Quote:
Originally Posted by Guardian Enzo
Look at what Seirei no Moribito did on disc, despite a great critical reaction. Was there ever any belief that in this day and age an anime can sell without pushing the right buttons based on tremendous artistic merit alone?
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The case of Seirei no Moribito came to mind for me as well, but after thinking about it a bit I noticed what are for me some significant differences.
1) Shinsekai strikes me as having appeal to a certain "alternative otaku" segment of the market in a way Moribito does not. And indeed, barring a serious flaw in this survey, it would appear Shinsekai's reception on 2ch was pretty decent:
http://www.crunchyroll.ca/anime-news...2chs-favorites
2) Outside the very hyped 10K+ segment of the market, anime DVD and Bluray sales have always struck me as having a patronage quality to them. And if I go into it with that mindset, I find myself asking "Moribito has NHK funding, why do they need my support?" (With the losses NHK may have taken being more of a "hindsight is 20/20" thing). I don't find myself asking that for Shinsekai, It airs at 12:30AM, which is the kind of timeslot that suggests that they may not have much in the way of other funding.
3) Moribito's number aren't abnormally low by anime standards, they look poor because of the budget and visuals (which, I'll admit, I would have expected to pull in quite a few more sales). Assuming that the undiclosed number of DVD sales isn't much higher than the Bluray sales, Shinsekai's sales really are that bad.