BREAKING NEWS: Manga Returns to Best Seller List in Japan!

Torico Corporation of Akihabara has just announced their top 20 manga rankings for the period from September 1st-30th of an online store, Mangazenkan! Mangazenkan is a popular online store that sells complete sets of Manga (and from what we can tell, is one of the biggest in Japan). The complete set (except for the two side story volumes) can be purchased for close to $62 USD. And Sailor Moon was their 16th most popular manga in September! While this may only be one store's ranking, we are pretty sure that sales of the manga have gone up around the country (however there are only top ten lists posted, and of course Sailor Moon is not there). Now, the manga has been out of print by Kodansha since 2007. The article makes no mention of how many copies sold (and if we hear any estimates we will keep you posted). However, if the manga has not gone into another reprint (which we are assuming is the case for now since Naoko has locked down the manga rights in Italy), eventually the copies that are sitting in stores and warehouses are going to run out. We can't see Sailor Moon becoming less popular, especially since it is on TV again. And we imagine that if the fans were as vocal about the anime disappearing as ANIMAX made them out to be, they will definitely be more vocal about the manga being difficult to get. So, fingers crossed, the manga could go into another printing if there is enough pressure to loosen Naoko's rumored grip on the rights. But if the manga can get to #16 out of 20 on a large store's best seller list, after years of not being mentioned on the charts, we fully expect to see high rankings for the DVD boxsets when they start release in December!