Anime Sales in Japan - 2013 (Speculation, preorder rankings, etc)

[Damius]

Originally Posted by HitokiriShadow

Well, someone is getting more money. It could be Amazon pocketing the difference though.

I intended to say that Amazon made more money. But, rereading my post, it's not clear that is what I meant. Maybe they are selling it to Amazon at a little higher price, who knows.

[something]

The following shows have ~2000+ combined points:
4,241 - Love Live!
3,869 - Vividred Operation
3,031 - Maoyuu Maou Yuusha
2,727 - Boku wa tomodachi ga Sukunai NEXT
2,530 - Ore no Kanojo to Osananajimi ga Shuraba Sugiru
1,998 - Minami-ke Tadaima

Love Live doesn't have any major challengers (at least for v1) at the moment. It monopolizes Gamers' #2-8 spots nearly every day which reminds me of Little Busters, a show that outsold Amazon expectations, so it might not be wildly overestimated either. Especially since changes in point calculation have left Stalker erring on the side of underestimating more often than now.
- Vividred isn't far behind in raw points thanks to a strong start but LL's overall trend has been better.
- Maoyuu's points are all early on, it's been ranking very poorly since then. Probably not a top four show in the end.
- Haganai is doing well but is going to be surpassed by OreShura pretty soon. OreShura gets overlooked in ranking discussions more than it should, because people check BDs only and miss that it has nearly 1k DVD points, far more than the other shows aimed at males. On the other hand, that could be all event ticket effect. [Edit: Oh and I keep forgetting OreShura comes out very very early. There are only two weeks left before release, while everything else is March. That changes things a bit.]
- Minami-ke is probably not a top contender but ~2k is ~2k so it's included.

It'll be tough for anything else to get a Top 4 finish unless there's a major momentum shift (which can still happen) or a Dog Days-level storefront effect. But we pretty much knew what our success stories were by this point in Fall, if not their precise ordering/numbers. More interesting are some recent up and coming shows:

1,481 - ZKC Hyoubu Kyousuke isn't really doing anything spectacular, but I'm getting a possible dark horse vibe from it. The reasonably even DVD/BD split could take us by surprise in the end. Lack of appearance on B&M lists could cancel that out.

1,126 - GJ-bu seemed doomed at first but with episode 3 and particularly 4 it caught on. Whether this holds consistently for the rest of the preorder period is another question. It could be another Kotoura-san: lots of attention after its sudden rise in the rankings, only to then drop and flatline. It's down around #600 right now. Will it come back to life?

*,927 - Yama no Susume was solicited very late so I don't know how significant its performance so far is, but it got a better start than I expected. Needs a few more weeks to tell, plus it doesn't even come out until May.

As for storefront:
HMV is always the most varied, so it's harder to discern trends. Fall and Summer shows take most of the top spots, though. Winter shows come and go with weekly airing bumps.

Animate is all about Hetalia Hetalia Hetalia, which is why it should do much better than Stalker predicts. Vividred occasionally shows up, which could imply it's hanging right outside the top 10 with some consistently, but we don't know.

Gamers is all Love Live all the time.

Softmap is pretty much all Love Live too, if not quite as overwhelmingly.

[ZenErik]

Would love if Chihayafuru, Mondaiji-tachi, and Sasami-san did better! But Mondaiji is in the gutter right now. Pretty much no chance of a season 2 at this point.

[something]

Originally Posted by ZenErik

Would love if Chihayafuru, Mondaiji-tachi, and Sasami-san did better! But Mondaiji is in the gutter right now. Pretty much no chance of a season 2 at this point.

Mondaiji novel sales are apparently up, so it could be like Kore wa Zombie Desu ka, getting a sequel with mediocre disc sales.

[Damius]

Originally Posted by something

The following shows have ~2000+ combined points:

It's saddens me to not see Tamako Market on that list...

[something]

Originally Posted by Damius

It's saddens me to not see Tamako Market on that list...

It's the next closest (~1850) but I think it would be a good idea not to have any expectations for it at this point. I'm going to consider anything above 4k a pleasant surprise. Its performance isn't even remotely comparable to Hyouka or Chuunibyou at a equivalent stage.

Actually, to put it into perspective, it's ranking even worse than Nichijou at the same point. At 793 hourly Amazon updates:
Avg *51, Best 16, Worst 116, Median *48 - Chuunibyou (17,520 total combined v1 DVD/BD sales)
Avg *94, Best 20, Worst 337, Median *68 - Hyouka (11,319 total)
Avg 184, Best 38, Worst 413, Median 179 - Nichijou (4,005 total)
Avg 204, Best 48, Worst 523, Median 183 - Tamako

Nichijou leads slightly in all categories and we know what a smash hit that was. I didn't include DVD but it wouldn't help Tamako any if I did.

This doesn't mean it'll necessarily sell worse than Nichijou in the end. It's only 6-7 volumes instead of 13, and it's one cour so sales dropoff shouldn't be nearly as bad. It may also have better B&M sales. And more than half the episodes remain for some kind of major reversal of fortunes, perhaps with a great ending, although only 10 episodes will have aired by the time it goes on sale, 11 coming the day after release. Either way the ending won't be out yet.

But any amount of optimism at this point is necessarily based on wishful thinking, not measurable performance. Let's hope that wishful thinking's wishes are granted, but I'm not holding my breath. All I can do is import a copy for myself.

[ZenErik]

I would say Tamako Market is the weakest series of that bunch anyway. Guess KyoAni should stick to adapting instead of original moe blobs.

[Progeusz]

Thing is, blobs aren't moe enough. I can't deny Mochi Chitanda is cute but it's not Eru/Mio level and far from any of Chuuni's characters. Mochi Azusa doesn't have much to deliver except for pretty face with her An/Anko obsession as main selling point (bad one). Not enough yuri vibes, I have a bad premonition that Midori might end up with Mochizou. There's not enough of actually best character Kanna. Dela while incredibly entertaining at first, doesn't impress as much now.
In the end, while Tamako is certainly enjoyable, it fails to absorb me as much as previous KyoAni titles, I'm not attached to characters and there is no plot which could interest me. I think otaku might share some of these sentiments.

I'm happy with Love Live reaching for #1, the only better shows I watch (AKB0048 Next Stage and Chihayafuru S2) were guaranteed to sell less anyway. Same with Vividred, I'm also happy to see GJ-bu picking up, hopefully next episodes will further boost its popularity. Such a shame Mondaiji is bombing, I'll wish light novels sales will be much better at least, it hurts to realize we've already watched half of the series. About Salami-san... seems like people don't relate successes of Madoka and -monogatari with Shaft at all but only with writers, studio's back to being obscure.

Finally, what I came here for - Love Live jumped to #11 and it's staying there for 12 hours straight which boosted its final prediction to long awaited in Winter 10k! Considering Love Live's mood and genre, it should get even better in second half of series so points will probably stay on this level or maybe even rise after concert episode.

[something]

http://0taku.livedoor.biz/archives/4398821.html

GirlPan is getting an RE.

...Uhhhhhhhh, why? If you're going to print anything just print more of the LE, people will obviously buy it. REs are a pain to add to my spreadsheet, damnit! But really, it's not like it's heavily discounted so I have to assume that the artbox in the LE is the bottleneck in production, otherwise this decision makes no sense. Even then this isn't coming out until May, so it still makes no sense! They could produce plenty of LEs by May. Just how much unmet demand is left? It's at 27,493 already.

[Damius]

Originally Posted by something

GirlPan is getting an RE.

Why... a show like this, a show that sells that well should only get LE! I would really like to know the reason behind this.