Even though the Chainsaw Man TV anime isn't set to premiere for another week, the manga series continues to do incredibly well, with editor Shihei Lin confirming today that the series has printed (physically) and sold (digitally) over 16 million copies. This number includes the first print run of the 12th volume of the series, which was released into Japanese stores today.

That's an additional 4 million copies of the Chainsaw Man manga added to the statistics since December last year. With the anime about to premiere and introduce the series to millions of new fans, the sales number is expected to grow very quickly. The sky is currently the limit for the franchise.

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Chainsaw Man will premiere on Japanese TV on October 11, with Crunchyroll streaming the anime as it airs in North America, Central America, South America, Europe, Africa, Oceania, the Middle East and CIS. The series is described as such:

Denji is a teenage boy living with a Chainsaw Devil named Pochita. Due to the debt his father left behind, he has been living a rock-bottom life while repaying his debt by harvesting devil corpses with Pochita.
 

One day, Denji is betrayed and killed. As his consciousness fades, he makes a contract with Pochita and gets revived as "Chainsaw Man" — a man with a devil's heart. 

Source: Shihei Lin on Twitter

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Daryl Harding is a Senior Japan Correspondent for Crunchyroll News. He also runs a YouTube channel about Japan stuff called TheDoctorDazza, tweets at @DoctorDazza, and posts photos of his travels on Instagram.