Anime Sales in Japan - 2011

[Damius]

Originally Posted by something

Though I suppose there's still plenty of shows left worth releasing in a BD box that a lot of people would buy.

Like Touka Gettan!

...Oh wait that's just me (and maybe 8 other people in the world). ;_;

I sure would be one of the 8 even if it doesn't have subs. (would be my first Japan BD without subs!) Yeah I love the series that much!

[Suzuku]

Really can't wait until Penguindrum gets registered. The first episode was very well received (in Japan and over here) so I wonder how high it will go in pre-orders when its first registered.

Speaking of which, who's distributing Penguindrum? I don't think it's Aniplex...

[ultimatemegax]

Originally Posted by Suzuku

Speaking of which, who's distributing Penguindrum? I don't think it's Aniplex...

King Records is distributing Penguin Drum. The first volume is solicited on getchu. It'll be 8 volumes at 9,240 yen apiece for 3 episodes, thus 24 episodes. Looks like King Records took a lesson from Kadokawa in pricing.

[something]

Originally Posted by ultimatemegax

It'll be 8 volumes at 9,240 yen apiece for 3 episodes, thus 24 episodes. Looks like King Records took a lesson from Kadokawa in pricing.

¥9,240 is high but if it were Kadokawa it would probably be 12 discs. I am completely okay paying ¥9,240 if I'm getting 50% more episodes per disc. It's ¥3,080 an episode, compared to ¥4,620 for Gosick or ¥3,990 for the MSRP ¥7,980 Nichijou. Pengunindrum is still cheaper by a quarter to a third, and it's the equivalent of a 2 episode disc being ¥6,160 MSRP which would be quite low.

[Suzuku]

http://yaraon.blog109.fc2.com/blog-entry-2764.html

According to that article, 2ch sales figures are misleading because they only cover "early harvest" and only come from Oricon . Also, Yamamoto (head noitaminA producer) said Nodame did 3 times as much what is reported on 2ch (thanks to cyth on AS for highlighting those points in the article).

I just have to say in response: "Early harvest"? Do sales really boost that much in subsequent weeks? I get that Oricon doesn't report the entire sales since they don't have every single chain reporting to them, but they have to be a good indication of whether a series is successful or not because more often than not stuff that does not sale from Oricon reportings don't get second seasons or continuing media pushes. They may under-report successful series, but it doesn't change the fact it's still a good indicator of what's successful and what's not.

Oh, and kind of off-topic for this thread, but the article also mentions that noitaminA might increase the number of 2-cour productions. Hope this trend starts with Guilty Crown and UN-GO.

[something]

Originally Posted by Suzuku

I just have to say in response: "Early harvest"? Do sales really boost that much in subsequent weeks? I get that Oricon doesn't report the entire sales since they don't have every single chain reporting to them, but they have to be a good indication of whether a series is successful or not because more often than not stuff that does not sale from Oricon reportings don't get second seasons or continuing media pushes. They may under-report successful series, but it doesn't change the fact it's still a good indicator of what's successful and what's not.

The importance of Oricon is that it provides a yardstick for evaluating a show relative to everything else. Even if every show is underreported by half, numbers are still accurateif that "every" holds. If everything needs to be doubled, then double everything, and double the Manabi Line, etc. Winners and losers still are what they are though.

Nodame is likely an extreme example. It's gone on for three seasons over a period of years, airs on the more mainstream noitaminA block, plays out like a soap opera, and has a successful live action adaptation. So sure, I'd definitely expect it to have a longer tail of sales than most. Oricon isn't a good platform to reflect that kind of gradual, slow burn in mainstream sales. Then again, that situation likely doesn't apply to many anime.

[Westlo]

You have to go by Oricon since it's the only thing we have the measures everything, I do remember the some people were saying that Haruhi really sold over 100,000 copies per volume though... but than how much did Macross Frontier really do? How much did Geass? How much did the first FMA? Etc.

Nodame selling 3x as much as Oricon reported in a way makes sense considering how massive the manga was as well as the live action adaptions.. but it's an exception..

[something]

Originally Posted by Westlo

You have to go by Oricon since it's the only thing we have the measures everything, I do remember the some people were saying that Haruhi really sold over 100,000 copies per volume though... but than how much did Macross Frontier really do? How much did Geass? How much did the first FMA? Etc.

Yeah, those Haruhi numbers seem to be based on an AnimeNewsService article cited by Wikipedia, indicating 70,000 for Vol. 0 and 90,000 for Vol. 1 of Haruhi 2k6, and that in August 2006. Given that Vol. 1 was only released one month prior, it's a bit strange that Oricon reported 36,095 LEs total. Link, scroll down to the "8-29-06 (6:10PM EDT)" article. Unfortunately ANS does not cite where they got that from but it's implied to be a Kadokawa statement. But there's always the question of shipped vs sold too.

I think it's just something that has to be accepted - there are no truly comprehensive numbers and Oricon is, as you said, the only thing we've got. If it has deficiencies, those deficiencies will affect everything at least similarly. When we say "5000" that might not mean "5000 real physical units" but "5000" still means something relatively concrete in the context of anime sales in Japan.

[Westlo]

Real good second week for AnoHana breaking 4k, Madoka V3 continues to fall short in comparison to V2. Sket Dance sells another 1k and Steins;Gate has some pretty good legs for a series that opened up under 12k. Showing the advantage of it currently airing...

[something]

http://jbbs.livedoor.jp/bbs/read.cgi...1293278942/132
http://yaraon.blog109.fc2.com/blog-entry-2793.html

Full list. 415 DVD threshold, 380 BD.


2011 07/04~07/10 DVD List
*1 (**6) **3 14,014 *,213,696 **4 Karigurashi no Arietty
*3 (*27) --- *2,338 *,**2,338 **1 ONE PIECE 13th Season Impel Down-hen v3
*4 (*28) --- *2,321 *,**2,321 **1 ONE PIECE 13th Season Impel Down-hen v4
*5 (*37) *43 *1,684 1,080,197 498 Tonari no Totoro
*6 (*45) *15 *1,401 *,*26,137 **3 ONE PIECE Log Collection "SKYPIEA"
*7 (*47) --- *1,339 *,**1,339 **1 Sengoku Otome ~Momoiro Paradox~ v1
*8 (*51) *75 *1,298 *,458,666 446 Majo no Takkyuubin
*9 (*52) *17 *1,274 *,*11,414 **3 Sket Dance v0
10 (*57) --- *1,205 *,**1,205 **1 Naruto Shippuden Kako-hen ~Konoha no Kiseki v4~
11 (*59) **7 *1,172 *,**8,680 **2 Ano Hi Mita Hana no Namae wo Bokutachi wa Mada Shiranai v1
12 (*62) *65 *1,102 *,330,160 288 Mononoke-hime
13 (*77) --- **,900 *,***,900 **1 Seikon no Qwaser II v1
14 (*81) *80 **,881 *,728,781 452 Tenkuu no Shiro Laputa
15 (*86) *98 **,841 *,**7,649 **4 Yuugiou ~Chouyuugou! Jikuu wo Koeta Kizuna~
16 (*93) --- **,754 *,**2,161 **3 Tiger & Bunny v2
18 (112) *39 **,647 *,*13,198 **3 Ao no Exorcist v1
19 (122) --- **,609 *,***,609 **1 Fairy Tail v18
20 (125) --- **,589 *,***,589 **1 Hoshizora e Kakaru Hashi v1
21 (---) --- **,536 *,640,102 333 Kaze no Tani no Nausicaä
24 (---) --- **,443 *,116,038 102 Mimi wo Sumaseba
25 (---) --- **,433 2,360,193 354 Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi
26 (---) --- **,432 *,896,366 *85 Gake no Ue no Ponyo
27 (---) *30 **,429 *,**2,476 **2 Beelzebub v1
29 (---) --- **,415 *,**3,672 **6 Tiger & Bunny v1

** (---) --- **,966 *,***,966 **1 angela no Music Wonder ★ Dai Circus 5th ~Soukyuu no Fafner Marugoto Zenkyoku Live!!~
** (---) --- **,495 *,***,495 **1 Yokoyama Chisa no Sakura Taisen Teito Hanagumi Zenkyoku Live DVD

2011 07/04~07/10 BD List
*1 (*5) *1 2,903 *33,972 *2 Ano Hi Mita Hana no Namae wo Bokutachi wa Mada Shiranai v1
*2 (*6) -- 2,721 **2,721 *1 Seikon no Qwaser II v1
*3 (10) *5 2,054 *51,997 *4 Karigurashi no Arietty
*5 (12) -- 1,522 **1,522 *1 Sengoku Otome ~Momoiro Paradox~ v1
*6 (15) -- 1,000 **1,000 *1 Appleseed XIII v1
*7 (16) -- *,917 ***,917 *1 Hoshizora e Kakaru Hashi v1
*8 (21) 10 *,862 *14,331 *3 Steins;Gate v1
*9 (22) *7 *,797 *55,803 *3 Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica v3
10 (23) *6 *,786 *26,845 *3 Tiger & Bunny v2
** (27) *8 *,655 **9,214 *3 Natsume Yuujinchou BD Box
** (29) 13 *,635 *12,271 *3 Kidou Senshi Gundam Gyakushuu no Char
** (37) 53 *,426 *27,930 26 Tenkuu no Shiro Laputa
** (39) *9 *,414 *24,349 *3 Infinite Stratos v3
** (44) 52 *,392 107,564 14 Kidou Senshi Gundam UC v3
** (47) 32 *,386 *66,387 11 Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica v1
** (48) 26 *,384 *61,098 *7 Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica v2
** (50) 20 *,380 **6,494 *3 Denpa Onna to Seishun Otoko v1

** (16) -- *,966 ***,966 *1 angela no Music Wonder ★ Dai Circus 5th ~Soukyuu no Fafner Marugoto Zenkyoku Live!!~


Almost a Ghibli DVD sweep. 9 movies in the list. Damnit Ghibli, that's a third of the available spots! Stop taking up spots other shows need! Kind of irksome actually.


Spring update:
Sengoku Otome v1 does 1522/1339 for 2,861. Ehhh... I expected it to be low so I guess this sounds about right, given that the first volume is significantly discounted. After all I bought v1 as a show of support and because it was cheap, without yet committing to v2+. So if there's a drop-off I'm part of that. Ah well, better than not buying any volumes of course. I really really really want a second season of this. At least DVD sales are high enough that the next couple volumes ought to rank before it drops below the thresholds. Oh and it's just barely below the v1 Manabi Line. ;_; Maybe maaaybe it'll rank a second week.

Qwaser II v1 does 2721/900 for 3,621. Pretty big drop from first season vol 1's 7,345 first week, and still a good 1500 below first weeks for other volumes. Surprised this is only 4 discs though, at 3/3/3/3. That's fairly cheap.

HoshiKaka v1 is kind of where I expected, 917/589 for 1,506. It was actually a lot more fun than its utterly genetic nature would have you expect, but I'm sure that even most people who enjoyed it, like me, wouldn't put it anywhere near the top few of the season that they can afford to buy.

AnoHana v1 adds 2903/1172 to total 42,652. 42k already and probably a fair number of weeks left to rank. Impressive.

SketDan v0 adds 1274 for 11,414.

Ao no Exorcist v1 adds 647 DVDs, total is 21,454 but I have a feeling we'll see BDs on Thursday too.

Steins v1 adds another 862 BDs, taking it to 14,331. Steins is looking like something of a pioneer in terms of selling this much without ever ranking on DVD. The last show to start out with no DVDs but still sell highly was Ikamusume, and that was a lot less BDs than this. I'm sure we'll be seeing more like this in the future... Oricon BD list is really going to need an expansion before too long, like its own anime-only top 30 at least.

Tiger&Bunny v2 DVD, very strange sales pattern. Unranked (336) last week but 754 this week? Plus 786 BDs, making 29,006 total. And a sixth week for v1 DVD, so it did an average of 368 each of the two prior unranked weeks, taking it to 26,161.

Denpa Onna v1 manages a third week of 380, total is now 7,855.


Winter update:
Madoka Magica v3 adds 797 BDs for 65,293. Going to be pretty hard for 3 to ever get close to 1-2 especially since they keep ranking.

Beelzebub v1 adds 429 for 2,476.

Infinite Stratos v3 third week adds 414, total 33,173.


Past seasons:
Nothing.


Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica:
Vol 1: 77,543 -> 77,929 (11 wk) - Adds 386 BDs.
Vol 2: 71,752 -> 72,136 (*7 wk) - Adds 384 BDs.
Vol 3: 64,496 -> 65,293 (*3 wk) - Adds 797 BDs.
Vol 4: **,*** (** wk)
Vol 5: **,*** (** wk)
Vol 6: **,*** (** wk)


OVAs, Movies, Boxsets etc:
Arietty is up to 265,693. Probably the last week I'll mention it.

Natsume BD box is doing incredibly well still, getting a third week and passing 9k to reach 9,214. It's just short of Clannad now (though we only have one week numbers from Clannad)

¥1356.6m (34,000 * ￥39,900) - Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu
¥*456.7m (12,427 * ￥36,750) - Strike Witches (7,011 + 5,416)
¥*356.6m (*9,703 * ￥36,750) - Darker than Black
¥*340.1m (*8,524 * ￥39,900) - Lucky Star
¥*322.6m (*5,155 * ￥62,580) - Clannad After Story
¥*310.4m (*4,960 * ￥62,580) - Clannad
¥*309.6m (*9,214 * ¥33,600) - Natsume Yuujinchou seasons 1-2
¥*228.4m (*6,214 * ￥36,750) - Eureka Seven


No new Vol. 1s next week. Week after that is Hanasaku. Week after that is Dog Days, KamiNomi II, MariaHolic 2, and Gintama'.

Link to TV anime top-sellers list
Link to Vol. 1 Sales by Season