Anime Sales in Japan - 2010

[something]

http://yunakiti.blog79.fc2.com/blog-entry-6695.html

Full DVD/BD list.

Uhh I should be leaving for work so I'll comment more later but:

Why is Asobi ni Iku yo! here? I thought that was a 9/22 release? Uh...　::checks:: Okay, so I was wrong. It was 9/15. I even had it listed as 9/15 in my Summer list... whatever! Anyway it scored 2547/920 for 3,467. I have no idea where that 2100 number that was bandied about came from, then, because it sure didn't sell 2100 DVDs.

K-ON!! Vol. 3 does 28,340/3,867 for 32,207 first week. Vol. 1 is on the charts yet again, adding 476 and increasing its total to 41,136. Vol. 2 increases by 690 to 37,812. And uh, Vol. 3 of season one it back on the charts for the 15th time.

Seitokai Yakuindomo Vol. 3 is up to 5,663.

And One Piece: Strong World is up to 320,674 now.

Not much else to say this week really. Slow week.

Spring Vol. 1 | Summer Vol. 1

[something]

Originally Posted by something

http://yunakiti.blog79.fc2.com/blog-entry-6666.htmlPreliminary DVD 30. Two new Vol. 1's make the top 30 for DVD.

http://yunakiti.blog79.fc2.com/blog-entry-6742.html

Full list!

Strike Witches Vol. 1 does 9,538 BDs on top of its 2,539 DVDs for 12,077 total. I thought it would be a lot closer to 15k than 10k but 12k is still great. It looks like it isn't going to outsell the first season, but then sequels rarely do. Season one Vol. 1 did 14,863 and the series remained very consistent to end at 13,789 average. I suppose Vol. 1 of SW2 could add 2,800 more next week but that seems unlikely. maybe another 1,500 or so.

Highschool of the Dead does 5,013/2,384 for 7,397 first week sales.

Sadly, many other Vol. 1s did just as bad as the speculation pegged them for...
Seikimatsu Occult Gakuin did 2,334 BDs, no DVD ranking.
Ookami-san did 1,371 BDs, no DVD ranking.
Shukufuku no Campanella did 1,000 BDs, no DVD ranking... jeeze, it even got outsold by Mitsudomoe. Brutal.

It looks like Sora no Woto is the undisputed champion of Anime no Chikara, which I'm okay with since it's by far the best of the three. The final volume did 2,656 BDs, and it's been adding an estimated 1,000 DVDs each volume so it's likely around 3,500-3,600 and the show as a whole averages a little under 4k. We can probably estimate that Occult did about 800 DVDs. So maybe it passed 3,000 but that's all that can be said about it.

At this point I don't think anything has a chance of topping Strike Witches unless Basara pulls an upset. I thought Kuroshitsuji would be SW's fujoshi competition but it easily outsold that. Maybe the ladies are buying Basara instead?

Here were the speculations for comparison.
#01　2.794　0.179　16,357　15,034～17,680　 Strike Witches II
#04　0.937　0.124　*7,326　*6,595～*8,057　HIGHSCHOOL OF THE DEAD 1
#08　0.301　0.029　*3,214　*2,783～*3,465　Occult Academy
#11　0.120　0.039　*1,242　*,927～*1,557 Ookami to Shichinin no Nakamatachi
#13　0.099　0.030　*1,022　*,927～*1,117　Shukufuku no Campanella

Absolutely spot on HSotD, way off on SW2, seemingly really high on Occult but only a little high if you add a DVD estimate, and depressingly correct for Ookami and Shukufuku. Even if you assume Ookami and Shukufuku sold about 40-45% of their BD total in DVDs, they're both under 2,000.


Other Summer shows:
Sekirei Vol. 2 does 3,657/2,269 for 5,926. Just a touch under 6k.
Yakuindomo Vol. 4 starts at 3,907/1,523 for 5,430. I wonder how the fast release schedule is affecting sales, if at all?
Yojouhan Vol. 2 is 3,071/2,297 for 5,368

To Heart 2 adnext Vol. 1 sells 1,557/1,360 for 2,917.

AB/K-ON! update:
K-ON! Vol. 3 adds 3,246 BDs for 31,586 or 35,453 total.
Angel Beats! Vol. 4 does 18,007 BDs to its 8,851 DVDs for 26,858.

Spring Vol. 1 | Summer Vol. 1

[Draneor]

Originally Posted by something

Ookami-san did 1,371 BDs and DVDs didn't rank.
Shukufuku no Campanella did 1,000 BDs and didn't rank DVD either. ...jeeze, it even got outsold by Mitsudomoe. Brutal.

;_; Another anime only I (and Relentless) bought, I guess. I'll just place them right next to H20. It's a shame too. The bonuses were really nice...

[something]

Originally Posted by Draneor

;_; Another anime only I (and Relentless) bought, I guess. I'll just place them right next to H20. It's a shame too. The bonuses were really nice...

This has me lowering my hopes significantly for Ookami actually getting a second season.

[relentlessflame]

Originally Posted by Draneor

;_; Another anime only I (and Relentless) bought, I guess. I'll just place them right next to H20. It's a shame too. The bonuses were really nice...

Shukufuku no Campanella is one of those cases where even I have to wonder what went wrong. Production values were good, they did a decent job of adapting the game (with the game's lead writer doing the anime story planning), the bonuses were -- as you said -- good... I guess for whatever reason it just didn't "take". Perhaps those who were considering buying the anime will just buy the games instead (PSP release and PC fandisk), so hopefully they make their money that way.

(This sort of supports my theory that DVD/BD sales in Japan are continuing to become more polarized, with less shows managing to achieve the "middle ground" that used to be a bit more common.)

[HitokiriShadow]

Originally Posted by Draneor

;_; Another anime only I (and Relentless) bought, I guess. I'll just place them right next to H20. It's a shame too. The bonuses were really nice...

I was going to buy Ookami-san at first, but the show just didn't meet my expectations set by the first episode. I feel kind of bad, seeing such bad sales, but that's $300+ better spent on other things. Like OreImo. But Ookami-san really does have a fantastic release and absolutely gorgeous coverart. I was tempted right up until the end based on that alone.

[HitokiriShadow]

Originally Posted by something

This has me lowering my hopes significantly for Ookami actually getting a second season.

With those sales, I'd say the odds of Ookami-san getting a second season are close to nothing.

[something]

Originally Posted by relentlessflame

(This sort of supports my theory that DVD/BD sales in Japan are continuing to become more polarized, with less shows managing to achieve the "middle ground" that used to be a bit more common.)

I'm not sure if we're seeing that this season, though. Looking at the numbers, it's a fairly gradual increase from bottom to top with plenty of shows in the "not bad, but not a 10k+ hit either" range.

We have 1k, 1k, 1k, 2k, 3k, 4k, 6k, 7k, 7k, 8k, 12k. Basara should be at the higher end (8k?) and Shiki/Densetsu on the lower end (1k, 2k respectively?). Plot it on a graph and I think it'd be pretty normal distribution.

Spring was a bit more extreme, but having two shows top 40k in the same season is just completely ridiculous and not at all normal for any season. Take away Working's massively inflated (by like 2x due to CD and low price) Vol. 1 numbers and you've got:

*, *, *, *, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 5, 7, 11, 13, 15, 15, 40, 41. Again, massive blockbuster outliers aside (and there will always be some blockbusters), that's a relatively gradual and consistent climb with a long tail on the low end. This is what I'd expect to see from most any entertainment market. Though I admit to not paying too much attention to sales in other markets, so maybe I'm utterly off.

For completeness sake, Winter was *, *, *, 1, 1, 3, 3, 4, 5, 8, 9, 9, 29. Drrr! being another outlier, although it's come down quite a lot since Vol. 1 (into the 12k range)

I guess I'll have to go take some time one day and do equivalent sales charts for a few seasons from 4-5 years back and see how it compares.

BTW, about what range would you describe as "middle ground"? 3k-8k or so?

Originally Posted by HitokiriShadow

I was going to buy Ookami-san at first, but the show just didn't meet my expectations set by the first episode. I feel kind of bad, seeing such bad sales, but that's $300+ better spent on other things. Like OreImo. But Ookami-san really does have a fantastic release and absolutely gorgeous coverart. I was tempted right up until the end based on that alone.

Yeah, same here. It was right on the cusp but fell short. Obviously, I'd have bought it if it were half the price. Campanella too. But R2s are too expensive to buy anything that rates less than a 9/10 on my personal scale. If I could buy twice as much I could start buying a lot of those 8/10 shows as well.

[Suwako Moriya]

Originally Posted by relentlessflame

Shukufuku no Campanella is one of those cases where even I have to wonder what went wrong. Production values were good, they did a decent job of adapting the game (with the game's lead writer doing the anime story planning), the bonuses were -- as you said -- good... I guess for whatever reason it just didn't "take". Perhaps those who were considering buying the anime will just buy the games instead (PSP release and PC fandisk), so hopefully they make their money that way.

(This sort of supports my theory that DVD/BD sales in Japan are continuing to become more polarized, with less shows managing to achieve the "middle ground" that used to be a bit more common.)

I'm not sure what went wrong myself, but it does beg the following questions. The first is along the lines of "Who are they expecting to be the purchasers of the anime?"


Sure, the obvious answer is going to be "As many people as possible", but that's a bit vague. Rather I'm looking along the lines of those new to the series vs those who are familiar with the source material. As in which group do they depend on more? Either way, both groups have their obvious pros and cons.

The second is a question of "At what point do things go wrong?" How many "It's not worth buying" decisions were made early on in the series run vs near the end of it.

I guess there's also a question of popularity of the source. The idea being that perhaps some anime don't do that well because the source material was never that popular and thus there wasn't much fanfare for the anime.

Still, I suppose a lot of it could boil down to some shows being a victim of "I like both, but I can only afford one of them". Personal experience tells me that this can happen quite a bit.

Seriously, it seems like each time I find myself deciding if I should actually get X now or delay it once more in order to get Y. As well having to give up on Z completely.

[Draneor]

Originally Posted by Suwako Moriya

I'm not sure what went wrong myself, but it does beg the following questions. The first is along the lines of "Who are they expecting to be the purchasers of the anime?"

The 50,000 or so people that bought the game and the remainder who are too young too (but could buy a PSP/PS2 version). Shukufuku and visual novels in general have never really appealed to those outside the core fan base. The exceptions were already major, multi-media franchises, generally by Leaf, Key, and/or Type-Moon. Someone on the-forum-that-shall-not-be-named-here said that there are 200,000 or so really weird people in Japan that like these kinds of shows and that's about it. VN adaptions are the epitome of the industry treading water. It just no longer seems to work.

I'm not sure what happened, but we stopped buying these kinds of anime about five-four years ago. The days when a good-average VN adaptation could still sell 5,000+ are over. That's why I was actually surprised to see more than one these past couple of seasons.