How did One-Piece crack 100 mill. earlier than DragonBall domestically?

One-Piece in 35 volumes (~7 & a half years) surpassed 100,000,000, where-as DragonBall was stated to have been 105,000,000 when it had 39 volumes out (early 1995-ish?, so about 10 years?). Had sales of about 110,000,000 according to another source by the end of 1995 when the series was finished. Even on the article itself DragonBall only had 120,000,000 by the time the article was published (January 1, 2005) & One-Piece was already at 110 mill.
Comparing the same news-paper sources:

One-Piece was about 55 mill. at the end of 2001 (so about 4 & a half years) with 21 volumes out & DragonBall was about 50 mill. in November 1990 (close to 6 years?) with 23 volumes out.

Weekly-Shounen-Jump supposedly stated that when One-Piece was at 27 volumes that it was about 80,000,000 (over 5 & a half years?), where-as when DragonBall was at 28 volumes at the end of November 1991 (around 7 years) it was also at 80,000,000.

As for first print:
How is this possible? Shouldn't DRAGONBALL reign supreme?

I think it’s a matter of Manga becoming more popular and mainstream than anything else.

DB wasn't even fully translated in the Anglosphere until 2006. Super earning bigger bucks than OP's anime did in 2017 with the main series and Film Gold for Toei despite how lackluster Super is, shows which has always been the bigger franchise with the higher popularity. (Hell, even in 2025 DB is outearning OP despite OP being in its fabled final arc and DB not even having a true main anime due to Daima being a miniseries.)

I don't think even Marineford OP was beating the shit out of other titles in SJ the way DB was doing during the Freeza and Cell arcs.

Fuyuto Takeda: So then, Kondō-san became the editor right around the time the Saiyan arc began. At that time, Dragon Ball was explosively popular; when Jump did a 1000-ballot survey, at its height Dragon Ball got around 700 ballots.

Yū Kondō: No, 815 ballots. That was in the Freeza arc.

Source (well not really but you know): https://www.kanzenshuu.com/intended-end/freeza/

^aaaaaaaaah yessir

The greatest series (& most incredible I believe poll performance) of all-time.

Manga and especially Shounen Jump bigger in the 2000s-2010s because of the success of previous ones like DBZ? Though, Naruto didn't sell close to as highly, needing around 50 volumes to pass 100M.

Many parents of 2000s kids grew up watching/reading DB. Parents of DB-era kids grew up in the 50s-60s, when manga wasn't as big yet. They probably played with chalk and marbles and were too busy walking to school uphill both ways through a volcanic eruption in a blizzard hurricane, without shoes (they couldn't afford shoes. They could only afford shoelaces. They couldn't afford gloves either, so they wrapped the shoelaces around their hands as gloves. But then they had to stop doing that, because they needed to use the shoelace to tie 20kg of coal to their back during their 6 mile walk to school, so they could heat the classroom in the -80C weather - plus they had no roof, no chairs or whiteboard - they had to sit on a block of ice and copy the notes from the teacher's block of ice before it melted (cuz the heat from the coal melted 10 words every 5 seconds. But they still wrote with perfect handwriting, of course. And Jimmy, this is why you gotta eat your broccoli! When we were kids veggies didn't even exist - we had to eat raw, untrimmed cactus for vitamins!).
It's like how millenial parents are more likely to show their kids video games, compared to Gen X parents, and Gen X parents more likely than pre-Gen X parents.

More nerdy kids than in the 80s-90s. DB had to compete with going outdoors.

I have to consider whether this plays a role (female readership) https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/ne...g-for-japanese-girls-is-cite-shonen-jump/cite

Weekly-Shōnen-Jump readership decreased from the DragonBall era. That was the peak (something like 6 million IIRC), so whilst I’m not sure about manga in-general I don’t think One-Piece is able to say it had bigger readership audience to help it in popularity or sales. There was a while after DragonBall/Slam-Dunk ended when WSJ wasn’t even the #1 magazine anymore, it only picked back-up to no. 1 status after One-Piece (& Naruto & series like that came-on).

Also One-Piece Film Red was head & shoulders above any DragonBall movie ever released.

Maybe it’s fair to say DragonBall (every facet except manga) is the bigger franchise & One-Piece is the bigger manga. I still find that hard to be since DragonBall should reign supreme, right?

Also this is domestic of-course.

I also found this. Published January 1st, 2015. A graph showing One-Piece's sales through-out the years up-to that point. This is from the Asahi Shimbun. The article in the OP is Yomiuri Shimbun. Interestlingly this states One-Piece surpassed 100,000,000 on February 2005 (vol. 36?) & reached 112,000,000 by the end of the year. The official Baron-Omatsuri web-site also stated that One-Piece surpassed 100,000,000 in early 2005.
btw @Warmmedown wasn't there something about Japan for like since the 80s that the birth-rate has been going-down & even population now. I just thought I'd say that to what you said.
Also were Naruto's number domestic?

I checked japo population before replying to see if that could be the cause of higher sales, and it's quite stable (like 1 million more than) since the 80s or 90s. But I didnt check the population pyramid. I guess with the low birth rate the number of 8-25 year olds (typical shounen readership) is down, since it's older people living longer that's keeping the population level stable.

I dunno if Naruto was domestic. If it was global, that's even worse for Naruto/puts OP even further ahead of its contemporaries.