Eiichiro Oda's pirate manga sets record for most volumes sold in 1 year

The marketing survey firm Oricon reported on Thursday that Eiichiro Oda's One Piece pirate manga set a record for the most volumes of manga sold in one year since Oricon began posting its ranking charts in 2008. During the period of November 22, 2010 to November 20, 2011, One Piece sold 37,996,373 copies.

One Piece also took the top four spots for single manga volumes sold during the same time period. Volume 61 sold 3,382,588 copies, volume 62 sold 3,207,568 copies, volume 63 sold 3,073,175 copies, and volume 64 sold 2,652,700 copies. It is the third year in a row that One Piece volumes have taken the top four spots in that category. These four One Piece volumes were also the only manga volumes this year to sell more than 2 million copies.

In 2008, One Piece sold 5,956,540 copies, and in 2009, it sold 14,721,241 copies. Last year, it sold 32,343,809 copies.

2011's second best-selling manga series was Naruto with 6,874,840 copies, followed by Blue Exorcist's 5,223,712 copies.