Publisher Shinchosha said 500,000 copies would hit bookstores on the first day of sales in Japan and 200,000 more copies would be printed this month. Television images showed 30 people in line outside one Tokyo bookstore.
"I've been waiting for today. I am dying to know whether the two characters will finally stay together," said Kayoko Takeuchi, a 35-year-old office worker, at Tokyo's Yaesu book center in a business district. She stopped by the bookstore during her lunch break.
A Shinchosha spokesman said demand for the book was amazing. "We heard that one bookstore sold 100 copies in just one hour," Takashi Machii said.
Like many of Murakami's previous bestsellers, "1Q84" is a complex and surreal narrative. The story shifts between two characters, a young Japanese man and woman who knew each other as schoolmates but parted. He, an aspiring novelist, and she, a sports instructor and an assassin, are now searching for each other.
The second volume of "1Q84" -- which can be read as the year "1984" in Japanese -- ended with the man and woman finally close to seeing each other. The novel explores social and emotional issues such as cult religion, violence, family ties and love.
Kanji Otsuka, a 51-year-old businessman at a pharmaceutical company, said he has read almost all of Murakami's works, and "1Q84" is among his favorites.
