Quote:
Originally Posted by bhl88
Wasn't it 2000-3000 in sales?
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Are you referring to the "Manabi Line"? That's basically folklore. Someone in the production said at one point that Manabi Straight just barely broken even, and so people looked at the average DVD sales from the chart and decided that was an arbitrary "break-even point". But the entire production breaking-even may have been from more than just DVD sales, so we don't even know that it means anything. You also can't guess at profit until you have a grasp of the cost (and the actual production of the animation isn't usually the largest expense). Even if you did only consider DVD sales, you also have to consider the number of volumes and the MSRP of each (Manabi Straight was 7 volumes, one of them OVA) to figure out the total revenue. Considering most shows are also diversified over a large number of media formats, we really have no way of knowing whether a production really breaks even or not. The best evidence is typically if a show gets a sequel, but even that may not apply in certain cases.
The point was more that the rules for every show are different, because each show has its own unique budget and cost recovery plan. They don't all need the same number of BD/DVD sales to break even.