With news being scattered here and there amongst threads on AS, I figured it might be best to consolidate information for speculation in an updated post. Here is what we know about the
Haruhi franchise and related properties since Fall 2010. All figures are from Japan unless noted as domestic sales tend to mean more than international sales.
- The Haruhi-chan/Churuya-san BD-Box sold 3,338 tracked by Oricon, would be safe to round that to ~3,500 sold.
- The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya Blu-Ray Complete Box sold ~34,000 tracked by Oricon, rumored to have a 50,000 print run. Was delayed by one month presumably due to higher than expected pre-orders.
- The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya BD/DVDs sold 134,910 tracked by Oricon, confirmed to have a 200,000 print run by Kadokawa. Earned over 800 million yen in theatres during 8 months of showings.
- The TV anime was re-aired on AT-X from January until April. It was followed by the movie. It will be aired again starting in June. Lucky Star was also aired during this time and it will be getting a musical.
- The Surprise/Astonishment of Haruhi Suzumiya First pressing had a 513,000 print run. At the time of release, that pushed the amount printed to 8 million copies of all 11 novels.
- A recent article about LNs gave the Haruhi Suzumiya light novel franchise 8.5 million copies printed. That averages to 772,727 printed per novel.
- The first novel, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya has been printed 1 million times; it is the first official light novel to do so. (Note: this is referring to the light novel subdivision of publishing; this does not refer to the standard "bunko" size release that some treat as "light novels")
- The first novel was released in June 2003. Next year will be the tenth anniversary of that date. The first story, The Boredom of Haruhi Suzumiya was first published in April 2003 in The Sneaker.
- Kadokawa's light novel titles have not been selling well lately. The second best selling title in the Sneaker Bunko was The Observation of Haruhi Suzumiya: Official Fanbook, selling around 28,000 copies.
- Similarly, Kadokawa's anime titles have not been selling well lately. Their top volume 1 sales (and averaged sales) last year was for Sekai-ichi Hatsukoi, a DVD-only release. BD-Boxes of Lucky Star and Strike Witches helped some. Their current show, Hyouka appears to be doing well thus far, but that could change.
- KyoAni has produced one Kadokawa work per year since 2005 with the exception of 2008, which was followed by 2 direct works in 2009 and one related work in 2010.
- KyoAni is animating Hyouka, which began production prior to July 2011 (that we know) and Nichijou was begun in 2009. Any work for 2013 likely began production in 2011.
- KyoAni's only other confirmed title is Chuunibyou Demo Koi ga Shitai!, a self-published light novel (series?) but the format/date has not been revealed.
- The other production company that works with KyoAni, TBS/Pony Canyon, had their latest work be released in December 2011. Their next work (if there is one) has not been announced.
- The director/chief animation director (and character designer) for the Haruhi series has not appeared to work on Hyouka.
- The only non-airing product to receive a yearly calendar from KyoAni last year was Haruhi Suzumiya.
- The next novel has been in writing since at least April 2011. No additional information has been given.
- The latest edition of Altima Ace began serialization of a new gag manga, The Intrigues of Koizumi Itsuki-kun.
- After no updates since August 11th (excluding a New Year's message sent on all Kadokawa anime sites), the anime website began updating last month to advertise the latest Shounen Ace, which featured a manga chapter from the 9th novel and a Noizi Itou drawn cover. Similarly, updates have occurred for the Lucky Star website prior to the announcement of the Lucky Musical event.
- Kadokawa advertised special figures to be released with Wonda's coffee lineup and sold them at ACE this March.
- The Composite ver. Ka (character)Robo lineup has expanded from only Haruhi to Nagato/Mikuru and now includes Kyon's Sister and Asakura.
I believe that is it for facts in this situation. If I have forgotten anything, please remind me.
From this, the additional manga and the website updating pique my curiosity the most. The franchise continues to grow in published form, which is good as it always needs advertising. The website updates (occurring similarly to
Lucky Star and its announcements) give me more hope than anything. Why bother updating the site after 8 months of absence if there's no news coming?
The other interesting fact is the absence of Ishihara/Ikeda from
Hyouka. Ishihara directed
Nichijou and helped with storyboards for the
K-On! movie, but has been absent in the current show. Ikeda directed 5 episodes' animation of the same show, but has not been credited since. The two are board members of the animation studio, so it's unlikely they've left (and Ishihara has posted a couple blog entries on the website). What are they up to?
The last question is anything related to
Chuunibyou. Will Ishihara or Yamada (from
K-On!) direct it? What form will it be? When will it come out? We don't know anything other than the confirmation of being animated and that it has two light novels published.
I'll admit that I was starting to lose some hope for the franchise, but thinking about the 10 year anniversary and how much the franchise has meant to Kadokawa and KyoAni turned me around. The other updates in mid-late April (especially airing the TV series AGAIN on AT-X) helped push me further into hopefulness. From assembling these facts and some thoughts my desire was to help give others hope like I've received.
(Puyo has tweeted more pictures of later novel characters lately, but that's likely unrelated to anything. I'd be remiss if I didn't mention it though.)