Yet Another Comic Blog’s Dave Carter recently took a look at the 50 best-selling graphic novels at Amazon, so I thought I might take a look at the manga category (which update hourly like all of Amazon’s best-seller lists, so what’s there now might not track with the titles listed below).
1. Making Comics: Storytelling Secrets of Comics, Manga and Graphic Novels 2. Death Note Vol. 6 (Viz)
3. Target in the Finder Vol. 1 (CPM)
4. Bleach Vol. 17 (Viz)
5. Absolute Boyfriend Vol. 3 (Viz)
6. Death Note Vol. 9 (Viz)
7. Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories 2 (Tokyopop)
8. Fruits Basket Vol. 15 (Tokyopop)
9. Virtuoso Di Amore (DramaQueen)
10. How to Draw Cartoons for Comic Strips
11. Our Kingdom Vol. 5 (Juné)
12. Fake Vol. 5 (Tokyopop)
13. Lies and Kisses (DramaQueen)
14. Vampire Knight Vol. 1 (Viz)
15. Gorgeous Carat Vol. 4 (Blu)
16. Loveless Vol. 4 (Tokyopop)
17. Death Note Vol. 1 (Viz)
18. Death Note Vol. 5 (Viz)
19. The All-New Tenchi Muyô Vol. 2: Doom Time (Viz)
20. Naruto Vol. 2 (Viz)
21. Negima! Vol. 7 (Del Rey)
22. Yotsuba&! Vol. 1 (ADV)
23. Gravitation Ex 1 (Tokyopop)
24. Hana-Kimi Vol. 16 (Viz)
25. Death Note Vol. 4 (Viz)
26. Ai Yori Aoshi Vol. 15 (Tokyopop)
27. Naruto Vol. 1 (Viz)
28. Naruto Vol. 3 (Viz)
29. Kizuna: Bonds of Love Vol. 7 (Be Beautiful)
30. Naruto Vol. 4 (Viz)
31. Junjo Romantica 2 (Blu)
32. Fruits Basket Vol. 2 (Tokyopop)
33. Blade of the Immortal Vol. 16: Shortcut (Dark Horse)
34. Death Note Vol. 8 (Viz)
35. Negima! Vol. 6 (Del Rey)
36. Death Note Vol. 7 (Viz)
37. Berserk Vol. 14 (Dark Horse/DMP)
38. Death Note Vol. 3 (Viz)
39. Gravitation Vol. 10 (Tokyopop)
40. Naruto Vol. 12 (Viz)
41. Air Gear 1 (Del Rey)
42. How to Draw Cartoon Animals
43. Kare Kano: His and Her Circumstances Vol. 21 (Tokyopop)
44. Bleach Vol. 10 (Viz)
45. Fruits Basket Vol. 3 (Tokyopop)
46. 100 Bullets: Decayed (Vertigo)
47. Dragon Hunt (Warcraft: The Sunwell Trilogy Book 1) (Tokyopop)
48. Shadows of Ice (Warcraft: The Sunwell Trilogy Book 2) (Tokyopop)
49. Naruto Vol. 5 (Viz)
50. Return to Labyrinth 1 (Tokyopop)
Now, Amazon is having one of its 4-for-the-price-of-3 manga sales, and a number of the titles on the list overlap, particularly ones on the first page of listings. But a lot of those titles are also perennial sellers, so maybe it’s some combination of popularity and irregular discounting. So this snapshot is probably somewhat skewed.
The list actually reminds me in an odd way of the top 50 manga lists from Diamond. A mix of traditionally strong sellers, a fair sprinkling of yaoi, and the occasional oddity, excluding the oddities that result from Amazon’s sorting system.