Detective Conan Volume 109 Takes No. 1 on Japan's Book Chart

Gosho Aoyama's manga Meitantei Conan, known in English as Detective Conan or Case Closed, has reached No. 1 on the Billboard Japan Book Hot 100. Billboard Japan published the chart on Oct. 22, covering the week of Oct. 12 to 18.

The chart at the centre of the story is a weekly ranking of books. It combines physical sales, e-book sales, subscriptions such as library loans, and social media buzz into a single position. The chart week's No. 1 title was Volume 109 of the series, which went on sale on Oct. 16, two days into the tracking week.

Volume 109 finished first for physical books sold in shops, often called brick-and-mortar sales. It also finished first for online retail. Its e-book position was lower, at No. 14, which means most of its strength that week came from paper copies bought in person or ordered online.

The volume was pushed out of its top spot in a close contest with another title. Tensei Shitara Suraimu Datta Ken (That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime) Comic Edition Vol. 33, by Taiki Kawakami, Fuse and Mitz Vah, slipped from No. 1 to No. 2. It ranked first for e-books and second for physical books that week. The two series show how different the readership can be, with one strongest in shops and the other strongest on screens.

For buyers, the new volume is a modest purchase. It has a list price of 594 yen including tax, which is about 4 US dollars at recent exchange rates, and runs 192 pages in shinsho format, the small paperback size common in Japanese bookshops. The publisher's listing identifies it with the ISBN 9784098548552, the number bookstores use to order and track a specific edition.

A special edition also arrived on Oct. 16. It includes a set of storyboard cards and an alternate cover. The chart does not break down how many copies of that edition sold, so its share of the No. 1 result is not known.

A weekly chart is a snapshot. This one captured a single week in which a new volume and a fast-selling rival series competed for the same readers, and it ranked them by how they were bought, read and talked about. The next edition will show whether either title holds its position.