If you were fearing complete David Taylor withdrawal, not to worry. The genial Mr. Taylor has decided to keep doing his monthly manga sales analyses, and I’m more than happy to host them here (though I lack his mad table formatting skillz). So, here’s David’s look at the numbers for March:
Just a bizarre observation but I assume it is the people at Comic Book Resources that compile the Top 50 chart rather than Diamond’s, because this is the third time in a row that both Spawn Manga and Bleach have been missed from the charts. I can understand Spawn but Bleach is a little odd to miss really, especially considering it is lining up to be the next Naruto in terms of sales.
Here you go, my thoughts on the March 2006 Figures:
| Position | Title | Publisher | Estimate |
| 01(02) | Fruits Basket vol.13 | Tokyopop | 6164 |
| 02(05) | Naruto vol.09 | Viz Media | 5019 |
| 03(06) | Samurai Executioner vol.09 | Dark Horse | 4844 |
| 04(15) | Fullmetal Alchemist vol.06 | Viz Media | 3811 |
| 05(19) | Kingdom Hearts vol.03 | Tokyopop | 3546 |
| 06(21) | Negima! vol.09 | Del Rey | 3490 |
| 07(22) | Battle Royale vol.15 | Tokyopop | 3448 |
| 08(25) | Rurouni Kenshin vol.24 | Viz Media | 3190 |
| 09(37) | Kare Kano vol.19 | Tokyopop | 2457 |
| 10(42) | Dears vol.06 | Tokyopop | 2331 |
| 11(46) | Lady Snowblood vol.03 | Dark Horse | 2276 |
| 12(51) | Death Note vol.04 | Viz Media | 2164 |
| —(57) | Spawn Manga | Image | 2010 |
| 14(60) | Chrono Crusade vol.07 | ADV Manga | 1892 |
| 15(65) | Tenjho Tenge vol.06 | DC/CMX | 1633 |
| 16(67) | Suikoden III Vol.09 | Tokyopop | 1606 |
| 17(68) | Chibi Vampire vol.01 | Tokyopop | 1599 |
| 18(70) | Rurouni Kenshin vol.25 | Viz Media | 1550 |
| 19(72) | Last Fantasy vol.01 | Tokyopop | 1536 |
| 20(73) | Psychic Academy vol.11 | Tokyopop | 1536 |
| 21(77) | Our Everlasting vol.02 | DMP | 1515 |
| 22(78) | Read Or Die vol.01 | Viz Media | 1508 |
| 23(79) | Our Kindgom vol.02 | DMP | 1501 |
| 24(80) | Yellow vol.03 | DMP | 1494 |
| 25(81) | My Only King | DMP | 1494 |
| 26(82) | Girls Bravo vol.03 | Tokyopop | 1487 |
| 27(85) | Full Metal Panic vol.09 | ADV Manga | 1438 |
| —(88) | Bleach vol.12 | Viz Media | 1438 |
| 28(90) | Fushigi Yugi Genbu Kaiden vol.03 | Viz Media | 1424 |
| 29(92) | I Luv Halloween vol.02 | Tokyopop | 1403 |
| 30(94) | Warcraft vol.02 | Tokyopop | 1340 |
| 31(95) | RG Veda vol.05 | Tokyopop | 1326 |
| 32(97) | Abandoned vol.01 | Tokyopop | 1319 |
| 33(99) | Yubisaki Milk Tea vol.01 | Tokyopop | 1305 |
| 34 | Battle Club vol.01 | Tokyopop | — |
| 35 | I’s vol.06 | Viz Media | — |
| 36 | Eureka Seven vol.01 | Bandai | — |
| 37 | X Kai vol.01 | Tokyopop | — |
| 38 | Sweet Revolution | DMP | — |
| 39 | Life vol.01 | Tokyopop | — |
| 40 | Tsukuyomi Moon Phase vol.02 | Viz Media | — |
| 41 | Descendants Of Darkness vol.10 | Viz Media | — |
| 42 | Black Cat vol.01 | Viz Media | — |
| 43 | Ai Yori Aoshi vol.12 | Tokyopop | — |
| 44 | Only The Ring Finger Knows Novel | DMP | — |
| 45 | Sakura Taisen vol.03 | Tokyopop | — |
| 46 | Category Freaks vol.2 | Dr Master | — |
| 47 | Anne Freaks vol.01 | ADV Manga | — |
| 48 | Samurai Champloo vol.02 | Tokyopop | — |
| 49 | Naruto vol.01 | Viz Media | — |
| 50 | Shout Out Loud vol.01 | Tokyopop | — |
This month bucks the recent trend in a couple of ways. Firstly we get 10 Manga Publishers (this is assuming we can get away with Image and its Spawn Manga adaptation [are we allowed to use that word?!?]) even if most of them only have a few titles present with Tokyopop hogging 23 all to itself. The second noticeable trend is that with Tokyopop leading the way this month it can only mean a relatively bad month for Viz Media with just 12 titles. Capitalising on this though is a fantastic month for Digital Manga Publishing with 6 yaoi titles including 4 in the top100 chart. There is the Only the Ring Finger Knows novel, a couple of debut titles and, more importantly, 2nd and 3rd volumes. Whilst they don’t have a consistent presence in the chart each month, preferring a flood approach every so often, when they do release they consistently make the charts (Decembers figures show DMP again with 6 titles).
All of this though has to take a back step when put next to the fact that this is the best month manga has had in the Top 100 GN chart since July last year and they didn’t even get the number 1 slot, something to do with a movie I guess. 35 titles make the cut and there are certainly some interesting things in the mix.
Dark Horse has a Kazuo Koike month as Samurai Executioner, Lady Snowblood and the new and improved Crying Freeman all place well in the Top 100 GN. CMX’s de rigueur title in Tenjho Tenge keeps increasing with volume 6 still holding its own though nothing has yet beat the controversial first volume. ADV Manga shows that when they do release volumes they’ve got what it takes as 2 out of 3 make the Top 100.
For Viz Media my first thought was how well Death Note was doing with volume 04 well outpacing all its predecessors which hopefully proves that good word of mouth on this title is actually working. Read or Die and Black Cat both get their debut this month though interestingly ROD places much higher in the Diamond chart whereas Black Cat has done considerably better in the booksellers chart. (Black Cat debuted at #8 in the BookScan charts and hovered around for several weeks, whereas ROD never made the top 10.)
Tokyopop though has some excellent news for their original manga as I Luv Halloween, Warcraft and the new Abandoned all make the Top 100 GN chart, albeit right at the end. The latest installment of Fruits Basket gets the highest placing but is held from the top spot in the Top 100 GN chart by V for Vendetta, though the positions have been reversed in the BookScan chart for the last couple of weeks. The other benchmark title for TP at the moment, Kingdom Hearts, also places well.
It is a good month for Manga in the Diamonds chart which also sees the start of another new publisher in Bandai with Eureka Seven.