Anime Sales in Japan - 2011

[something]

Originally Posted by Quarkboy

Even if your show is squarely aimed at Japan's "mainstream"...

I am not terribly familiar with Supernatural, but it's an American show that got an anime adaptation, right? I had never even heard of it before I saw it in the rankings, and had to research it to decide if I was even going to leave it on (I remove all Western cartoons/movies), and I'm familiar at least in name with virtually every non-children's TV anime that airs these days.

Could it be less that the mainstream doesn't buy BDs (though there might be some truth in that considering anime's massive BD dominance) than that they just don't buy (or watch) anime? Sure, Shounen Jump stuff would classify as mainstream so far as kids go, but has there really been any "mainstream" anime for adults that's taken off?

The latter seems largely restricted to family friendly fare like Sazae-san or Doraemon, and even those don't really move discs, just ratings and, I suppose, merch.

[hissatsu]

Originally Posted by Quarkboy

IJust goes to show you that
Even if your show is squarely aimed at Japan's "mainstream"...
Even if you price it at or below the cheapest blu-rays on the market in Japan, animated or no...

Blu-rays just do NOT sell except to hard core otaku.

Bullshit. I have it on the good authority of assorted internet blowhards that the main problem with the Japanese anime market is the high prices. If they would just lower their prices to US levels, they too could share in the vibrant, highly profitable, and ever-expanding anime market that the US already has. Why, at the last board meeting the sales chart was going through the roof!

[Draneor]

Originally Posted by hissatsu

Bullshit. I have it on the good authority of assorted internet blowhards that the main problem with the Japanese anime market is the high prices. If they would just lower their prices to US levels, they too could share in the vibrant, highly profitable, and ever-expanding anime market that the US already has.

Exorbitant prices are only part of the problem.You forgot that what anime is lacking is creativity. If there's one truth about the Japanese consumer, it's that they eschew the tried and true and love radical change. Just take a look at Dragon Warrior or Pokemon. And yet the anime industry keeps on making shows that follow the same cliche formulas and then wonder why sales are decreasing.

[gundamseed]

Originally Posted by Quarkboy

I'm pretty surprised at the lackluster performance of Supernatural the Animation First Season BD Box v1 + the collector's edition only turning in ~3,000 sales.

Especially since it's the cheapest anime blu-ray like, ever. Volume 1 with 2 episodes sells for 500 yen, and the box with episodes 3-12 sells for ~7500 yen or so. Just goes to show you that
Even if your show is squarely aimed at Japan's "mainstream"...
Even if you price it at or below the cheapest blu-rays on the market in Japan, animated or no...

Blu-rays just do NOT sell except to hard core otaku.

That might be so but why would supernatural sell in Japan even if it is cheap.
It's a anime base on a American tv show that only has something like 3 million viewers in usa.
Also season 6 has been so much trash that i don't even want to see the anime anymore.

Does Supernatural even show on Japanese tv ?
Bring out something cheap don't mean much if no one cares about it .

[angelx03]

Originally Posted by gundamseed

That might be so but why would supernatural sell in Japan even if it is cheap.
It's a anime base on a American tv show that only has something like 3 million viewers in usa.
Also season 6 has been so much trash that i don't even want to see the anime anymore.

Does Supernatural even show on Japanese tv ?
Bring out something cheap don't mean much if no one cares about it .

I heard there's a rather large female fanbase for the show thanks to a rather large male cast and Sam's and Dean's hilarious witty, brotherly banter to each other and other situations. Also there's the fact the sexy female characters that appear on the show are either downright evil and/or end up dead.

AND YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS!!!

[Fencedude]

Originally Posted by angelx03

I heard there's a rather large female fanbase for the show thanks to a rather large male cast and Sam's and Dean's hilarious witty, brotherly banter to each other and other situations. Also there's the fact the sexy female characters that appear on the show are either downright evil and/or end up dead.

AND YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS!!!

It pretty much has the same audience in Japan that it has in America.

And that audience rather emphatically does not include 99% of the anime buying audience in either country

[something]

Originally Posted by angelx03

I heard there's a rather large female fanbase for the show thanks to a rather large male cast and Sam's and Dean's hilarious witty, brotherly banter to each other and other situations. Also there's the fact the sexy female characters that appear on the show are either downright evil and/or end up dead.

But I think the important question is, "Does that translate into interest in an anime adaptation in Japan?"

It's hard to draw many conclusions about the impact of the pricing when we (or at least I) frankly don't have a clue if the anime was well received in the first place. things don't sell purely because they're cheap... there are some shows I wouldn't import even if they were R1-priced.

Though I still maintain that, in large part, the industry has conditioned the market to associate non-kiddy/Ghibli anime with enthusiast/collector-only pricing levels to the point where it's just not something people think about collecting. If I associate health food with high prices (and I do), I'm unlikely to significantly change my eating habits if someone starts offering a limited line of more affordable stuff. (Crappy metaphor, but you get the point.)

The current model is fairly successful among the core audience as seen by year on year increases in sales for anime discs, but I wonder if they haven't already closed the door on their chances of selling a bit more mainstream. You don't change the fundamentals of a market like with a slow, uneven drip of lower-priced releases. A sprinkling of cheap BDs in a sea of ¥3500 per ep discs isn't going to change anyone's behavior. Nobody has ever made a concerted effort to drastically lower prices for new releases, indeed with BD prices have only inched upward.

But if the industry doesn't feel they need to change it - if it's not broke (for now), why fix it? - then they're not going to, of course. Like I said, it seems to work right now. That doesn't mean we should viciously scoff at any suggestion that lower prices are a good idea, though - after all, nobody has made a serious, noteworthy attempt at it yet, probably because drastically changing fundamental buying behavior just takes too long and the long-term payoff is so uncertain - while the immediate term loss of revenue is all too real.

[Suzuku]

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news...elayed-for-now

FFFFFFFFFFF-

I can understand the airings (actually, no I can't) but why delay the BD release so much? Oh well, at least this means it has an extra month to build up sales, and if it maintains the number 1 and 2 spot all throughout, well, we could really be looking at a 100,000+ opening week. That said, I can't undersand why the delay is this much.

[something]

Originally Posted by Suzuku

I can understand the airings (actually, no I can't) but why delay the BD release so much? Oh well, at least this means it has an extra month to build up sales, and if it maintains the number 1 and 2 spot all throughout, well, we could really be looking at a 100,000+ opening week. That said, I can't undersand why the delay is this much.

Yeah it was posted in the Madoka thread. As for why it's a month, I dunno, I think it has a lot to do with the fairly extensive clean-up work they need to do on the character art for the BDs/DVDs (it's a very attractive show, visually, but there's some severe sloppiness at times). I bet they never even got around to cleaning up Vol. 1s episodes. With the final volume's worth of episode looking like they'll be delayed about a month (at least) from initial airing I imagine it sets their clean-up schedule back. Note that 1-5 got new dates but we have nothing on Vol. 6. (Edit: Well, granted, tats because we still don't have a solicitation for Vol. 6...)

That or they just want to make first week sales even more impressive...

[something]

http://jbbs.livedoor.jp/bbs/read.cgi.../1293278942/63
http://yaraon.blog109.fc2.com/blog-entry-1262.html

Full list. 624 DVD threshold, 256 BD. "Distribution Problems Edition!"

Weekly rank | Previous week | Weekly sales | Total sales | # weeks on list | Title

Note: LE is assumed unless it doesn't exist or otherwise specified.
Note: Bold for the TV anime Vol. 1s.

2011 03/14~03/20 Oricon DVD Top 100
*20 -- 3,138 *,**3,138 **1 K-ON!! v9
*26 -- 2,509 *,**2,509 **1 Heartcatch Precure! Movie Hana no Miyako de Fashion Show... desu ka!? LE
*30 -- 1,962 *,**1,962 **1 Nurarihyon no Mago v7
*55 -- 1,102 *,**1,102 **1 Yumekui Merry v1
*56 -- 1,099 *,**1,099 **1 Katekyou Hitman Reborn! Mirai Kessen-hen Final v2
*59 -- *,996 *,***,996 **1 Heartcatch Precure! v11
*61 -- *,989 *,***,989 **1 Amagami SS v11 Ayatsuji Tsukasa Part 1
*62 -- *,986 *,***,986 **1 Heartcatch Precure! v12
*66 -- *,936 *,***,936 **1 Amagami SS v10 Sakurai Rihoko Part 2
*68 -- *,900 1,061,612 482 Tonari no Totoro
*72 -- *,818 *,***,818 **1 Tantei Opera Milky Holmes v3
*97 -- *,663 *,***,663 **1 Saint Seiya The Lost Canvas Season 2 v2
*99 -- *,638 *,***,638 **1 Heartcatch Precure! Movie Hana no Miyako de Fashion Show... desu ka!? RE
100 (*,634)

100 *,634
112 *,556
169 Soredemo Machi wa Mawattieru v4
187 *,366 Giant Killing v9
216 Shinryaku! Ikamusume v4
258 Kuragehime v3
*** Heroman v8
*** Rainbow v4
*** Uchuu Taitei God Sigma Complete DVD Box


2011 03/14~03/20 Oricon BD Top 50
*1 -- 19,966 *19,966 *1 K-ON!! v9
*4 -- *3,126 **3,126 *1 Shinryaku! Ikamusume v4
*8 -- *2,514 **2,514 *1 Tantei Opera Milky Holmes v3
*9 -- *2,353 **2,353 *1 Yumekui Merry v1
10 -- *2,106 **2,106 *1 Heartcatch Precure! Movie Hana no Miyako de Fashion Show... desu ka!? LE
11 -- *2,097 **2,097 *1 Amagami SS v11 Ayatsuji Tsukasa Part 1
13 -- *2,005 **2,005 *1 Amagami SS v10 Sakurai Rihoko Part 2
18 -- **,929 ***,929 *1 Soredemo Machi wa Mawatteiru v4
22 *3 **,649 **4,611 *2 OVA BLACK LAGOON Roberta's Blood Trail v4
23 *7 **,640 **2,287 *2 Kami Nomi zo Shiru Sekai v3
24 *6 **,604 **2,575 *2 Onii-chan no Koto Nanka Zenzen Suki ja nain Dakara ne!! v1
27 38 **,524 *31,449 *5 K-ON!! v8
29 -- **,481 ***,481 *1 Saint Seiya The Lost Canvas Season 2 v2
34 -- **,370 ***,370 *1 Kuragehime v3
42 -- **,289 *31,584 *6 K-ON!! v7
46 14 **,277 107,027 16 Kidou Senshi Gundam UC v2
50 (*,256)

*7 -- *2,741 **2,741 *1 The IDOLM@STER 5th Anniversary "The World is All One!" BD Box


Woah, clearly some shows were slammed by the events of that awful week, because their declines are not remotely explainable any other way. K-ON!! v9 first week BD dropped 25% from v8 BD. Milky Holmes, Soredemo and Ikamusume BD dropped about 50% from previous volumes (using v2 for Ika, v3 was skewed high).

Since next week should have a higher threshold I think we're just stuck with underreporting on some of these volumes.

Winter update:
Yumekui Merry vol. 1... ouch. I don't know how much of this can be attributed to the disaster but the super-cheap Vol. 1 only pulls in 2,353/1,102 for 3,455. Seeing as how it has about 5x as man amazon stalker points as any of the other volumes (sure, they have an additional month or more but even so) I'm thinking it could be below 2k first week by volume 3 or 4... Guess I shouldn't get excited about the chances of a second season.

Onii-chan no Koto vol. 1 adds 604 BDs to 2,575.


Fall update:
Ikamusume vol. 4 drops dramatically to 3,126. Vol. 3 did 8,574 first week and 1-2 did over 6k. I wonder if we'll see the numbers rebound next week, or if the distribution corrections will come too gradually to fix the numbers to something more realistic.

Milky Holmes vol. 3 does 2,514/818 for 3,105, about a 50% drop from vol. 2. Again, that's pretty hard-hit.

Kami Nomi vol. 3 adds 640 BDs to 2,287 total.

SoreMachi only does 929 BDs, another drop of nearly half.

Kuragehime vol. 3 only manages 370.


Past seasons:
Amagami is still going, with 2,097/989 for 3,086 for Tsukasa part 1 and 2005/936 for 2,941 for Rihoko part 2.



K-ON!:
K-ON!!
!! Vol 1: 42,433 (12 wk)
!! Vol 2: 39,247 (*9 wk)
!! Vol 3: 38,747 (*7 wk)
!! Vol 4: 38,019 (*5 wk)
!! Vol 5: 39,707 (*5 wk)
!! Vol 6: 36,756 (*5 wk)
!! Vol 7: 34,855 -> 35,144 (*6 wk) - adds 289 BDs.
!! Vol 8: 34,643 -> 35,167 (*5 wk) - adds 524 BDs and gets ahead of Vol. 8.
!! Vol 9: 23,104 (*1 wk) - 19,966/3,138. Serious decline for the reasons mentioned above. Normally this volume should end up closer to vols 4-6 because of the bonus episode.


OVAs, Movies, Boxsets etc:
Heartcatch Precure Movie - 2,509 LE DVD, 638 RE DVD and... 2,106 BDs? Is this the first Precure anything to get a BD version? Or did some of the previous movies get one and just not rank? 5,253 total.


Link to Vol. 1 Sales by Season