‘Slam Dunk’ and ‘One Piece’ top popularity rankings

The Yomiuri Shimbun

9:22 JST, December 16, 2021

“Slam Dunk” and “One Piece” shared the top spot in a nationwide poll of people’s favorite manga recently conducted by The Yomiuri Shimbun.

The respondents were asked via mail to list up to three manga titles they like the most among the works they have ever read.

Responses varied, with about 600 titles in all were sent in — from Osamu Tezuka classics to the latest popular manga. Most of the manga titles given were Japanese works, indicating the depth of the genre in this country. Famous titles occupied the top spots, with third place going to “Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba,” the animated film version of which became a huge hit last year.

The survey also asked respondents how often they read manga and found 40% of them were regular manga readers — with 15% saying they read manga often and 25% saying they do so sometimes. Those who seldom read manga (at 26%) and those who said they never read manga (at 32%) made up 58%. The younger the respondents were, the higher the rate of reading manga. The majority of the respondents in their 50s or older were non-manga readers.

The survey was conducted on 3,000 people randomly chosen from eligible voters in 250 places across the country. The questionnaire was sent to them by post on Aug. 17. About 2,235 of them were returned by Sept. 22. Of them, valid responses came from 2,140, or 71%.