Most Popular Manga of 2017 (From Kodansha & Viz Through 1 Library Service)
OverDrive, a service to provide digital copies through libraries, has posted their list of the 6 Most Popular Manga Series of last year. Note, though, that they only seem to offer manga from Kodansha and Viz (so leaving out Yen and others), and they are not the only digital library service. (Another I’m familiar with is Hoopla.) It’s also unclear whether this list is ranked or random. (That it nicely alternates between publishers suggests to me it’s “arranged”.) Anyway, I thought it was interesting to see which series are the most borrowed digitally.
- To Your Eternity by Yoshitoki Oima (Kodansha Comics) — This one’s hard to describe, but the combination of fantasy reincarnation and epic survival has really caught on.
- Tokyo Ghoul by Sui Ishida (VIZ Media) — Horror romance has been a popular manga genre for a while now.
- Land of the Lustrous by Haruko Ichikawa (Kodansha Comics) — I’ve heard this pretty but hard to follow.
- Golden Kamuy by Satoru Noda (VIZ Media) — The only mature title on this list, as the others are for teens and up. A gripping story of historical survival with cross-culture friendship.
- Descending Stories by Haruko Kumota (Kodansha Comics) — An excellent read, my favorite of the group, about pursuing an obscure art form.
- Assassination Classroom by Yusei Matsui (VIZ Media) — Kids taught to kill, always of interest to adolescent readers.