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USA Today Booklist, November 9-15: Fruits Basket 21

In its first full week of release, volume 21 of Natsuki Takaya's Fruits Basket, published by Tokyopop, immediately made a strong sales impact. It debuted at #59 on the USA Today newspaper's list of the top 150 bestselling books for the week of November 9 to November 15. Its previous volume entered the list at #63 during the week of June 30 to July 6, and lasted as a best-seller for three weeks. Volume 32 of Masashi Kishimoto's Naruto (Viz Media) is also continuing to sell fairly strongly, although it has gone down from last week's #51 position to #67. In any case, this is the first time in a full two months that two different manga books are both selling well enough to be make the list.

Unfortunately for Tokyopop, however, Fruits Basket's next volume is not due to be published until March of next year, and there are only two more left in the series. Viz, on the other hand, recently unveiled plans to significantly accelerate its own release schedule, and bring out a full 12 more Naruto volumes by April 2009.