Anime Sales in Japan - 2012

[Megiddo]

While Haganai wasn't obviously going to be a 'smash' hit (10k you say) it was obviously going to be a 'hit', or let's just say it was going to clear 5k stalker points.

According to this the first volume of Haganai had more stalker points in just 3 days (2205 points) time than all current spring shows have other than Nyarlko, and for most of those that's after weeks, perhaps months. But that's neither here nor there. I bow out of this discussion, but I really don't think this season is doing well. So many shows are below where I had thought they would be at the moment. We'll see if the otaku are just waiting it out to see the shows worth getting.

[Grapadura]

I'd wait till mid / end of May before drawing any conclusions. If I remember correctly, Horizon v1 (which ended up selling 24k) was ranking between the 100-150 spots for the first 4 episodes. Then the mecha fight happened in episode 5 and v1 rose to the 50th spot. And when episode 10 had aired (best episode in my opinion) all 7 volumes were in the top 10. Then you have 2-cour shows like Steins;Gate which didn't see a significant bump in rankings till episode 12 aired (the episode when shit got real).

[something]

Originally Posted by Megiddo

According to this the first volume of Haganai had more stalker points in just 3 days (2205 points) time than all current spring shows have other than Nyarlko, and for most of those that's after weeks, perhaps months.

Haganai also had a couple hundred thousand-strong novel fanbase, which is why I was looking at long-term rankings rather than early stalker points. Medaka Box ranked highly for a few days too, but right now it's on track to sell basically nothing. You have to ignore the first week or so for adaptations of very very popular titles.

Anyway, don't worry about this season yet. Nothing we've seen so far is cause for much alarm. Most seasons are pretty quiet at first.

[MelancholicMariya]

Originally Posted by Grapadura

Then you have 2-cour shows like Steins;Gate which didn't see a significant bump in rankings till episode 12 aired (the episode when shit got real).

Are you referring to after the first bump when the first episode aired online? From what I recall when Steins;Gate was solicited it was before it even aired on TV and they were all really high on Amazon's top 100. I remember the first bump, and I remember the episode 12 bump.

[BigOnAnime]

Originally Posted by something

Nurarihyon 2 v8, final volume, does 677/1299 for 1,976. Final average, 2,539.

Disappointed to see the average that low, but it's to be expected on a Shonen title like that. We'll probably still get a third season after the manga gets further ahead as apparently with just two adaptions, they were already really close to where the manga was at.

Originally Posted by Megiddo

So what do y'all think? Is this worrisome? Or is it far too early to even get a rough idea for how a title will do? I think back at cases like Pirates where it didn't skyrocket till episode 5, but I can only think that kind of jump as a somewhat rare occurrence. I'm pretty disappointed with Achiga's initial numbers so far. Hopefully as we get more crazy mahjong superpowers then it will get more pre-orders.

I haven't been actively looking at sales and using the stalker site that long (Only since around December), so I can't really say for sure, but it is a bit worrisome. Some of these shows are doing REALLY badly in stalker points. Sengoku Collection has recently gotten around only 7 new stalker points (It was at 13 a while ago). The Blu-ray might actually literally sell under 100 copies, making it one of the worse selling anime Blu-rays ever.
http://www27392u.sakura.ne.jp/show.cgi?n=B007TYFD8O

Then we have Hiiro no Kakera. The first volume is discounted, and look at what we have here for Stalker points.
http://www27392u.sakura.ne.jp/show.cgi?n=B007G0O8FU
http://www27392u.sakura.ne.jp/show.cgi?n=B007G1BCZI
Together the BD and DVD add up to be around 1,000. Guess Studio DEEN banking on cute guys and pretty art isn't going to work to make the Fujoshi pre-order this show like mad. Though it probably has to do with the with how the character development is quite poor, and they don't bother explaining anything really (Still a decent watch though).

Originally Posted by Megiddo

Draneor: I haven't seen any reason to not put some 'faith' into the stalker points. They have proven time and time again to be an excellent estimate for Oricon sales.

Even though as I've said before I haven't actively used stalker for very long, nor looked at sales past what is seen on ANN, I agree with this. Stalker can give you a good estimate, even though there are times it overestimated or underestimated a title.

Off-Topic, but can anyone tell me why on earth Bakuman. 2 is being released as a DVD and BD box? Why skip the singles? The first season was like a 2K average show, and in box set form for the second season, I won't be surprised if it sells under 1,000 copies. It just baffles me as to why they would put out something that will sell way worse, especially when a third season is underway.

Straight to box set form works only on a few things. Most shows would cease to be profitable at all if they were released straight to box set form.

[Westlo]

Originally Posted by MelancholicMariya

Are you referring to after the first bump when the first episode aired online? From what I recall when Steins;Gate was solicited it was before it even aired on TV and they were all really high on Amazon's top 100. I remember the first bump, and I remember the episode 12 bump.

That was just the VN fans preordering, it went down quite a bit until that episode 12 bump.

[YoshiYoshi]

Originally Posted by BigOnAnime

Disappointed to see the average that low, but it's to be expected on a Shonen title like that. We'll probably still get a third season after the manga gets further ahead as apparently with just two adaptions, they were already really close to where the manga was at.

The saddest thing about this is that the second season is where DEEN really stepped up their game and made it so much better than the first, not just due to the source material itself getting better at that point but also with the effort they put into the production. For that effort to end up selling not just a little less but far worse than the first season's average is a great tragedy.

Originally Posted by BigOnAnime

Off-Topic, but can anyone tell me why on earth Bakuman. 2 is being released as a DVD and BD box? Why skip the singles? The first season was like a 2K average show, and in box set form for the second season, I won't be surprised if it sells under 1,000 copies. It just baffles me as to why they would put out something that will sell way worse, especially when a third season is underway.

Straight to box set form works only on a few things. Most shows would cease to be profitable at all if they were released straight to box set form.

I think it's actually the other way around as far as low selling shows like Bakuman are concerned. It's less costly (and less grief) for them to put everything in two boxes than to release another 9 BD/DVD volumes for the subsequent seasons and watch the sales plummet even further each time.

Some more serious examples I can think of is how Shangri-La apparently sold so bad that they cancelled future volumes off the market and went straight to the box route. Then there's Togainu no Chi, which had the ugliest, shittiest production quality I've seen in recent time on top of horribad writing that even fans of the VN did not take it well which caused the individual volumes to be cancelled and the changed to a "remastered" (a.k.a fixing the ugly ass animation and art) DVD box.

Bakuman likely did not meet whatever the producers were hoping for. From what I've noticed they sure did put a bit of effort into making the volume releases look attractive with manga manuscript replicas, character cover song cds and whatnot, so they must've been hit bad when it failed.

[MelancholicMariya]

Originally Posted by Westlo

That was just the VN fans preordering, it went down quite a bit until that episode 12 bump.

Yeah, I know. I'm just saying that wasn't the only bump Steins;Gate had.

[something]

Originally Posted by BigOnAnime

Some of these shows are doing REALLY badly in stalker points.

The health of a season isn't measured by outliers like Sengoku Collection though. SenColle is 12 expensive discs for a show with generally terrible production values and probably very little existing fanbase. It's a fun show and all that but a completely doomed release, assuming they even intended on selling anything at all. As for Hiiro, well, fujoshi shows just don't click sometimes. They must really dislike it though, since it's pretty much all they've got this season as far as shows obviously targeted at them.

For Bakuman, obviously the DVD/BD sales aren't a big deal given that we've already got a third series announced, and odds are we'll get a fourth too. A boxset is a quick way to get it out to the handful of people who will buy it, and probably also gets it into rental shops earlier or something.

[something]

http://jbbs.livedoor.jp/bbs/read.cgi...278942/348-352

Full list. 714 DVD threshold, 712 BD.


2012 04/23~04/29 DVD List
*1 (**3) --- 12,918 *,*12,918 **1 Naruto Shippuuden Blood Prison LE
*2 (**6) --- *9,207 *,**9,207 **1 Gintama' v10
*3 (**9) --- *7,352 *,**7,352 **1 Nisemonogatari v1
*4 (*10) --- *6,220 *,**6,220 **1 Persona 4 v6
*5 (*11) --- *5,735 *,**5,735 **1 Inu x Boku SS v2
*6 (*19) --- *3,554 *,**3,554 **1 Natsume Yuujin-chou Shi v3
*7 (*26) --- *2,786 *,**2,786 **1 Sekai-ichi Hatsukoi 2 v5
*8 (*33) --- *2,456 *,**2,456 **1 Naruto Shippuuden Blood Prison RE
*9 (*34) --- *2,381 *,**2,381 **1 Working'!! v7
10 (*35) --- *2,374 *,**2,374 **1 High School DxD v2
11 (*36) --- *2,212 *,**2,212 **1 Bleach Gotei Juusan-tai Shingun-hen v3
12 (*37) --- *2,157 *,**2,157 **1 Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai v4
13 (*39) --- *2,003 *,**2,003 **1 Aquarion Evol v1
14 (*41) --- *1,920 *,**1,920 **1 Seitokai Yakuindomo OVA
15 (*47) --- *1,674 *,**1,674 **1 BRAVE10 v2
16 (*48) --- *1,671 *,**1,671 **1 Guilty Crown v4
17 (*49) --- *1,668 *,**6,438 **1 Shin Tennis no Ouji-sama v1
18 (*63) --- *1,271 *,**1,271 **1 The iDOLM@STER v7
19 (*77) *58 *1,087 1,133,609 540 Tonari no Totoro
21 (*85) --- *1,015 *,**1,015 **1 Shakugan no Shana III v5
22 (*90) --- **,946 *,***,946 **1 Kimi to Boku v5
23 (*91) --- **,940 *,***,940 **1 Beelzebub v11
24 (100) --- **,811 *,***,811 **1 Nintama Rantarou v3
25 (102) --- **,796 *,***,796 **1 Maken-Ki! v5
26 (---) *23 **,786 *,**5,593 **3 Meitantei Conan Bonus File Fantasy star no Hana
27 (108) --- **,760 *,***,760 **1 Mashiro-iro Symphony v4
28 (116) --- **,730 *,***,730 **1 Zero no Tsukaima F v3
29 (118) --- **,717 *,***,717 **1 Senki Zesshou Symphogear v2
30 (120) --- **,714 *,***,714 **1 Tamayura ~hitotose~ v5

-- (*40) --- *1,979 *,**1,979 **1 Nurarihyon no Mago ~Sennen Makyou no Utage~

-- (157) Nichijou v11
-- (161) Sket Dance v9
-- (163) Suite Precure v13
-- (166) Suite Precure v14
-- (204) Mawaru Penguindrum v7
-- (226) Meitantei Conan Part 20 v4
-- (231) C3 v5
-- (248) Another v2
-- (280) Inazuma Eleven GO v8
-- (281) Last Exile -Ginyoku no Fam- v4
-- (284) Ano Natsu de Matteru v2
-- (***) Mouretsu Pirates v4
-- (***) Tantei Opera Milky Holmes 2 v2
-- (***) Phi Brain ~Kami no Puzzle~ v4
-- (***) Mirai Nikki v5
-- (***) Bakuman. 1st Series DVD Box v1


2012 04/23~04/29 BD List
*1 (*2) -- 50,160 50,160 *1 Nisemonogatari v1
*2 (*3) -- 18,747 18,747 *1 Persona 4 v6
*3 (*4) -- *7,570 *7,570 *1 Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai v4
*4 (*5) -- *7,063 *7,063 *1 Working'!! v7
*5 (*6) -- *6,844 *6,844 *1 Highschool DxD v2
*6 (*7) -- *6,674 *6,674 *1 Aquarion Evol v1
*7 (*8) -- *5,824 *5,824 *1 Ano Natsu de Matteru v2
*8 (*9) -- *5,608 *5,608 *1 Inu x Boku SS v2
*9 (10) -- *5,602 *5,602 *1 The iDOLM@STER v7
10 (11) -- *5,538 *5,538 *1 Seitokai Yakuindomo OVA
-- (12) -- *5,489 *5,489 *1 Guilty Crown v4
-- (13) -- *4,847 *4,847 *1 Natsume Yuujin-chou Shi v3
-- (16) -- *3,979 *3,979 *1 Mawaru Penguindrum v7
-- (17) -- *3,675 *3,675 *1 Tamayura ~hitotose~ v5
-- (19) *2 *3,662 19,650 *2 Kyoukai Senjou no Horizon v5
-- (20) -- *3,542 *3,542 *1 Senki Zesshou Symphogear v2
-- (24) -- *2,571 *2,571 *1 Last Exile -Ginyoku no Fam- v4
-- (25) -- *2,507 *2,507 *1 Shakugan no Shana III -Final- v5
-- (27) -- *2,018 *2,018 *1 Mashiro-iro Symphony v4
-- (28) -- *1,879 *1,879 *1 C3 v5
-- (29) -- *1,877 *1,877 *1 Another v2
-- (30) -- *1,868 *1,868 *1 Maken-ki! v5
-- (32) -- *1,747 *1,747 *1 Nichijou v11
-- (33) -- *1,653 *1,653 *1 Mirai Nikki v5
-- (34) -- *1,624 *1,624 *1 Zero no Tsukaima F v3
-- (35) -- *1,460 *1,460 *1 Tantei Opera Milky Holmes 2 v2
-- (39) -- *1,071 *1,071 *1 Suite Precure BD Box v3
-- (42) -- **,968 **,968 *1 BRAVE10 v2
-- (43) 67 **,963 *6,572 *3 Mouretsu Pirates v2
-- (50) (*,712)

-- (49) *4 **,807 **7,701 *2 Tiger & Bunny Hero Awards 2011

Yay, Mouretsu made it! barely. Threshold is much too high for v1 though.
Nise was overshot big time. InuBoku on the other hand does much better than expected. Evol puts up strong numbers.


Winter update:
Nisemonogatari v1 sells 50160/7352 for 57,512. I knew Nise would be overestimated by Stalker, but it was overestimated by nearly 16,000 units total. Overshot more than 30% on BD. Which is actually a lot less than it's overshot some other very high selling releases. It's just such a big absolute number because of how high Nise sells. In any case it's already guaranteed top seller of the year.

AquaEvol v1 sells 6674/2003 for 8,677.

InuBoku v2 starts at 5608/5735 for 11,343. It barely dropped at all on v1 wk1. Hell, 2.4% is a lot less than most shows drop when their first volume isn't discounted. o_O Very very impressive, even if it probably won't beat v1's 14.7k. This should hit 10k easily now. GJ, Ririchiyo.

HS DxD v2 actually goes up slightly on v1 wk1 (1%) and does 6844/2374 for 9,218.

Natsume Shi v3 starts at 4847/3554 for 8,401, up 5.5% on v2 wk1. Still doesn't have a shot at continuing the 10k average though, aww. 9,281 avg right now with two volumes to go.

AnoNatsu v2 starts at 5,824 BDs, DVDs do not rank. Not too far below v1, but will probably have less of a wk2.

Symphogear v2 stays pretty consistent, 3542/717 for 4,259. Only down 4.4% on v1 wk1.

Brave10 v2 drops a lot, nearly 50% on DVD. 968/1674 for 2,642, down 40% on v1 wk1.

Zero no Tsukaima F v3 sells 1624/730 for 2,354.

Another v2 sells 1,877 BDs, DVDs do not rank.

Milky 2 v2 sells 1,460 BDs, DVDs do not rank. That's a 38% drop on v1 wk1 BD. Holy shit. I do believe this is looking to become one of the worst S1>S2 drops we've ever seen. It's just completely collapsed. Season 1 averaged 6,084 and if we didn't have that ~750 DVD estimate for v1, season 2 would be lucky to average 1/3rd of that.

Shin TeniPri v1 adds 1668 DVDs, total 7,639. I don't know if it'll hold that average but if so, it's one of the best selling of the season.

Mouretsu v2 comes back after its 4/27 restock, adding 963 in wk3, for a total of 6,572, which means wk2 saw 266 stragglers go through the system as people found the low remaining stock here and there. Right now v2 is exactly 100 ahead of v1, with less weeks of ranking. Dare I hope v2 ranks again next week? Unlikely, but I'll hope anyway.


Fall update:
Persona 4 v6 starts at 18747/6220 for 24,967.

Haganai v4 increases on v3 wk1 with 7570/2157 for 9,727. Average now stands at 11,155 even without a second week for v4, and only two volumes remain, so this seems a lock for a 10k average. I'll add it to the list.

Working'!! v7 is up 5.7% on v6 wk1, with 7063/2381 for 9,444. Final average is currently 12,508 but that should rise slightly still. Yay, Aoi-chan! Yay, Popura!

Guilty Crown v4 continues the drop, down 7% on v3 wk1 with 5489/1671 totaling 7,160. I wonder where it'll bottom out, maybe around 6k by the end?

Tamayura v5 starts at 3675/714 for 4,389. BDs have been quite consistent (4.1k, 4.0k, 3.7k, 3.8k, 3.7k) and DVD ranking is eeping it above 4k each time. Currently 4,861 average with 2 volumes to go.

Shana III v5 sells 2507/1015 for 3,522. Down 8.1%, breaking its consistency streak a smidge.

Mashiro-iro v4 starts at 2018/760 for 2,778.

Maken-ki v5 starts at 1868/796 for 2,664.

C3 v5, final volume, sells 1,879 BDs, DVDs do not rank. Final average, 1,899.

Mirai Nikki v5 sells 1,653 BDs, DVDs do not rank.

KimiBoku v5 sells 946 DVDs, BDs don't rank.

Horizon v5 adds 3662, total 19,650. Way better second week than I expected, the best of any volume in fact, and it's ahead of where v4 was at this point. It'll average 20k easily.


Past seasons:
iDOLM@STER v7 sells 5602/1271 for 6,873 standalone. G4U numbers in a day or two. Down about 4.4% on v6 wk1 standalone. Update: G4U sells 17314 so the combined total is 24,187 in the first week.

Gintama' v10 starts at 9,207. Second lowest opening week (v6wk1 did 9,010).

Pingdrum v7 drops it below the 4k BD mark with 3,979 BDs, DVDs do not rank.

Nichijou v11 sells 1,747 BDs, DVDs do not rank. "Only" two more volumes before it (and its hapless buyers, like me) is finally put out of its misery, hooray! -_- Damned Kadokawa.

Suite Precure BD Box v3 sells 1,071. The DVDs are moving about 500-600 a volume so the BD boxes are actually doing about double that. I'm much more interested in seeing Smile's sales though, since it seems to be much more well received, both in TV ratings among its expected audience and among otaku.


OVAs, Movies, Boxsets etc:
Seitokai Yakuindomo OVA sells 5538/1920 for 7,458, notably higher than any of the TV volumes, which is a pretty good sign for a second season, I hope.


No more Vol 1s until the end of the month, with Kore wa Zombie Desu ka? S2.


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