fully admit that I'm happy KnY didn't break One Piece's record, I like One Piece.
About the article.. The wording in the article kinda is confusing, maybe it means 3.95 mill of the normal edition only?
My take on this, and
I won't even start arguing about this since I won't change anyone's people's opinions anyway.
This post, especially point number 4 is a mixture of data with my deductions, and you guys know how much I love deducting stuff lol.
Also, some of you have told me about Occam's razor and stuff like that, and I love it that when One Piece doesn't lose a record (Because obviously, after the post of KnY's last volume being 3.95mill 1st run the very first post had to be a KnY vs OP comparison) the same people that told me about Occam razor (as in not looking for difficult explanations) now are claiming KnY got robbed of a record.
Anyway here are a couple of points that debate that point of view:
1.- Japanese companies tend to be conservative, just look at Nintendo and how they practically have under-printed their hot products year after year when they weren't so sure about demand like Amiibos, NES-Minis, SNES-Minis, Ring Fit Adventure, and now the new Mario Kart toy thingy..
2.- Also perhaps (And this is just a theory of mine) Covid contributed to the printers not being able to fulfill a bigger order?
3.- Kimetsu no Yaiba seems to also have a lot of digital sales (I think around 20%, my estimate).
4.- Finally, what's important for first runs is the velocity of sales:
For first print runs what matters really is how much it sells in the first week/two since they probably already schedule a second print.
Comparing
One Piece 61 and
Kimetsu's volume 21 basically sold the same in the period of 3 days (In fact One Piece beat it by a bit, but in week 4 KnY reached and beat OP's vol 65 sales.)
In reality, it was until volume 22 that KnY was able to finally beat One Piece's peak 3 day performer (Volume 61).
OP vol 61: 2'086,080
KnY vol 22: 2'204,279
Sure, after the first week KnY vol. 22 gained momentum and in their fourth week the difference between the performance was bigger, One Piece with 2'810,000 and KnY with 3'500,000 (I included special edition numbers that weren't reported week 3 and 4 btw, without the extra numbers I added it would be 3'400,000ish), still a big difference.
And yet this is not a complete sell-thru of its 3.7 mill first print.. (I'm not claiming One Piece did either, of course, it didn't sell its first run in a month, in fact it did worse since its first run of volume 61 was 3.8 mill).
This is the same company that printed 3 One Piece volumes in the 4 million 1st print... And then gave 4.05 mill to volume 67...
I'm gonna repeat that again so you might understand the reasoning behind this post, Shueisha basically tested One Piece for 3 whole volumes with a 4million print run and then bumped the print run by 50k... Kimetu's volume 22 was 3.7million and in a single volume they boosted it to 3.95mill
Kimetsu finally managed to beat One Piece's peak month-pacing just in the last volume (And its first weeks were pretty much even, it was during week 2 and onward that the difference became apparent, this happened after October 25th which was Kimetsu v22's 4th week).
Think about it for a while, they had that information until October 25th, the information of KnY finally beating One Piece's monthly pace by a considerable margin, KnY volume 23 is scheduled to be released on December 4th as in nationwide stores will get it by that date (probably around a week before), so let's say right now more or less right now the volume should be hitting the press and being distributed nationwide.. (We will probably get leaks of the supposed epilogue later this week, I guess.. Well you guys will get the leaks since I don't read KnY), but at least in the case of WSJ it's printed 15 days before distribution (This is the info I took from the book I previously mentioned, "The right way to make Jump"). So the printing time for this book at the very least was 15 days before being distributed, that's the very least, but I'd guess it was probably more.. So.. Idk..
Am I saying Shueisha couldn't have just given it a print run that surpassed One Piece? No, absolutely not, they very much could have. But it would have been uncharacteristic of them seeing how they also did the same to One Piece back in 2012 giving it 3 straight 1st print runs of 4mill, until giving it 4.05 mill in volume 67.
Is it so farfetched to believe that Shueisha had to make a decision before they had all the relevant information? Isn't this year the year of a global pandemic that has pretty much affected every industry worldwide? What decision would you have taken?
BTW
This book has some great insights on how Jump is made, and even talks about how much time passes from when a volume is printed.
They are being conservative, and I don't blame them, can you tell me what they would win for having leftover stock? It's not like it's not gonna sell anyways, they sell this the first month, they sell out (or get close to selling) its second run and by then they will more or less get a feeling of how much they should reprint for the 3rd run (Unless maybe a third run was already scheduled, which I don't doubt at all).
It seems to me like their strategy with One Piece and Kimetsu is completely different, in One Piece's case they went for the long way in Kimetsu's they prefer to sell stock fast, and really.. I don't blame them, google "tulipmania", fads come as fast as they go, and ok I won't call Kimetsu no Yaiba a fad because even though it kinda is, it has clearly maintained its momentum, and obviously, volume 23 is gonna sell a whooooooooooooole ton of volumes.. Maybe 3 million in 3 days?
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Tl,Dr: It was Shueisha's call, and I don't think they were alright protecting One Piece's record more than they were minimizing risks..
Only the latest volume of KnY, volume 22, really beat One Piece's monthly sales and they probably had to make a print run decision before they had this data, and they had a conservative approach (Which is nothing new for Japanese companies, Shueisha included, as they "tested" One Piece's 4million print run 3 times until they decided to give it a 4.05mill for volume 67 only to return to 6mill in volume 68. They had 7 whole months to decide whether or not to increase OP's run, in this case (KnY) they only really had the sales info from volumes 19,20,21 and all that info still indicated that KnY was "a little bit under" OP's peak sales) .
natalie.mu
