Sasuke Retsuden surpasses One Piece on MANGAPlus after chapter 3's release

With the release of the Sasuke Retsuden series’ third chapter earlier today, the Naruto side-story has, for now, surpassed One Piece on Shueisha’s MANGAPlus website. The MANGAPlus website is a free service that grants viewers access to the first and latest three entries in a series, as well as tracking the popularity of various series on their site.

It would seem that, as of this article’s writing, Sasuke Retsuden’s third chapter has been popular enough to surpass One Piece. However, this is before the latter series officially releases their issue for the week, which may change how the rankings look, come Sunday afternoon.

Follow along as this article fully breaks down Sasuke Retsuden’s surpassing One Piece in popularity, and more.

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Sasuke Retsuden’s Saturday release schedule gives it a temporary edge over One Piece in rankings

The latest

With the Sasuke Retsuden series releasing on Saturday, it’s no surprise that the series’ latest issue has vaulted it over a Sunday-releasing series in terms of current site popularity. What remains to be seen is whether One Piece will still play second fiddle to the Naruto side story when the series' 1,067th chapter is released tomorrow morning.

With both series having released their issues for the week, the numbers should equalize, causing the Naruto sidestory to fall back below Shueisha's flagship shonen. However, the sheer accomplishment of knocking Eiichiro Oda’s series down a peg in popularity cannot be understated, even considering the difference in weekly release days.

Part of this success can likely be attributed to the events within the series’ third chapter, which saw Sasuke Uchiha and Sakura Haruno reunite. This seemed to be incredibly popular among fans and readers, causing both individuals to trend on Twitter in the hours after its release. This, in turn, likely alerted more viewers to the release of the issue, spurring them to go read it for free at the MANGAPlus website.

Conversely, while still very exciting, One Piece is in somewhat of a lull right now as it sets up the rest of the Egghead Island arc. While the arc will undoubtedly become extremely exciting in the near future, especially with the arrival of Rob Lucci to the island, it is still in its early stages. As a result, the series may not be as popular among casual readers as it would otherwise be.

Nevertheless, the Sasuke Retsuden series’ latest accolade and how impressive an achievement it is cannot be understated. Even if only temporarily, Naruto fans finally get to say that their series is more popular than Eiichiro Oda’s thousand-issue odyssey.

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