What does 読み切り Yomikiri mean?

Yomikiri is a self-contained story, commonly called a one-shot in manga publishing. A one-shot can be a pilot for a later series, but the two labels describe different things.

The reading in the name

読み切り is read yomikiri. 読 supplies yo within yomi, reading; 切 supplies ki within kiri. Wiktionary derives the noun from yomikiru, to read completely, and records the manga sense of a nonserialized, standalone story. The written name concerns completion, not an assessment of commercial success.

A documented pilot

VIZ's 2013 Naruto Digital Retrospective announcement describes the included Naruto pilot chapter as a one-shot. This is a concrete case in which both labels apply to the same work. It establishes the publisher's classification without requiring an invented comparison of panels or dialogue.

One-shot describes a self-contained publication; pilot describes a relationship to something developed afterward. The VIZ example supports that overlap. It does not establish that every one-shot was intended to secure a serial, or that every pilot reproduces the opening of the eventual series.

A story is not a physical book

A collected volume and a self-contained story are different units. A publication can contain a pilot alongside other material, as the retrospective announcement demonstrates through its list of contents. Conversely, the presence of one physical book is insufficient to identify the story as a one-shot.

The ordinary meaning of manga supplies no answer to those publication questions. A useful comparison names the one-shot, identifies the later work and checks what each contains. The label alone cannot establish that two versions tell identical events or belong to the same continuity.