‘Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun,’ ‘[Oshi no Ko]’ Were Yen’s Best-Sellers of 2023

In a video posted on Twitter, Yen Press listed its top selling manga, manhwa, and prose novels of 2023. The publisher released 618 books in 2023, with the most popular genres being fantasy, sci-fi, action/adventure, romance, and horror.

The top five manga and manhwa series were Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun, Solo Leveling, [Oshi no Ko], Bungo Stray Dogs, and Sasaki and Miyano.

Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun has been a best-seller for years (see “Top Manga Franchises – Spring 2023”), as has the manhwa Solo Leveling. The future for the latter title looks even brighter, as the anime premiered on January 6, 2024, on Crunchyroll (see “‘Solo Leveling’ Anime Drop Date”).

The top five new manga and manhwa series of 2023 were [Oshi no Ko], The Summer Hikaru Died, Elden Ring: The Road to the Erdtree, Honey Lemon Soda, and Bocchi the Rock!

The top five novel series were Overlord, Solo Leveling, That Time I Was Reincarnated as a Slime, Bungo Stray Dogs, and So I’m a Spider, So What?

Yen also listed its best-selling individual volumes of 2023 on its website. The top selling title was Vol. 4 of [Oshi no Ko], which was released on November 21, 2023, so it attained its best-seller status based on less than six weeks of sales. The other volumes included [Oshi no Ko], Solo Leveling, Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun, and Bungo Stray Dogs, as well as Vol. 1 of 7FATES: CHAKHO, the manhwa about the K-pop band BTS (see “Yen to Publish Three Graphic Novels Based on K-Pop Groups”). Another late 2023 release, that volume came out at the end of October, so just over two months’ worth of sales put it at number 6 on the best-seller list for the year.

The Top 10 Romance titles were volumes of [Oshi no Ko], Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun, and Villains Are Destined to Die, as well as two of Svetlana Chmakova’s middle-grade graphic novels, Awkward and Enemies.

Eight of the Top 10 LGBTQ titles were Sasaki and Miyano (including a one-shot comics anthology), and the other two were Vol. 1 of Hirano and Kagiura and Vol. 1 of Minato’s Laundromat.

The Top 10 Fantasy titles were more varied, comprising volumes of Solo Leveling, Toilet-Bound Hanako-Kun, 7FATES: CHAKHO, Bungo Stray Dogs, and Villains are Destined to Die, along with Vol. 1 of The Star Seekers, a manhwa with characters based on the K-Pop band Tomorrow x Together. That book came out in November, so its place at number 8 on the chart represents about six weeks’ worth of sales.

Source: ICv2