Lol I don't understand what is your fixation on volume sales to judge whether KNY might be popular than One Piece because it only has 1/4 amount of volumes. I don't understand why you ignore the past that get up to the present
It has 3 million copies FIRST PRINT every volumes for the last 10 years, that almost half of it time (22 years). No series in Jump has achieved this. It stays interesting and popular enough for it to warrant that many copies for 10 years.
One Piece Tokyo Tower which operated for 5 years, and closed recently this year due to Covid (rip)
One Piece is the first manga to hold a Dome Tour in Osaka
It has video games from the PS1 era, and the first one produced 4 years after its serialization.
One piece merchandise still sell, and companies still making them
The first episode has 12.4% viewer rating.
The anime is still constant top 5 on Fuji TV
Since its serialization in 1997, it was destined to be a Jump pillar. It never drops out of top 4 on the ToC
While I am not denying that Kimetsu is the hottest thing right now in Japan, nobody was there during 2002~2003 period to gauge how popular One Piece was at the time. The point I'm trying to make above is SALES are not everything to determine popularity
at the end of the day Shuiesha is the true winner
