This week's edition of the New York Times Graphic Books list is out, and for the first time in a long time, over half of the top 10 is comprised of newcomers, and not all of them Naruto.
Sure, Naruto Volume 45 and Fruits Basket Volume 23 are still holding strong at #1 and #2 respectively, but new volumes of Negima!, Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle, Kitchen Princess, Junjo Romantica and Captive Hearts all claimed spots in the top 10. The notable newcomer here is the first volume of The Dark Hunters, a new original English language (OEL) manga adaptation of a bestselling series of young adult novels by Sherrilyn Kenyon about… well, duh. Vampires.
Tsubasa and Negima! are no strangers to the NY Times Top 10 manga list -- earlier volumes have made their appearance here. Kitchen Princess is one of Del Rey Manga's top-selling shojo manga titles, and with Volume 10 being the finale of this series, fans are are dying to see if Najika's cooking skills will make this ending as sweet and satisfying as a flourless chocolate cake.
The real eyebrow-raiser in this week's chart is the debut of Junjo Romantica, a long-running boys love manga title about a student and his romance with an older man from Blu Manga / TokyoPop. Why is it suprising? Mostly because it's a M-Mature rated yaoi manga title -- the first of this genre to crack the New York Times manga top 10 since the list was started back in March 2009.
Now that Naruto mania is slowing down, some interesting things are bubbling to the top, and it's sure to get more interesting as more of the hot Summer / Fall releases hit the stores. Here's the rest of the NY Times Manga Bestseller list for the week of July 11, 2009:
| This Week |
Last Week |
Weeks on List |
Title | Author/Artist | Publisher |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 ↔ | 2 wks | Naruto Volume 45 | Masashi Kishimoto | Shonen Jump / VIZ Media |
| 2 | 2 ↔ | 2 wks | Fruits Basket Volume 23 | Natsuki Takaya | TokyoPop |
| 3 | NEW | 1 wk | Negima! Volume 23 | Ken Akamatsu | Del Rey Manga |
| 4 | NEW | 1 wk | The Dark Hunters Volume 1 | Sherrilyn Kenyon and Claudia Campos | St. Martin’s Griffin / Dabel Brothers |
| 5 | NEW | 1 wk | Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle Volume 22 | CLAMP | Del Rey Manga |
| 6 | NEW | 1 wk | Junjo Romantica Volume 10 | Shungiku Nakamura | BLU / TokyoPop |
| 7 | NEW | 1 wk | Kitchen Princess Volume 10 | Miyuki Kobayashi and Natsumi Ando | Del Rey Manga |
| 8 | 3 ↓ | 16 wks | Naruto Volume 43 | Masashi Kishimoto | Shonen Jump / VIZ Media |
| 9 | 5 ↓ | 6 wks | Bleach Volume 27 | Tite Kubo | Shonen Jump / VIZ Media |
| 10 | NEW | 1 wk | Captive Hearts Volume 5 | Matsuri Hino | Shojo Beat Manga / VIZ Media |
Image credit: © Shungiku Nakamura
Comments
What do you think about the chances for yuri titles to make it into the top 10? The anime adaptation of Aoi Hana has such a narrow distribution, I can’t judge whether there’s any hope for that genre to rise in popularity. Maybe it will take a growing cadre of yuri fanboys to propel their favorite genre the way fujoshi formed a market base for yaoi in Japan and the US. [Only 29 days till the next chapter of Morinaga's "Girl Friends"... sigh]
@umlando: What yuri fanboys? Yuri is written for women by women the same way yaoi is. With its emphasis on romance over sex scenes, it’s not made to appeal to men, thus men don’t form its core fanbase (though they may enjoy it).