Classroom of the Elite Dominates Official 2025 Rankings Ahead of Season 4 Anime

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With excitement building for Season 4 of the anime in 2026, the original story the anime is based on is proving incredibly popular, topping the sales charts for 2025.

The Classroom of the Elite light novel series has been a huge success in 2025, with three volumes ranking among the year’s top five bestsellers and selling over 290,000 copies. This is especially impressive considering the limited amount of new anime content released this year. Author Shogo Kinugasa has continued the story through the light novels, releasing the first three volumes of the Year 3 sequel in Japan, all of which performed well, with two making the official bestseller list.

Japan Reveals the Top 5 Light Novels of 2025 in Official Ranking

According to Oricon’s official sales data, here are the five best-selling light novel volumes of 2025:

  1. The Apothecary Diaries (Volume 16) – 199,976 copies
  2. That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime (Volume 22) – 130,449 copies
  3. Classroom of the Elite: Year 3 (Volume 1) – 103,509 copies
  4. Classroom of the Elite: Year 2 (Volume 12.5) – 101,651 copies
  5. Classroom of the Elite: Year 3 (Volume 2) – 87,228 copies

The Apothecary Diaries remains incredibly popular, with the 16th volume of Natsu Hyuga’s series reaching No. 1 in the official sales rankings. This follows the success of Volume 15, which was also the top seller last year. This is only the fourth time a series has topped the charts for two years in a row, joining titles like Sword Art Online, your name., and Suzume in achieving this. The series’ sales have been further boosted by the recent anime adaptation from Toho Animation Studio and OLM.

Volume 22 of That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime is the second-to-last book in the series, released in Japan earlier this year in January. Being the only new volume published in Japan so far in 2025, it’s not surprising it’s selling well, as fans are excited to find out how Rimuru’s story ends. The series is now heading towards its conclusion.

As a fan of Classroom of the Elite, I’ve been following the latest releases closely. Seeing Volume 12.5 of Year 2 in the top five is really getting people excited for the upcoming anime adaptation of Year 2. In Japan, fans are already diving into Year 3 – the third volume came out on November 25, 2025, and sold over 3,400 copies in its first week, landing it on the Oricon light novel charts. Unfortunately, those of us outside Japan have a bit of a wait. Seven Seas Entertainment is handling the English releases, and we’ll get Volume 12.5 of Year 2 in January 2026, followed by Volume 1 of Year 3 in May.

Classroom of the Elite takes place at Tokyo Metropolitan Advanced Nurturing High School, a special school created by the government to prepare students to lead Japan in the future. The story focuses on Kiyotaka Ayanokoji, a student in Class D, who uses his intelligence and skills to secretly influence events. The original light novel series has been incredibly popular in Japan, selling over 10 million copies.

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2025-11-29 02:43