Top 5 Manga Overseas – 2008 April to July

2channers are currently amusing themselves at the expense of the rest of the world by looking at what sort of manga they are buying.

Even if we restrain ourselves from making national characterisations on the basis of the manga being bought, as is rather tempting in the case of Germany, the results are interesting:

2008 April to July:

	USA	UK	Germany	France	China
1	Naruto	Death Note	How to Draw Manga	Naruto	X Complete
2	Berserk	Art of Spirited Away	Futari Ecchi	Death Note	Advanced Manga for Beginners
3	Let’s Find Pokemon!	How to Draw Manga: Body and Motion	How to Draw Bishoujo & Bishonen	One Piece	Ginka Eiyuu Densetsu Complete
4	Fruits Basket	Nausicaa	How to Draw Digital Manga	Samurai Deeper Kyo	Hitori Kurashimo 5
5	Vampire Knight	Pokemon	How to Draw Japanese Style Manga	City Hunter	Doraemon

The US at least looks to have a respectable, if unremarkable, set of bestsellers, as does France and to a lesser extent the UK. Pokemon exerts a hold over the English speaking nations, as does Naruto, it seems…

Is there some reason for this remarkable performance by Germany? Sex and how to draw manga? Or are we simply to assume an idiosyncratic or deliberately slanted source used?

An alternative for Germany is provided by our own Anonymous:

1. One Piece
2. Naruto
3. Detective Conan
4. Battle Angel Alita Last Order
5. Inu Yasha

The date likely differs, and probably it excludes the “How-to” volumes popular everywhere, so don’t get too excited.

Compare to the 2008 ranking of manga sold in Japan… It should be said this set is not on the same order of reliability as those, so take care in interptreting it.