The MSRP thread / Price patterns of Japanese releases

[HitokiriShadow]

I thought it would be nice to have a place to go to see total MSRPs of shows for the sake of comparisons and potentially seeing patterns. Though I'm not sure how best to arrange it. For the moment I'm just compiling data from posts I've made in other forums.

I thought about doing this first when I was trying to show how prices of Fate/Zero and Durarara compared to other box sets and the price of buying shows in singles. And earlier today, I noticed something interesting as I was inputting data into my spreadsheet for my imports for this season: that I was paying significantly less for 2 episode volumes than I had for most other shows. I'm importing three shows this season, more than I have in any other season, and somehow they're ALL significantly cheaper than shows from past years. And this is just after Quarkboy posted a thread about lowering the prices of releases on Fandom Post. (http://www.fandompost.com/oldforums/showthread.php?8922-Should-Japanese-Otaku-Boycott-High-Priced-Anime-Goods-for-the-Greater-Good)


2 Cour Initial Releases:
Idolmaster: 9 volumes/v1:7140, v2-9:8190 = 72,660
Hanasaku Iroha: 9 volumes/v1-8:8,190, v9: 6,615 = 72,135
Mirai Nikki: 9 volumes/v1:6720, v2-9:7,770 = 68,880
Shakugan no Shana III: 8 volumes/7875 each = 63,000
Last Exile: Fam of the Silverwing: 7 volumes/8980 each = 62,860
Hayate no Gotoku!! (9 volumes/25 episodes): 62,580
To Aru Kagaku no Railgun (8 volumes/24 episodes): 60,000

Winter 2012
Auqarion Evol (9 volumes/26 episodes): 72,660
Mouretsu Pirates: 7 volumes/v1:6300, v2-7:6615 = 45,990







1 Cour Initial Releases:
Bakemonogatari (6 volumes/15 episodes): 47,250
Dance in the Vampire Bund (6 volumes/12 episodes): 40,800
OreImo (8 volumes/16 episodes): 58,800 (44,100 for just 6 volumes/12 episodes)
Madoka Magica (6 volumes/12 episodes): 44,100
Hourou Musuko (6 volumes/12 episodes): 40,950

A Channel (6 volumes/12 episodes): 44100

Working!!: 7 volumes/v1:4200, v2-7:7350 = 48,300
Horizon in the Middle of Nowhere: 7 volumes/v1:5040, v2-7:7140 = 47,880
Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai: 6 volumes/7,350 each = 44,100
C3 Cubed x Cursed x Curious: 6 volumes/6825 each = 40,950

Winter 2012
Inu x Boku SS (7 volumes/13 episodes): 47,040
High School DxD: 6 volumes/7350 each = 44,100
Zero no Tsukaima F: 6 volumes/7140 each = 42,840
Kill Me, Baby (6 volumes/12? episodes): 41,160
Amagami SS+ (6 volumes/12 episodes): 40,950
Nisemonogatari (5 volumes/11 episodes): 37,800
Ano Natsu de Matteru (6 volumes/12? episodes): 39,900
Senki Zesshou Symphogear (6 volumes/13 episodes): 38,850
Rinne no Lagrange (6 volumes/12 episodes): 37,800
Papa no Iu o Kikinasai (5 volumes/13 episodes): 36,225



Black Rock Shooter (Set/8 episodes): 29,400
Black Rock shooter (4 volumes/8 episodes): 25,200

Spring 2012:
Kore wa Zombie Desuka (6 volumes/12 episodes assumed): 47,180

Sasameki Koto, the only DVD release I've imported: 6 volumes/13 episodes: 37,590





2 cour BD sets (previously released on DVD)
Clannad: 62,580 each
Kannon: 62,580
Saki: 48,000
Maburaho: 40,950
Toradora: 39,900
Haruhi Suzumiya: 39,900
Lucky Star: 39,900
Last Exile: 36,800
Shakugan no Shana: 31,500
Mai HiME: 30,450
Mai Otome: 30,450
Berserk: 26,250

1 cour BD sets (previously released on DVD)
Strike Witches: 36,750 each
Bakemonogatari: 29,400
Kannagi: 29400
Omamori Himari: 28,350
Sora no Otoshimono: 28, 350
Goshuushou-sama Ninomiya-kun: 28,350
Eden of the East: 26,250
Paranoia Agent: 26,250
Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei (season 3): 26,040
Zero no Tsukaima: 24,150 each
Sayonara Zetsubou (season 2): 23,940
Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei (first season): 19,740

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Yes, this list is in serious need of better formatting and being arranged better. Not to mention more information. As I find free time, I'll try to find data for more shows for seasonal initial releases and arrange them by season. I'm not sure whether to arrange them under each season heading alphabetically or by price. For the time being, I'm just arranging re-release sets by price.

The formatting for the show data is inconsistent because its taken from two different posts and I didn't feel like changing anything until I had input from others on how they might best be formatted.

[HitokiriShadow]

Reserved for future use

[HitokiriShadow]

Reserved for future use.

[something]

I was able to mess around with my sales data spreadsheet and extract some information, which might help you get started:

Link: Anime DVD&BD MSRPs as of 2012-02-14.xls (http://dl.dropbox.com/u/31857183/Anime%20DVD%26BD%20MSRPs%20as%20of%202012-02-14.xls)

Spreadsheet includes:
- Data points are Title, Vol #, Format, Release date, Season, Year, Total volumes, MSRP (tax inc.)
- 421 TV anime mostly between Winter 2008 and Fall 2011 (Winter 2012 not added to spreadsheet yet). There are only 65 from before 2008, since I've only gone earlier than that for shows with later sequels or that are on the 10k+ list.
- Mostly everything except kids' shows (e.g. Bakugan, Jewel Pet), or really long shows (e.g. One Piece, Fairy Tail) or stuff I don't really think of when I talk about anime (e.g. fully 3DCG stuff) is included. Basically whatever I track sales for.
- Some ongoing shows don't have all their volumes or MSRPs solicited yet, be careful to weed those out.
- Some REs do rank, but I left them out because summing the LE and RE for the same volume messes up the MSRP calculation, and there were only like 15-20 total ranking REs.
- Princess Lover is a weird one, it had an RE (unranked) and two types of LEs, a "Collector's Edition" and an even more expensive "Celeb Edition", and sales were fairly evenly split among them. You'll want to sort that one out manually.
- I have undoubtedly made typos. It's not perfect. For a handful of ongoing releases I may have guessed at final disc count.

I have no idea how familiar you are or are not with Excel or other spreadsheet programs, but I'd recommend downloading it into one of those and using filters to get to what you want (autofilters are nice). You can filter on "-" in the "Vol" column to restrict to totals only (or sort on "DVD Total" and "BD Total" in the Format column).

Main things it doesn't include that would be useful to you are episode/cour counts, which would help you categorize them in terms of ¥/ep or something like that.

Also, I recommend http://forest.kinokuniya.co.jp for looking up pricing information. They don't delist items when they go out of print, and they list the MSRP and release date for everything. I haven't found a better source for looking up old MSRPs. Amazon is no good because they either delist old things completely or remove the price when they run out of stock.

Only annoyances with Kinokuniya are you can't (to my knowledge) do a strict "title-only" search so if you try searching for something like 涼宮ハルヒ you'll get a shitload of results because every release that's ever involved someone who worked on Haruhi mentions that somewhere in its product description...

Oh and the filter to sort by release date is 新着順.

(Hopefully I'm not replying before you've got all your placeholders in.)


Edit: I added BD boxes to the spreadsheet.
- 71 series that got re-release BD boxes.
- If you see multiple entries that means the show was released in multiple parts.
- Oh and Strike Witches is listed twice intentionally, it got two printings.

[HitokiriShadow]

Link: Anime DVD&BD MSRPs as of 2012-02-14.xls (http://dl.dropbox.com/u/31857183/Anime%20DVD%26BD%20MSRPs%20as%20of%202012-02-14.xls)

Spreadsheet includes:
- Data points are Title, Vol #, Format, Release date, Season, Year, Total volumes, MSRP (tax inc.)
- 421 TV anime mostly between Winter 2008 and Fall 2011 (Winter 2012 not added to spreadsheet yet). There are only 65 from before 2008, since I've only gone earlier than that for shows with later sequels or that are on the 10k+ list.

Thanks, that will help a lot. Even having easy access to data back to 2008 will remove a lot of work. I think its only in the last year or so that the threads included the volume MSRP information in them. I haven't decided how far back I even want to go yet. I guess I'll see how hard it is to get that pre-2008 data for 2007 and 2006 and see if it feels like its even worth going back farther.



- Mostly everything except kids' shows (e.g. Bakugan, Jewel Pet), or really long shows (e.g. One Piece, Fairy Tail) or stuff I don't really think of when I talk about anime (e.g. fully 3DCG stuff) is included. Basically whatever I track sales for.Yeah, I don't think there's any point in including those. I'm iffy on even including shows that go more than two cour at once but I should at least make an exception for Gundam.

- Some ongoing shows don't have all their volumes or MSRPs solicited yet, be careful to weed those out.Yeah, I'm trying to note when I'm estimating and working under assumptions of what remaining volumes will be priced at.

- Some REs do rank, but I left them out because summing the LE and RE for the same volume messes up the MSRP calculation, and there were only like 15-20 total ranking REs.I'm just going with the LE prices, since that's what people almost always buy, unless its a really weird situation like Idolmaster. In that case, the LE bundles are so far outside the norm that its not useful for comparison purposes. I should probably include price ranges in parentheses when you have situations like that.

Princess Lover is a weird one, it had an RE (unranked) and two types of LEs, a "Collector's Edition" and an even more expensive "Celeb Edition", and sales were fairly evenly split among them. You'll want to sort that one out manually.Sounds like something akin to the Im@s situation. I'll use the lower one for comparison purposes and put the higher price in parentheses next to it.

I have no idea how familiar you are or are not with Excel or other spreadsheet programs, but I'd recommend downloading it into one of those and using filters to get to what you want (autofilters are nice). You can filter on "-" in the "Vol" column to restrict to totals only (or sort on "DVD Total" and "BD Total" in the Format column).I use Excel for my personal R2 data, but the most complicated thing I do with it is "=SUM(X#:Y#)" to total some things. What little I ever knew beyond that I've long forgotten due to not using it. I don't know what autofilters are. :sd: It probably would be a lot easier to make this chart in Excel and then put it online like Draneor did for the AoD Importer's Project.

Main things it doesn't include that would be useful to you are episode/cour counts, which would help you categorize them in terms of ¥/ep or something like that.Episode/cour counts will be easy enough to figure out. In the few cases I don't know/remember, I can look it up. Oh, right, the actual episode/disc count would be a bit harder, but probably not too much.

Also, I recommend http://forest.kinokuniya.co.jp for looking up pricing information.Will do, thank you.

Amazon is no good because they either delist old things completely or remove the price when they run out of stock.Yeah, I've already run into that problem when I was just trying to get MSRP for Bakemonogatari for my own personal data earlier.

Only annoyances with Kinokuniya are you can't (to my knowledge) do a strict "title-only" search so if you try searching for something like 涼宮ハルヒ you'll get a shitload of results because every release that's ever involved someone who worked on Haruhi mentions that somewhere in its product description...

Oh and the filter to sort by release date is 新着順.Oh, that's going to be fun. I think I might see how searching "title + DVD/Blu-ray" in Google works out. Or if that fails, see if using ANN to get the official sites works decently well. Should work fine for shows from the last few years, but I'm not so sure on those pre-2008 shows.

(Hopefully I'm not replying before you've got all your placeholders in.)No, you're fine. And if I took that long of a break making them (when AoD wasn't being an obnoxious piece of shit and taking over a minute to load a page or just being inaccessible for varying periods of time) then I wouldn't have room to complain anyway.

[HitokiriShadow]

Edit: I added BD boxes to the spreadsheet.
- 71 series that got re-release BD boxes.
- If you see multiple entries that means the show was released in multiple parts.
- Oh and Strike Witches is listed twice intentionally, it got two printings.

Somehow, adding that data made the filesize almost five times bigger. The first version I downloaded was 630 KB and the new one is 3.0 MB.

[something]

Somehow, adding that data made the filesize almost five times bigger. The first version I downloaded was 630 KB and the new one is 3.0 MB.
Ah, yeah, older versions of Excel like to bloat the filesize if you copy/paste a whole column, even if most of the cells are blank... should be back down to a sensible size now (showing 637k for me), in case anyone else wants to dl it.

I really want to upgrade to Excel 2010 (have it at work, it's nice) but have a hard time justifying $120+ for a couple spreadsheets. :sd: The pricing on that is obscene.

[something]

Oh, that's going to be fun. I think I might see how searching "title + DVD/Blu-ray" in Google works out. Or if that fails, see if using ANN to get the official sites works decently well. Should work fine for shows from the last few years, but I'm not so sure on those pre-2008 shows.
Kinokuniya is still probably the fastest way, it's only very popular titles where you have that problem, and if you sort by date you can find them a few pages back most likely (in less time than it would take to load up official sites and deal with their generally incomplete and badly formatted information). I tried various other methods btu ended up just using Kinokuniya much of the time.

[MRlinky]

I'm willing to help you guys out if needed. I was a stats major in college and can work those spreadsheets. I've never undertaken something this vast, but have catalogued domestic lists like Bandai Visual USA and Aniplex of America.

[Damius]

This will be really interesting to look at when the work will be done! Sure pick my curiosity! This sure is really appreciate.

[HitokiriShadow]

This will be really interesting to look at when the work will be done! Sure pick my curiosity! This sure is really appreciate.

Just FYI, this is going to be slow. Don't expect anything further until at least next week and that will probably just be for 2011.

[HitokiriShadow]

I'm willing to help you guys out if needed. I was a stats major in college and can work those spreadsheets. I've never undertaken something this vast, but have catalogued domestic lists like Bandai Visual USA and Aniplex of America.

I'll keep that in mind. I'll at least take care of the last few years myself. While I'm doing that, I'll figure out exactly how I want to format it and handle certain situations.

[Damius]

This will be really interesting to look at when the work will be done! Sure pick my curiosity! This sure is really appreciate.

Just FYI, this is going to be slow. Don't expect anything further until at least next week and that will probably just be for 2011.

Oh, I sure don't expect anything soon. You can take as much time as you need. Sorry if I sounded like I wanted anything soon. Was not my intention at all.

[alexd00]

Amazon is no good because they either delist old things completely or remove the price when they run out of stock.Yeah, I've already run into that problem when I was just trying to get MSRP for Bakemonogatari for my own personal data earlier.

I figured this out when I was putting together my artbook/photobook purchase log earlier this year, but you can see the MSRP on Am.jp if you go to the "alternative purchasing options" screen (i.e. buying from other sellers). Amazon will list the MSRP w/ tax (crossed-out, but easy to read) in a little box to compare against the "new", "used" & "collectible" prices.

[something]

Decided to take a look back at the last four seasons of purchases(including all potential Winter imports) and see how things have gone for me.

Winter 2012 (potential imports)
¥3618/ep (1 cour, 13 ep, ¥*47040) - Inu x Boku SS
¥3436/ep (1 cour, 11 ep, ¥*37800) - Nisemonogatari
¥3325/ep (1 cour, 12 ep, ¥*39900) - Ano Natsu de Matteru
¥3150/ep (1 cour, 12 ep, ¥*37800) - Rinne no Lagrange (1st cour only, split cour)
¥2787/ep (1 cour, 13 ep, ¥*36225) - Papa no Iu Koto wo Kikinasai! (1st cour only, possibly split cour?)
¥2746/ep (1 cour, 13 ep, ¥*35700) - Natsume Yuujin-chou Shi
¥1849/ep (2 cour, 26 ep, ¥*48090) - Mouretsu Pirates
Totals: ¥2,826/ep, 8 cour, 100 eps, ¥282,555 MSRP

Fall 2011
¥3796/ep (1 cour, 13 ep, ¥*49350) - Tamayura ~hitotose~
¥3715/ep (1 cour, 13 ep, ¥*48300) - Working'!!
¥3675/ep (1 cour, 13 ep, ¥*44100) - Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai
¥3570/ep (1 cour, 13 ep, ¥*42840) - Shinryaku!? Ikamusume
¥2625/ep (2 cour, 24 ep, ¥*63000) - Shakugan no Shana III
Totals: ¥3,258/ep, 6 cour, 76 eps, ¥247,590 MSRP

Summer 2011
¥3715/ep (1 cour, 13 ep, ¥*42840) - Yuru Yuri
¥2794/ep (2 cour, 26 ep, ¥*72660) - The iDOLM@STER
¥2746/ep (1 cour, 13 ep, ¥*35700) - Natsume Yuujin-chou San
¥2376/ep (1 cour, 11 ep, ¥*26145) - Usagi Drop
Totals: ¥2,815/ep, 5 cour, 63 eps, ¥177,345 MSRP

Spring 2011
¥3990/ep (2 cour, 26 ep, ¥103740) - Nichijou
¥3860/ep (1 cour, 13 ep, ¥*50190) - Denpa Onna to Seishun Otoko
¥3722/ep (1 cour, 11 ep, ¥*40950) - Ano Hi Mita Hana no Namae wo Bokutachi wa Mada Shiranai
¥3392/ep (1 cour, 13 ep, ¥*44100) - Dog Days
¥3041/ep (2 cour, 25 ep, ¥*76020) - Steins;Gate
Totals: ¥3,580/ep, 7 cour, 88 eps, ¥315,000 MSRP


Totals for all three seasons: ¥3,127/ep, 26 cour, 327 eps, ¥1,022,490 MSRP

- All eps are standard length, and BD-only eps are included in ep count.
- I actually bought the Vol.1+game bundle for iM@S, not the v1 standalone, but that would skew it too much, so I'm using the standalone BD price.
- Mouretsu is shockingly cheap for anime. It better get good sales if that's all they're charging per episode. Even Usagi Drop is considerably more expensive.
- Well, no surprise Nichijou is the most expensive. I could get almost four cour of Winter anime (Mouretsu, Natsume, PapaKiki) for only about ¥16k more than two cour of Nichijou. Still cheaper than ¥9240*6 releases like Strike Witches 2 or KoreZom though. Fuckin' Kadokawa.
- But I didn't realize Denpa and Tamayura were second and third. I knew they both pulled the "7 discs for 13 eps" thing but damn, Denpa v7 was hardly discounted at all despite having one ep. Denpa is not all that much cheaper per ep than Nichijou. And hell, AnoHana was over the ¥3700 mark too. It would have been highest of summer, 2nd in Fall and highest in Winter. Spring was damn expensive.

What this really shows me is that I shouldn't even have to think twice about importing all seven Winter shows. It would cost a good deal less than I paid last Spring for two less shows and one less cour overall. Hell I could buy an 8th and pay almost the same (albeit way more in S&H). And it's not all that much more than Fall which was two shows and two cour less. Mouretsu being a good ¥200-250k cheaper than you'd normally expect certainly makes this possible.

Well. This was pretty eye-opening for me. Guess I'll be importing all seven so long as they stay good. If I skip any now, it'll be because I stopped liking them as much, not because of money.

[something]

Time to take a look at my Spring imports and my potential Summer imports, to see how they compare to previous seasons.

Summer 2012 - tentative list
¥3570/ep (1 cour, 12 ep, ¥*42840) - Yuru Yuri
¥3570/ep (1 cour, 12 ep, ¥*42840) - Jinrui wa Suitai Shimashita
¥3392/ep (1 cour, 13 ep, ¥*44100) - Dog Days [?]
¥3150/ep (1 cour, 12 ep, ¥*37800) - Rinne no Lagrange S2
¥3057/ep (1 cour, 17 ep, ¥*51975) - Kokoro Connect
¥2795/ep (2 cour, 26 ep, ¥*72660) - Sword Art Online [?]
Totals: ¥3,176/ep, 7 cour, 92 eps, ¥292,215 MSRP

Spring 2012
¥3752/ep (1 cour, 15 ep, ¥*56280) - Saki Achiga-hen [?]
¥3675/ep (2 cour, 22 ep, ¥*80850) - Hyouka
¥3448/ep (1 cour, 12 ep, ¥*41370) - Acchi Kocchi
Totals: ¥3,643/ep, 4 cour, 49 eps, ¥178,500 MSRP

[?] Guesses for incompletely solicited series. I'm making the following assumptions:
- DD' will copy season one.
- Saki is 8 discs with Vol. 7 at ¥7140 and Vol. 8 at about ¥6300 with one episode. Probably less in reality, but I'll estimate high end for now.
- SAO should be 9 discs, Vol. 1 ¥7140 and Vol. 2-9 ¥8190 for 26 eps. Idolmaster release, basically.

This spring was even worse than last spring for per episode cost, making it the worst of the 6 most recent seasons, possibly worst since I've started importing. Even if my Saki estimate is slightly high, it's still 14 less episodes than Summer '11 for the same cost. And since my goal is just to stay under ¥300,000 MSRP, I guess I can do all 6 Summer shows if they're all good enough.

And thanks to Mouretsu's pricing I was able to get 10 extra episodes out of Winter vs Spring, for the same cost... ah well.


Previous four seasons:
Winter 2012
¥3618/ep (1 cour, 13 ep, ¥*47040) - Inu x Boku SS
¥3436/ep (1 cour, 11 ep, ¥*37800) - Nisemonogatari
¥3325/ep (1 cour, 12 ep, ¥*39900) - Ano Natsu de Matteru
¥3150/ep (1 cour, 12 ep, ¥*37800) - Rinne no Lagrange S1
¥2787/ep (1 cour, 13 ep, ¥*36225) - Papa no Iu Koto wo Kikinasai!
¥2746/ep (1 cour, 13 ep, ¥*35700) - Natsume Yuujin-chou Shi
¥1849/ep (2 cour, 26 ep, ¥*48090) - Mouretsu Pirates
Totals: ¥2,826/ep, 8 cour, 100 eps, ¥282,555 MSRP

Fall 2011
¥3796/ep (1 cour, 13 ep, ¥*49350) - Tamayura ~hitotose~
¥3715/ep (1 cour, 13 ep, ¥*48300) - Working'!!
¥3675/ep (1 cour, 13 ep, ¥*44100) - Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai
¥3570/ep (1 cour, 13 ep, ¥*42840) - Shinryaku!? Ikamusume
¥2625/ep (2 cour, 24 ep, ¥*63000) - Shakugan no Shana III
Totals: ¥3,258/ep, 6 cour, 76 eps, ¥247,590 MSRP

Summer 2011
¥3570/ep (1 cour, 12 ep, ¥*42840) - Yuru Yuri
¥2795/ep (2 cour, 26 ep, ¥*72660) - The iDOLM@STER
¥2746/ep (1 cour, 13 ep, ¥*35700) - Natsume Yuujin-chou San
¥2376/ep (1 cour, 11 ep, ¥*26145) - Usagi Drop
Totals: ¥2,860/ep, 5 cour, 62 eps, ¥177,345 MSRP

Spring 2011
¥3990/ep (2 cour, 26 ep, ¥103740) - Nichijou
¥3860/ep (1 cour, 13 ep, ¥*50190) - Denpa Onna to Seishun Otoko
¥3722/ep (1 cour, 11 ep, ¥*40950) - Ano Hi Mita Hana no Namae wo Bokutachi wa Mada Shiranai
¥3392/ep (1 cour, 13 ep, ¥*44100) - Dog Days
¥3041/ep (2 cour, 25 ep, ¥*76020) - Steins;Gate
Totals: ¥3,580/ep, 7 cour, 88 eps, ¥315,000 MSRP