Good news for anime fans across the United States: The 21st installment of the popular My Hero Academia franchise has landed in the No. 3 spot of the November New York Times best-sellers list for graphic novels and manga. It is the first manga series to crack the top three following the list's reinstatement last month.
The Times brought back the rankings for illustrated content on October 2, more than two years after pulling it from publication in February 2017. According to tech and science fiction site Gizmodo, the newspaper had first introduced the list as an "experiment" in 2009. It was printed for eight years before being eliminated from both the print and online editions "to make room for other content."
"We are thrilled to bring back to our readers graphic books and mass market best-sellers as two monthly best-seller lists," said New York Times Book Review editor Pamela Paul, according to a press release issued by the newspaper in September. "Our new monthly graphic books list combines the format as it exists across all platforms—hardcover, paperback and digital—in order to represent the range of ways in which publishers create and people of all ages read these books. And readers are passionate about the many genres— from horror to romance—represented on the mass market fiction list."
As a writer of graphic books this makes me EXTREMELY HAPPY.
— Amalia Andrade A. (@amaliaandrade_) September 26, 2019
My Hero Academia was one of the 20 most watched series during August and September on the anime streaming site Crunchyroll, according to website CBR.
"The streaming service mentions its global viewer base spends approximately 85 minutes per day watching the various series available through the service," CBR reported last month. "Some older shows have managed to retain high viewership, along with some fairly new animes that premiered their latest seasons in 2019."
The shonen manga–style series is distributed by San Francisco-based manga publisher Viz Media, which describes this latest edition of the series on its website:
"Endeavor and Dabi's battle rages across the city as Endeavor fights to solidify his new position as the number one hero. Hawks provides support, but where do his loyalties really lie? Midoriya experiences a cryptic dream about the past—what secrets do the previous wielders of One for All have to show him? Then Class 1-A's joint battle training with Class B begins."
For those who prefer watching anime to reading manga, fear not. Last month, competing streaming sites Funimation Now and Crunchyroll rolled out the fourth season of My Hero Academia.
The complete series is available to stream for viewers in the U.S., U.K., Canada, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Central America, South America and the Caribbean, and for "premium members" in Iceland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and the Netherlands.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
