Spy x Family's Insane Sales: A History (Part 1)
Spy x Family has captured the hearts of many anime and even non-anime fans across the world. From its first aired anime episode on April 9, 2022, the show has become a wonder-hit for a wide array of audiences. It is scheduled to come back on October 1, 2022 with its second cour. This Shonen Jump series wasn’t just popular in the anime community. With over 500 million views on its main manga platform of Shonen Jump Plus, it is one of the most well-known and fastest growing manga in Japan, even before its anime even hit the screens! Here is a history from the start of the very first volume release until now.
To note, the term “in circulation” means the amount of copies of the volumes printed to be put on the shelves, not actually “sold”. There is a distinct difference to keep note between the copies in print and the copies sold. The data that tells the physical copies sold will be gathered from Oricon.
1: Stated by the editor of the manga Shihei Lin, Spy x Family had reached over 300,000 copies in circulation with only volume 1.
2: Spy x Family had reached over 1 million copies in circulation with volumes 1-2.
3: Spy x Family had reached over 2.4 million copies in circulation with volumes 1-3.
4: Spy x Family had reached over 3 million copies in circulation with volumes 1-4.
5: Spy x Family had reached over 6 million copies in circulation with volumes 1-5.
6: Spy x Family had reached over 8 million copies in circulation with volumes 1-6.
7: Spy x Family had reached over 10 million copies in circulation with volumes 1-7.
8: Spy x Family had reached over 12.5 million copies in circulation with volumes 1-8.
9: Spy x Family had reached over 15 million copies in circulation with volumes 1-9.
That’s it for the circulation evolution pre-anime. In just 9 volumes, no anime out, Spy x Family had averaged 1.66 million copies in print per volume, a feat almost unheard of for a Jump series without an anime at that point. For the closest reference recently, Chainsaw Man had reached 15 million copies in circulation with 11 volumes at an average of 1.36 million copies in print per volume.
Now here are the circulation numbers after the anime released (which was April 9, 2022). Keep in mind that these numbers are still for volumes 1-9 as volume 10 will be released on October 4, 2022.
10: April 17, 2022- Spy x Family had reached over 16 million copies in circulation.
11: April 29, 2022- Spy x Family had reached over 17 million copies in circulation.
12: May 9, 2022- Spy x Family had reached over 18 million copies in circulation.
13: May 29, 2022- Spy x Family had reached over 21 million copies in circulation.
14: August 28, 2022- Spy x Family had reached over 25 million copies in circulation.
In the span of about 5 months, Spy x Family has gained over 10 million copies in circulation since its anime started. A huge boost to state the least.
For extra information, Spy x Family was considered the the 2nd fastest and successful hit after Yusei Matsui's "Assassination Classroom" according to Shueisha (its publisher), for volumes 1-4.
Now I will add the number of copies Spy x Family sold (physical copies only) each year on the Oricon.
15: In 2019, Spy x Family had sold 754,067 copies from its volumes 1-2 (the number for SxF on the picture below is incorrect, the picture is just to show SxF's placing compared with other series).
16: In 2020, Spy x Family had sold 4,541,589 copies from its volumes 1-5. An important thing to note, it was the only manga on the Oricon Yearly Top 10 without an anime release or anime announcement.
17: In 2021, Spy x Family had sold 4,973,402 copies from its volumes 1-8. It was one of two manga with no anime out in the Oricon Yearly Top 10, the other being Chainsaw Man.
From its first volume release on July 4, 2019 to the end of Oricon Year in 2021. Spy x Family had sold a total of 10,269,058 physical copies out of the 12.5 million copies it had in circulation for volumes 1-8. This is only for physical copies as the circulation number did include digital copies, so the overall copies (physical + digital) should be higher than 10,269,058. But I can’t find a source for the exact number of digital copies sold.
Before the premiere of anime on April 9, 2022, Spy x Family is estimated to have around 11.3 million copies sold. 10,269,058 + 265,117 in December 2021 + 290,970 in January 2022 + 128,890 in February 2022 + 334,222 in March 2022 = 11,288,257 copies total.
18: Oricon Half-Year 2022- Spy x Family had sold 4,835,705 copies for its volumes 1-9, putting it at 15,104,133 total physical copies sold out of the 21 million copies in circulation it had at the time.
After the anime started to air, Spy x Family had taken Oricon’s Top 20 monthly series #1 spot for 4 consecutive months before falling to #4 in August.
19: April's Top 20
20: May's Top 20
21: June's Top 20
22: July's Top 20
23: August's Top 20
More interesting facts about the feats of Spy x Family volumes without an anime out-
24: Spy x Family volume 5 became the series’ first volume to debut at number one on Oricon’s weekly list of the best-selling manga with 357,318 copies sold that week.
25: Spy x Family volume 6 became the series’ second volume to debut at number one on Oricon’s weekly list of the best-selling manga with 537,558 copies sold that week.
26: Spy x Family volume 8 became the series’ third volume to debut at number one on Oricon’s weekly list of the best-selling manga with 354,954 copies sold that week.
27: The week before the anime’s debut, Spy x Family had sold over 1 million physical copies for every one of its volumes with the sole exception of its recent volume 8 at the time, which sat around 950k copies sold. In other words, SxF was a consistent million seller without an anime, quite a big feat for a series as young as it is. Spy x Family started on March 25, 2019.
28: The highest sold volume of Spy x Family right before the anime aired was volume 1, which sat at over 1.7 million total copies sold. This is possibly the highest for a volume of a manga that did not have an anime since Oricon started releasing numbers. For a better comparison, Attack on Titan volume 1 sold just under 1.1 million copies a week before its anime premiere with Assassination Classroom volume 1 around the same.
Spy x Family as of now has about 8.2 million copies sold with only one volume released this year. With the anime coming back in less than a month along with its new volume, I believe it’s safe to say it will reach over 10 million by the end of Oricon year in just two volumes. How far it can keep soaring, we can only imagine.
This was made to inform those that read this post of Spy x Family's reception in terms of manga sales in Japan. Spy x Family has seen overwhelming success since the moment of its conception. It might be a long while before another manga puts out these high numbers like SxF or it might be in these few coming years, who knows. Anyways...
Thank you to Tatsuya Endo bringing this gem into the world, I wish you and your series long lasting success. Part 2 will come when there are more milestones for me to record. Until then!
Posted Sep 10, 2022, 3:00 AM UTC