Anime Sales in Japan - 2012

[something]

Originally Posted by superdry

I must be one of the like 20 people who is buying the show. haha.
I'd love to see how many copies it sold, but the numbers are probably so low that maybe year end rankings might show it.

All we have to go on is the >100 list for DVDs: http://www.mania.com/aodvb/showthrea...16#post1978616

It probably did about 700 DVDs, which is more than I expected. BDs were something less than 1,668 (high threshold that week).

[superdry]

Originally Posted by something

All we have to go on is the >100 list for DVDs: http://www.mania.com/aodvb/showthrea...16#post1978616

It probably did about 700 DVDs, which is more than I expected. BDs were something less than 1,668 (high threshold that week).

Right, right...I was hoping if we would see more concrete numbers in the future. That's why I mentioned, maybe, year end rankings might give us something?

Oh well...not that it really matters.

[something]

Originally Posted by superdry

Right, right...I was hoping if we would see more concrete numbers in the future. That's why I mentioned, maybe, year end rankings might give us something?

Oh yeah meant to address that too. No, year end numbers only cover the Top 500 DVDs and Top 100 BDs, and the thresholds for those will be extremely high, probably 10 times what ZnT sold.

[Westlo]

Originally Posted by Draneor

I believe we can conclude that Aniplex's experiment was a success. Will initial boxsets work for every or even most shows? Of course not. But for A-level properties... I don't really see any advantage to releasing singles.

Yes it was a success but it's not like Aniplex went into this strategy blind or anything... people forget a little anime called Kara no Kyoukai.... Heck a lot of the hype for Fate/Zero was that it was the next work from the KnK team!

The Kara no Kyoukai Bluray Boxset sold 25k in its first week... and this was after the DVD releases of the movies averaged around 65k. There was always going to be a lot of overlap between the two fanbases.. so while this boxset release for Fate/Zero was a risk.. it was well calculated. If Aniplex got the KnK/Fate/Zero team to work on an anime version of the remade Tsukihime (coming out next after Witch on the Holy Night which releases in April) than that's a no brainer for this release style.

A brand new project like Girls' Work by Hoshizora Meteor could be a different case though.... Girls' Work is the next Aniplex/ufotable collaboration of a Type Moon property.. except this is going to be an anime original project. (Was initially a VN but got turned into only an anime) While a well done Tsukihime is a no brainer Girls' Work could be riskier... but than again anime originals are generally some of the biggest break out anime titles around.

[something]

Originally Posted by Westlo

Yes it was a success but it's not like Aniplex went into this strategy blind or anything... people forget a little anime called Kara no Kyoukai.... Heck a lot of the hype for Fate/Zero was that it was the next work from the KnK team!

To be fair, KnK isn't the same. As you point out yourself, KnK is a DVD>BD upgrade rerelease boxset. I don't think the "experiment" part was "can Type Moon properties sell?" (yes of course they can). It was "can we make as much money on the initial release with a boxset as with singles?" KnK doesn't give insight into that, because that's not what was done with KnK.

[relentlessflame]

The other thing I would say is that it seems that -- whether it makes up a major portion of their sales at this point or not -- the amount of push they're trying to give the franchise from the get-go on the International front appears to be a contributing factor here. I think that, for a variety of reasons, it's more feasible to market a day-and-date release with a boxset than it would be if you had the usual setup of monthly singles at the regular price. (i.e. It's a lot cheaper to import one single shipment of boxsets and time it properly, and the high price for the boxset helps absorb the shipping. Monthly would be too costly for the amount sold.) So, going forward, I would suspect that the shows that'll get the boxset treatment will be those with on-disc English subtitles where the English release is a part (even if small) of the release strategy/marketing plan. In cases where only the Japanese market is being considered, the market's already used to the single format and that seems to work just fine, and they can also come up with a release strategy for North America later if it takes off without having to worry about day-and-date (as they did with Madoka).

[ultimatemegax]

Oricon put up an article hyping their 2011 report (for the low low price of 31,500 yen!) that discussed the effects of anime on light novel sales. The total sales of all book related products (LNs, manga, and associated books) totaled 1,012,300,000,000 yen last year. Light novels grew 121% to 23,280,000,000 yen by themselves (including yaoi/yuri and BL titles). Top three selling LN series were Haganai, Infinite Stratos, and Haruhi.

The article also mentions the increase from 2009 of light novel anime adaptations. (2009-13, 2010-15, 2011-18) Of course they then use another paragraph to detail how amazing Madoka sold without an original source.

It'd be nice to obtain the full report and read it, but 31,500 yen is a BD-Box that I could purchase instead and help the industry more. I thought this would be of interest to the thread though.

[something]

This post will list the box office revenues for anime movies originating from TV anime, specifically late night (K-ON!, Strike Witches, etc) and some prime time (Evangelion, Nichigo slot, etc) TV anime. This will not cover original movies or more mainstream/family fare such as Ghibli, Doraemon, Meitantei, Conan, Pokemon, One Piece, Naruto, etc.

Box Office Gross, TV Anime Adaptations

Key: Gross in ¥ - Title [Release Date]
Updated as of 2012/12/18

¥4,491,955,312 - Evangelion Shin Gekijouban: Q [You Can (Not) Redo] [2012/11/17]
¥4,000,000,000 - Evangelion Shin Gekijouban: Ha [You Can (Not) Advance] [2009/06/27]
¥2,000,000,000 - Evangelion Shin Gekijouban: Jo [You Are (Not) Alone] [2007/09/01]
¥1,900,000,000 - K-ON! Movie [2011/12/03]
¥*,846,000,000 - Kidou Senshi Gundam 00 The Movie: A Wakening of the Trailblazer [2010/09/18]
¥*,830,000,000 - Suzumiya Haruhi no Shoushitsu [2010/02/06]
¥*,700,000,000 - Macross Frontier: Sayonara no Tsubasa [2011/02/26]
¥*,645,000,000 - Macross Frontier: Itsuwari no Utahime [2009/11/29]
¥*,590,000,000 - Fullmetal Alchemist: Milos no Seinaru Hoshi [2011/07/02]
¥*,550,000,000 - Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha The MOVIE 2nd A's [2012/07/14]
¥*,520,000,000 - Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica the Movie 1: Hajimari no Monogatari [2012/10/06]
¥*,520,000,000 - Tiger & Bunny: The Beginning [2012/09/22]
¥*,480,000,000 - Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica the Movie 2: Eien no Monogatari [2012/10/13]
¥*,380,000,000 - Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha The MOVIE 1st [2010/01/03]
¥*,280,000,000 - Fate/Stay Night: Unlimited Blade Works [2010/01/23]
¥*,250,000,000 - Sengoku Basara: The Last Party [2011/06/04]
¥*,250,000,000 - Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex - Solid State Society 3D
¥*,200,000,000 - Strike Witches [2012/03/17]
¥*,165,548,020 - Toshokan Sensou: Kakumei no Tsubasa [2012/06/16]
¥*,150,000,000 - Higashi no Eden - Movie I: The King of Eden [2009/11/28]
¥*,120,000,000 - Higashi no Eden - Movie II: Paradise Lost [2010/03/13]
¥*,100,000,000 - Berserk Ougon Jidai-hen II [2012/06/23]
¥*,*67,218,511 - Blood-C: The Last Dark [2012/06/02]
¥*,*60,000,000 - Berserk Ougon Jidai-hen I [2012/02/04]
¥*,*57,200,000 - Sora no Otoshimono: Tokeijikake no Angeloid [2011/06/25]

Sources are a mix of yearly lists on MAL or ANN, plus Yaraon posts, with Box Office Mojo being the main source. It won't be complete because anime movies usually don't rank highly and it's hard to find accurate information for anything below about ¥400m from just the Year End lists.

Not all movies on the list have equally good sources; Mojo alone would have Fate UBW at ¥35m (one weekend), but the mid-year list from animeanime.biz has a total (after 5 months) of ¥280m. This is a fairly extreme example, but it means that the above can't always be compared directly with complete fairness.

[something]

The top level ranking/aggregation post is here.

This is more of a discussion subthread under which individual movies can be posted about so as not to clutter the All-Time Best-Selling TV Anime subthread with lots of posts. I guess when there's a movie I feel like following box office takings for, I'll give it its own reply and update it there.

[something]

Update 2012-03-19
http://yaraon.blog109.fc2.com/blog-entry-8209.html
Initial report is that the opening weekend for Strike Witches brought in ¥40,430,000. I don't pay enough attention to movie sales just yet to know how that stacks up, but I'm guessing it's pretty decent.

Update 2012-03-28
http://yaraon.blog109.fc2.com/blog-entry-8422.html
After two weekends, it's up to ¥95,726,038.

Update 2012-04-11
http://yaraon.blog109.fc2.com/blog-entry-8744.html
Currently at ¥163,924,003.

Update 2012-12-14
Old news now, but the 2ch threads for box office gross always list the movie at ¥200,000,000 so I'm belatedly getting this updated.