This post is also available in:
Français (French) 
Deutsch (German) 
Italiano (Italian) 
Español (Spanish)
In 2023, we established the richest mangakas, and more recently wrote about the list of best-selling manga in 2024, but as the manga industry evolves so rapidly, we knew we’d have to update this list in particular after a while. Well, that time has come.
Indeed, at this year’s NYCC, Japanese publisher Kadokawa presented a detailed analysis of mangaka’s average earnings in terms of royalties on sales. Thanks to this information, manga fans can now roughly estimate the net worth of their favorite artists.
At Kadokawa’s “World Wordless Manga Contest” panel, it was revealed that the royalty percentage for most mangakas is 10%. As the average price of a tankoban is around 500 yen (~4 USD), artists receive around 50 yen (~0.40 USD) per copy sold. So, for every million copies sold, the mangaka earns around 50 million yen (or 326,266.40 USD).
With this data, X (formerly Twitter) user @debaoki was able to estimate the 10 “richest” mangakas in the history of Japanese manga, although he points out that his calculations are “simple and approximate” and do not take into account price variations for foreign sales.
Eiichiro Oda still in first place in 2024
Ranking of the Richest Mangakas to date, based on data :
- Eiichiro Oda – USD 206,640,000
- Duo Fujiko F. Fujio – 120 000 000 USD
- Takao Saito – USD 1,200,000,000
- Akira Toriyama – USD 118,000,000
- Gosho Aoyama – USD 114,800,000
- Takehiko Inoue – USD 113,200,000
- Masashi Kishimoto – USD 100,000,000
- Rumiko Takahashi – USD 92,000,000
- Mitsuru Adachi – USD 72,000,000
- Osamu Tezuka – USD 67,064,000
Unsurprisingly, One Piece creator Eiichiro Oda tops @Debaoki‘s list. With over 516.6 million copies sold, One Piece remains the world’s best-selling manga series as of August 2022.
The Fujiko F. Fujio duo, known for their comic sci-fi series Doraemon, also ranks high, with over 300 million copies in circulation worldwide. Doraemon, which first appeared in 1969, has evolved into a multimedia phenomenon with films, TV series and video games.
The late Akira Toriyama is the beloved creator of the Dragon Ball series, which has sold over 260 million copies worldwide. Despite the artist’s passing, the franchise continues thanks to the work of Toyotarou, who is Toriyama’s official successor for Dragon Ball Super.
As for Gosho Aoyama, Takehiko Inoue and Masashi Kishimoto, they are respectively known for Detective Conan, Slam Dunk and Naruto. The latter still enjoys great popularity thanks to its latest installment, Boruto: Two Blue Vortex, launched in August 2023.
Rumiko Takahashi has produced several bestsellers, including Urusei Yatsura, Maison Ikkoku and Inuyasha. Recently, her romantic comedy Ranma 1/2 was adapted into an animated series by the MAPPA(Jujutsu Kaisen) studio.
Mitsuru Adachi rose to fame with Touch, a moving sports drama about a young man who turns to baseball to honor his late brother’s dream.
Finally, Osamu Tezuka, widely known as the “Father of Manga”, is a legend in Japan for works such as Kimba the White Lion, Black Jack and Phoenix. His classic science-fiction series Astro Boy remains his best-selling work, with over 100 million copies in circulation worldwide.
