Pokémon Officially Loses No. 1 Spot in New 2025 Sales Rankings

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The Pokémon franchise is a massive financial success, having made over US$100 billion worldwide from things like TV shows, movies, and toys. Despite being incredibly popular in anime and gaming, it didn’t become the top-selling franchise of 2025.

Tsutaya, a major bookstore chain with over 1,400 stores across Japan, recently announced its best-selling books of the year, broken down into three categories. The top-selling hardcover book was Volume 3 of Noritake Suzuki’s Big Crisis Picture Book, and it was closely followed by Pokécology: An Illustrated Guide to Pokémon Ecology.

Although both books are popular with young readers, this isn’t reflected in the sales charts, which don’t sort books by genre or age group. Here are the top five bestselling books according to Tsutaya’s general sales rankings.

Pokémon Ranked in Top 5 Book Sales in 2025 (Tsutaya)

  1. Big Crisis Picture Book Vol. 3 — Noritake Suzuki
  2. Pokécology: An Illustrated Guide to Pokémon Ecology
  3. Kafune — Akiko Abe
  4. The Bread Thief and the Sweets Prince — Keiko Shibata
  5. Gain True Freedom: Money University (Revised Edition) — Ryo @President of Liber University

The recent success of author and illustrator Suzuki is clear, as their work is now outselling even Pokémon. Volume 3 of their Big Crisis Picture Book series, which launched in April 2025, has boosted total sales for the series to 2.7 million copies by December 2025.

I’m completely fascinated by this book series! What I love most is that each book isn’t just a story, it actually helps you think through common challenges. Volume 3 is especially brilliant – it ranks problems by how much ‘heedlessness’ caused them. It’s such a clever way to teach kids about making good choices and the consequences of not paying attention – I think it’s a fantastic resource for parents!

Just two months after the release of Big Crisis Picture Book, Pokécology: An Illustrated Guide to Pokémon Ecology offers a fresh look at the Pokémon world by applying real-world scientific ideas. According to The Pokémon Company, the book was created by Yoshinari Yonehara, an expert in animal behavior and ecology from the University of Tokyo.

Yonehara combined information about where Pokémon live (from the Pokédex) with details about their appearances – including different versions of the same Pokémon – to create more realistic behaviors and characteristics. As the site explains, this approach is based on how animals live and behave in the real world.

Most Pokémon publications are video game guides, but Yonehara’s Pokémon Ecology guidebook is different. That makes its ranking as the second best-selling book at Tsutaya in 2025 particularly noteworthy. Typically, Pokémon manga don’t appear on Japan’s bestseller lists.

Pokémon Manga Doesn’t Appear in Japan’s Top 5 Manga of 2025

This year, Tsutaya’s top manga titles were One Piece by Eiichiro Oda, taking first place, and Spy x Family by Tatsuya Endo, in second. Rounding out the top five were The Apothecary Diaries, Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End, and Kingdom, in third, fourth, and fifth place, respectively.

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I recently learned that The Pokémon Company International has set a release date for the English version of Pokécology: An Illustrated Guide to Pokémon Ecology. It’s scheduled to come out in April 2026, which is great news for fans!

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2025-12-23 17:39