Sailor Moon manga soared again in US Bookstores on April

Blue Exorcist manga is also on the rise!

The tenth volume of Naoko Takeuchi's Sailor Moon manga ranked at #4 on Nielsen BookScan's list of top 20 graphic novels in American bookstores for April.

The same volume had ranked at #5 on the list in March. The Sailor Moon volume is one of four manga titles on the list. Masashi Kishimoto's Naruto volume 60 ranked at #7, dropping from #3 from last month.

Kazue Katō's Blue Exorcist volume 9 and Tite Kubo's Bleach volume 56 ranked at #11 and #18 respectively. Robert Kirkman's The Walking Dead comic series continued to dominate the chart, claiming nine places this month, with The Walking Dead Compendium volumes 1 and 2 again taking the top two spots.

Gene Luen Yang's Avatar the Last Airbender: The Search -- Part 1 ranked #3.

 The BookScan rankings represent sales at Barnes & Noble and other book chains, independent bookshops, and online purchases — but not sales at comic book stores, Walmart, and some other venues.

Source: ANN, ICv2

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Sailor Moon and Naruto mangas soared again in US bookstores on September!

According to ICv2, the seventh volume of Naoko Takeuchi's Sailor Moon manga and the 58th volume of Masashi Kishimoto's Naruto ranked #1 and #2 on Nielsen BookScan's list of top 20 graphic novels in American bookstores for September.

Other manga top-sellers include Yotsuba! volume 11 at #6, Alice in the Country of Clover volume 2 at #9, Bleach volumes 47 and 46 taking #11 and #12, and One Piece volume 64 at #13.

The previous month's #1, Frank Miller's Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, fell to #7. The BookScan rankings represent sales at Barnes & Noble and other book chains, independent bookshops, and online purchases, but not sales at comic book stores, Walmart, and some other venues.

Source: ANN

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• Naruto tops August manga sales in US Bookstores

Naruto tops August manga sales in US Bookstores

The latest volume (57th) of  Kishimoto's Naruto manga placed #9 in Nielsen BookScan's list of top 20 graphic novels in American bookstores for August.

Whereas Naoko Takeuchi's Sailor Moon volume 6 dropped at #17, and Tite Kubo's Bleach volumes 44 and 45 ranked at #19 and #20, respectively.

The BookScan rankings represent sales at Barnes & Noble and other book chains, independent bookshops, and online purchases — but not sales at comic book stores, Walmart, and some other venues.

Source: ANN, ICv2

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• Sailor Moon as number one manga again in US bookstores
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• Store: The Sailor Moon manga revival in the US

Rumor: Naruto and Sasuke ending up as a couple in the manga?

Thank you for giving me the excuse to post this XD

Even despite the fact that author Kishimoto has alleged his love of Shounen-ai, I'm still taking it with a grain of salt, because of the decisions that would be involved for the pairing to happen.

This rumor has been making quite the rounds on fansites and deviantart, it originated on a miniconference in  ExpoAnimeUSA held in 2009, when the author gave an interview, and is now circulating again given that the manga is nearing an end in maybe a year or so. 

The author allegedly indicated his love of Shounen-ai and that NaruSasu was his favorite pairing. He even collects doujinshi and fanfics.

According to this source, who republished a deleted DA journal,

"Kishimoto revealed that Sasuke was based on his best friend from High School, whom he admired and loved very much, and that Naruto was a reflection of himself and the adventures he would have liked to experience when he was young. He also emphasized that in the series there is not a love triangle, but rather a circle, like a fish biting its own tail. Naruto likes Sakura, Sakura loves Sasuke and Sasuke has special feelings for Naruto.However, he ended the note saying that Shippuden was going to be mainly about the fights and character development."

Don't get me wrong, I AM a fan of NaruSasu

I don't know about that, but the issue at hand is that Naruto runs in Shonen Jump magazine, and it would be a tremendous editorial move to give the manga a shounen-ai ending. I'm not going to say it is completely unlikely, unless all of this has been exaggerated and maybe he was referring that the manga finale will have that subtext. 

Other concern is the NaruHina, which has had very little development, with Hinata pining all these years for Naruto and him being ambiguous about it. 

Related articles

• Kishimoto: "Naruto Manga Is 'Rising Towards Its Climax'"
• Kishimoto: "Naruto has about a year and a half more to go"

Kishimoto: "Naruto has about a year and a half more to go"

Naruto's author Masashi Kishimoto indicated recently in another interview that the anime's character designer, Tetsuya Nishio, once asked him on “How long will this go on…,” and he responded, “About a year and a half more to go.” Even with that said, he still believed that the manga would continue beyond that time span.

So the end is far from over, thankfully for us :)