Right now KnY's volume is #1 is Amazon Japan's bestseller, and a pack of volume 1-19 is #3, I expected KnY to get a boost in sales, even get all the top 10 spots of Oricon again maybe? But it's just weird that volume 1 would be the best seller like I would have guessed people would start buying the volume where the movie finished..?
I find it interesting and worth pointing out that the generation that this movie/franchise targets is the same generation of the Yokai Watch mania, that got the franchise to have the biggest animated film opening in Japan back in 2014... The franchise got a huge explosion in popularity (even surpassing Pokemon, some people thought Pokemon would die and Yo-Kai watch would take its place, hindsight is a lovely thing isn't it?) and now it's more like Yo-kai what? The new movie didn't even get 10% of what the first one did 7 years ago.
Why am I making these comparisons? Am I calling Kimetsu no Yaiba a fad like Yo-Kai watch ended up being? Nope, but it's certainly interesting that it's the same target generation, kids who were six to twelve 7 years ago are now teenager/young adults... But KnY appeals to a way broader audience, like 12-30ish years old instead of Yo-kai's range that was probably 4-12ish.
The decline of Yo-Kai watch is pretty easy to understand, these kids simply grew and Yo-kai couldn't get new "watchers" (pun intended haha), kinda like some YouTubers complain that the youtube algorithm wants them to fail when the reality is that their audiences grew and don't care about that content anymore, but the same is not true for Kimetsu no Yaiba as its fanbase is probably old enough to love and cherish the story for the rest of their lives (or at least for some years).
Also, I think if they play their cards right they could make the ending or a prologue of Kimetsu no Yaiba a movie and break even more records.
