English-speaking fans of yuri manga Love Bullet have joined hands to help save the series, which isn't even officially available in English, from cancellation after Japanese creator Inee revealed that sales of its first volume have been slow. The vast majority of these fans can't read Japanese, but they're shelling out for physical and digital volumes as a show of support anyway, rocketing the series up sales charts at major bookstores and earning a gobsmacked thank you from Inee.
If you search for English results of Love Bullet, you'll only find fan-made translations uploaded to sites like Mangadex, which also has a translation of the special chapter that Inee posted to Twitter. "We're in trouble!" it reads. "The sales of volume 1 are struggling!" As Inee focused on promotion in Japan, fans around the world got to work finding ways to support the author directly, fearing that the series would be canceled before it could even get going.
This began with social media pushes across Twitter, Reddit, and other platforms, but as Animehouse reports, soon crystallized into actionable ways to purchase the Japanese volumes. Fans created an entire, multi-page, annotated buying guide to help English fans navigate Japanese stores and purchase Love Bullet. The folks translating this series on Mangadex, and seemingly other similar sites, also advised fans to spread the word and do their part. Behold the power of yuri manga, folks.
This isn't some performative display. At the time of writing, Love Bullet is rank 11 in daily trends and rank 50 in weekly trends on Bookwalker's Japanese young adult manga listings. Suffice it to say, that is not the rank of a series that's struggling, especially a new series. Love Bullet volume 1 is also sold out on CD Japan, one of the more user-friendly Japanese stores for fans looking to import goods. This isn't solely due to an influx of English fans, but there's no questioning that they're doing their part, and even Inee was stunned by the swell of support.
"There are no words to describe how moved I am by the movement of overseas Love Bullet fans to help increase volume sales," the mangaka said on Twitter. "Since the book is in Japanese, I understand that this is a collective "vote of support" for my story, and for that I'm so grateful...! I don't know what the future holds, but I'm going to continue working as hard as I can!"
Love Bullet follows a group of young cupids – girls who become immortal, supernatural matchmakers after living short, loveless lives – who sway hearts using handguns, high-powered rifles, grenade launchers, and other modern weaponry instead of the traditional bow and arrow. Protagonist Koharu is the rookie cupid of the squad, but in the series' first chapter – like the rest of the series, a fun mix of comedy and gunplay wrapped around a hard-hitting premise – manages to match up two girls and simultaneously resolve a love triangle, earning a bit of the cupid karma that may one day see the goddess of love return her to human life.
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