Anime Sales in Japan - 2010

[Buster Darkwings]

Originally Posted by Draneor

No sign of B-Kata H.

Vol #1 just came out on Friday, so it'll probably be listed next week.

[hissatsu]

Originally Posted by Draneor

The first volume of K-On! sold 29,097 BDs and 3,981 DVDs for a total of 33,078.

For the moment I use the BD/DVD sales ratio as a measure of how "otakucentric" a title is, since otaku have moved so heavily to BD. I think the first season was close to 80% BD. Now it's close to 90%. That's the highest I've seen for something that isn't a re-release with previous DVD releases. I wonder how long it'll be before Japan see its first TV series with with no DVD release, just BD. When they take that gamble I assume it will be something ultra precision targeted at otaku.

[Draneor]

Originally Posted by hissatsu

For the moment I use the BD/DVD sales ratio as a measure of how "otakucentric" a title is, since otaku have moved so heavily to BD.

I see your point, but I'd consider both Angel Beats and K-On! about equally otaku-centric. While Angel Beats did get better ratings in Osaka (including the one week it pulled 4.9%), K-On!! got better ratings over all and was carried on more TV stations (median of 2.0% to 1.1%--range 1.0-2.4% and 0.9-2.2% respectively). That's why I suspect the age of the audience may be a factor. I'd think older fans would be more likely to buy BDs than younger ones.

[hissatsu]

Originally Posted by Draneor

I see your point, but I'd consider both Angel Beats and K-On! about equally otaku-centric. While Angel Beats did get better ratings in Osaka (including the one week it pulled 4.9%), K-On!! got better ratings over all and was carried on more TV stations (median of 2.0% to 1.1%--range 1.0-2.4% and 0.9-2.2% respectively). That's why I suspect the age of the audience may be a factor. I'd think older fans would be more likely to buy BDs than younger ones.

Perhaps it's because I don't really think of teenagers as otaku. In my mind otaku have kept watching and buying anime past the point where it's socially acceptable to do so. So I don't really think of kids in high school as otaku. Maybe as otaku embryos.

[Draneor]

Originally Posted by hissatsu

In my mind otaku have kept watching and buying anime past the point where it's socially acceptable to do so.

Point taken. Although, it's really hard for me to consider an anime produced by ASCII Media Works and Key as less otaku-centric than K-On!!. K-On!!, certainly, draws a wider casual audience (see ratings and merchandise sales).

[relentlessflame]

Originally Posted by Draneor

The first volume of K-On! sold 29,097 BDs and 3,981 DVDs for a total of 33,078. Comparatively, the first volume of Angel Beats sold 23,000 BDs and 11,360 DVDs for a total of ~34,000. So basically they tied. K-On! attracts an older audience than AB so I wonder if that's the reason for the poor DVD sales.

It's probably because, as with the first season, there is no Limited Edition DVD for K-On, only the Regular Edition that "no one buys". For Angel Beats (and most other shows), there is a Limited Edition DVD that matches the LE Blu-Ray. Based on the fact that the first season of K-On was marketed in the same way, most of the target purchasing audience probably already made the switch to BD.

[something]

http://yunakiti.blog79.fc2.com/blog-entry-6084.html

Posting about the full list here, because it's the 7/26-8/01 week's data, not the 8/09 week's data. So B-Gata isn't even out for this list. Just want to keep it in the right release week subthread, because I do go back to these to check information pretty regularly and I'd never think to look at 8.09 for this.

So, overall a lot less K-ON!! sold than the first season did (I can't remember what first week ! sales were but I'm thinking over 40k). But as mentioned elsewhere in this thread it doesn't particularly matter much because it's moving tens of millions of dollars of everything else. And 33k is hardly a low number. I'm guessing it'll end up around 37k.

And it's 88% BD sales. The original did have a 4:1 or 6:1 ratio depending on the volume but we've topped even that. This is almost 9:1.

It does look like K-ON! will stay behind Angel Beats! for Spring rankings, because I doubt it'll add another 7K before it falls out of the rankings after next week.

After two weeks, Angel Beats! vol. 2 is doing 34,367.

And Bake is Bake.

Spring Vol 1 sales list updated. Next rankings will give us B-Gata and Koihime 3, which are the last of the otaku anime for this season. after that, Heroman, Yojouhan and Rainbow.

[something]

Originally Posted by hissatsu

For the moment I use the BD/DVD sales ratio as a measure of how "otakucentric" a title is, since otaku have moved so heavily to BD.

Think it also depends on how otakucentric the release is too. If I read right, weren't almost all the extras on the BD? Thought the DVD was supposed to be pretty bare.

I think the first season was close to 80% BD. Now it's close to 90%.

S1 Vol. 1 - 79.4% BD
S1 Vol. 2 - 82.1% BD
S1 Vol. 3 - 82.4% BD
S1 Vol. 4 - 82.7% BD
S1 Vol. 5 - 83.4% BD
S1 Vol. 6 - 83.7% BD
S1 Vol. 7 - 82.9% BD

S2 Vol. 1 - 88.0% BD

So I guess BD buyers are a little more likely to stick you you as well, given the slightly rising percentages of BD in S1, except for the last volume which had DVD buyers coming back a little for the bonus ep. Not significantly more, though.

That's the highest I've seen for something that isn't a re-release with previous DVD releases.

Same here, I don't think anything has had such a gap.

Edit: I just noticed someone on the blog did the calculations I did for DVD vs BD a couple days ago in another post. They came up with slightly different numbers, but they're calculating off first week sales (e.g. 40k rather than vs 52k for vol 1)

BD DVD 合計 累計 初動率
01巻 32,503 7,949 40,452 52,023 77.76%
02巻 28,604 6,028 34,632 43,571 79.48%
03巻 27,393 5,845 33,238 40,369 82.34%
04巻 27,414 5,831 33,245 39,435 84.30%
05巻 25,741 5,240 30,981 38,508 80.45%
06巻 25,569 5,291 30,860 38,429 80.30%
07巻 30,642 6,433 37,075 43,150 85.92%
1期平均
28,267 6,088 34,355 42,212 81.39%

[Draneor]

If anyone need proof that figures outsell DVDs, here it is. 160,000 pre-orders of anything is nothing to sneeze at.

[Fencedude]

Originally Posted by Draneor

If anyone need proof that figures outsell DVDs, here it is. 160,000 pre-orders of anything is nothing to sneeze at.

Figma are also significantly cheaper than most anime DVDs/BDs