The U.S. manga market returned to growth in 2025, with comic stores leading the way with faster growth than the book channel, according to numbers reported by Circana BookScan and ComicHub.
Manga sales in comic stores were up 33.1% in 2025, according to POS data from stores using the ComicHub system. The growth came despite distribution challenges, as Diamond Comic Distributors, which had been the primary distributor of manga for many comic stores, declared bankruptcy and then was sold in May. Retailers that weren’t already buying manga through Simon & Schuster, Penguin Random House, and Hachette had to quickly find new sources for key lines to continue the growth.
Manga sales in the book channel in 2025 were up 4.6% in dollars and 8.1% in units, Circana BookScan reported. This was a return to growth after 2024 declines of 13.2% in dollars and 17.1% in units and declines in 2023 as the market corrected after huge surges during the Covid pandemic.
Manga sales trends in 2025 paralleled trends for graphic novels as a whole, which had sales up low single digits in the book channel while graphic novel sales in comic stores were up 28% (see “ICv2 White Paper: Sales Reach New Highs in 2025”).
Robust manga growth in comic stores is predicted to continue, according to a survey of comic retailers conducted by ICv2 in December 2025 and January 2026. Retailers were asked which categories they expected to grow the most in 2026, and the manga category was predicted to grow the most by the largest number of respondents (see “ICv2 White Paper”).
For more great manga features, see “ICv2 Manga Week 2026.”
Source: ICv2
