Anime Sales in Japan - 2012

[ultimatemegax]

Originally Posted by Suzuku

Interesting take away I just realized from SAO's sales. If SAO has decent legs it could become the only other LN property to break the 40k barrier other than Haruhi, or in other words there will finally be an LN adaptation that matches Haruhi or even surpasses it. Of course IS go into the high 30s but its volume sales didn't skyrocket as much as SAO's has.

EDIT: Speaking in terms of overall popularity including novel sales, not just disc sales.

Both series now have 11 novels. Sword Art Online's 6.2 million copies printed does not top Haruhi's 8.5 million printed and >500,000 copies sold for Sword Art Online v1 sold does not top Melancholy's 1 million sales. Animate and Gamers have not done midnight sales for a SAO novel. Dengeki does not plans to do 4 manga series (1 main, 3 spinoff) for Sword Art Online. The SAO novels need an anime franchise to continue selling at a high pace, just like every other LN except Haruhi (look at Index and Baka to Test's sales without recent anime for big examples). Haruhi had 500,000 copies printed AFTER the Limited Edition First Pressings of 10/11 last year. 500,000 additional copies were printed without any new novel, anime, manga, etc. I highly doubt Sword Art Online or any other LN could achieve that.

No. Sword Art Online does not come close to matching the popularity of the Haruhi Suzumiya novel franchise. Sword Art Online's latest LN sold 200,000 copies less in their opening weeks at half the price of the latest Haruhi novel set.

meruruchan already mentioned disc sales, so I won't go into that. We'll see if Aniplex gives us real numbers for Sword Art Online and how they compare.

[Damius]

Originally Posted by something

Strike Witches movie sells 29757/4227, total 33,984. Slightly disappointing. I thought it would hit 40k. It actually ended up selling very slightly less than SAO, although if REs ranked it would be ahead.

Well, I would have like it to be 40k... I can say the fact that they will release season 1 and 2 boxes soon made me buy the movie right away. So it helped to sell more copies I guess. I would like more series to do the same... (Yeah I'm looking at you, YuruYuri & Horizon)

[relentlessflame]

Originally Posted by ultimatemegax

Both series now have 11 novels. Sword Art Online's 6.2 million copies printed does not top Haruhi's 8.5 million printed and >500,000 copies sold for Sword Art Online v1 sold does not top Melancholy's 1 million sales. Animate and Gamers have not done midnight sales for a SAO novel. Dengeki does not plans to do 4 manga series (1 main, 3 spinoff) for Sword Art Online. The SAO novels need an anime franchise to continue selling at a high pace, just like every other LN except Haruhi (look at Index and Baka to Test's sales without recent anime for big examples). Haruhi had 500,000 copies printed AFTER the Limited Edition First Pressings of 10/11 last year. 500,000 additional copies were printed without any new novel, anime, manga, etc. I highly doubt Sword Art Online or any other LN could achieve that.

No. Sword Art Online does not come close to matching the popularity of the Haruhi Suzumiya novel franchise. Sword Art Online's latest LN sold 200,000 copies less in their opening weeks at half the price of the latest Haruhi novel set.

I don't disagree with you at all in concept (I highly doubt SAO will be a better seller than Haruhi when you consider the novels), but I think some of the comparisons are a bit premature. Both series have 11 volumes, but SAO is just getting its anime exposure now, and Haruhi had its anime years back. You also can't really say yet whether SAO will need an anime to remain popular -- who knows. It's also not like there were so many spin-off manga for Haruhi back when the first anime aired, nor were they doing midnight sales at that time either. This is all popularity that continued to grow after the anime and has sustained itself. So comparing where the Haruhi franchise is now (years after the anime) to where the SAO franchise is now (while it's still airing) is a bit difficult. Like I said, though, I do agree that I would be surprised if this franchise has those sorts of legs. But, if nothing else, it should be another good, solid franchise for Dengeki like Index/Railgun that can continue to get sequels, and that's pretty good for them. I'm sure they'll take a solid, consistent place in the Top Rankings, even if they're not number one.

[BigOnAnime]

So SAO did that well (Not exactly surprised though)...

Ugh, I can only wonder what affect SAO being such a big hit is going to do for the industry as the big hits can be such an influence.

SAO is anything but quality at this point.

[MelancholicMariya]

Originally Posted by BigOnAnime

So SAO did that well (Not exactly surprised though)...

Ugh, I can only wonder what affect SAO being such a big hit is going to do for the industry as the big hits can be such an influence.

SAO is anything but quality at this point.

SAO has been a huge hit way before its anime aired. I'm not very sure what you mean by how it'll affect the industry, do you think everyone will just copy SAO and call it a day? That's not really how it works.

I bought SAO, I guess I'm part of the problem, whatever that problem may be, but anime production isn't really decided on stuff like this. Sure a production committee will go for something which seems like it sells, but nothing is quite the same. There aren't really any clones of Haruhi Suzumiya or Bakemonogatari and they sold way more. It doesn't really mean anything. I guess SAO'll get another season. There that's the effect of SAO selling well.

[Draneor]

Originally Posted by BigOnAnime

Ugh, I can only wonder what affect SAO being such a big hit is going to do for the industry as the big hits can be such an influence.

Nothing? SAO is hardly the first show to sell well that made controversial plot choices. You'll see a second season but beyond that, it won't have any affect (like MelancholicMariya said that's just not how it works--you don't see a bunch of clones just because show A sold well).

[ultimatemegax]

Originally Posted by relentlessflame

I don't disagree with you at all in concept (I highly doubt SAO will be a better seller than Haruhi when you consider the novels), but I think some of the comparisons are a bit premature. Both series have 11 volumes, but SAO is just getting its anime exposure now, and Haruhi had its anime years back. You also can't really say yet whether SAO will need an anime to remain popular -- who knows. It's also not like there were so many spin-off manga for Haruhi back when the first anime aired, nor were they doing midnight sales at that time either. This is all popularity that continued to grow after the anime and has sustained itself. So comparing where the Haruhi franchise is now (years after the anime) to where the SAO franchise is now (while it's still airing) is a bit difficult. Like I said, though, I do agree that I would be surprised if this franchise has those sorts of legs. But, if nothing else, it should be another good, solid franchise for Dengeki like Index/Railgun that can continue to get sequels, and that's pretty good for them. I'm sure they'll take a solid, consistent place in the Top Rankings, even if they're not number one.

True. Since we had no sales numbers when Haruhi was originally airing, I'll post copies printed for comparison.
The very first number prior to any anime announcement was 700,000 copies printed for the first 5 novels in January 2005. Just prior to the anime in March 2006, the series had 1.3 million copies printed for 7 novels. Three months later in June 2006, the series had 2.5 million printed for 8 novels. Another month passed and it jumped another 300,000 copies to 2.8 million for those 8. The final number I can post for comparison would be 6 months post-anime start at October 2006 where the series had 3.2 million copies printed. This was prior to the LN push, but you see nearly a 3x increase in novels in 6 months.

In August 2011, SAO had 800,000 copies printed for 5 novels. A month before the anime started (June 2012) it had 4.2 million copies printed for 10 novels. Three months later, the anime increased printings 48% from what it was prior to the anime's airing compared to 92% for Haruhi. We'll see what happens in 3 more months for a final comparison.

[Westlo]

Originally Posted by meruruchan

I have to remember you that Haruhi was WAY underestimated by Oricon.
Kadokawa reported 800,000 discs sold in a couple of years (if I remember correctly), against the ~400,000 reported by Oricon: it's closer to 100k than to 40k.

Shipped =! sold.

And companies say sold when they talk shipped, so don't give me that they said sold speech. Nest you'll believe that Hidan no Aria is a 400k seller and sells more than Index does.

[Westlo]

Originally Posted by ultimatemegax

True. Since we had no sales numbers when Haruhi was originally airing, I'll post copies printed for comparison.
The very first number prior to any anime announcement was 700,000 copies printed for the first 5 novels in January 2005. Just prior to the anime in March 2006, the series had 1.3 million copies printed for 7 novels. Three months later in June 2006, the series had 2.5 million printed for 8 novels. Another month passed and it jumped another 300,000 copies to 2.8 million for those 8. The final number I can post for comparison would be 6 months post-anime start at October 2006 where the series had 3.2 million copies printed. This was prior to the LN push, but you see nearly a 3x increase in novels in 6 months.

In August 2011, SAO had 800,000 copies printed for 5 novels. A month before the anime started (June 2012) it had 4.2 million copies printed for 10 novels. Three months later, the anime increased printings 48% from what it was prior to the anime's airing compared to 92% for Haruhi. We'll see what happens in 3 more months for a final comparison.

That's nice and all but did they have the entire print run of Haruhi as well as enough material for another 4-5 novels up on websites before the anime even aired. Due to the web volumes SAO is a unique beast, you can't compare it to normal novels, even western fans who read translated summaries of the web novels know more than Japanese fans who stick purely to the LNs, though of course I'm sure that amount is miniscule.

Like you mentioned in your earlier post, they will never hold a midnight opening, why would you when you can read the contents of the next 4-5 novels right now? If kawahara the gawd decided to extend SAO past his web versions... than maybe... we'll probably have another 2 anime seasons before it gets to that point anyway.

[ultimatemegax]

Originally Posted by Westlo

Shipped =! sold.

And companies say sold when they talk shipped, so don't give me that they said sold speech. Nest you'll believe that Hidan no Aria is a 400k seller and sells more than Index does.

I'm sorry, can you cite where a publisher specifically says "発上本数" instead of "発行部数" is "shipped"?