Anime DVD/BD Sales in Japan: Discussion

[Game8910]

24　--　*2,325　**2,325　*1　ましろ色シンフォニー Vol.1

Man I really thought that Mashiro Iro would sell more, I was almost hoping Manglobe could finally get at least a decent seller. The show really seemed to have some buzz going for it while it was airing and personally I found it to be one of the better examples of good eroge adaptations. Looks like TWGOK remains their best selling series for now.

[ars89]

So i'm new to the whole numbers game. When people say 5000 is the minimum for a good selling series do you mean the average sales of the first volume?

[Xellos-_^]

Originally Posted by ars89

So i'm new to the whole numbers game. When people say 5000 is the minimum for a good selling series do you mean the average sales of the first volume?

avg sales per vol.

4k to 5k is usually consider the break even point.

[ars89]

Originally Posted by Xellos-_^

avg sales per vol.

4k to 5k is usually consider the break even point.

Oh per volume, that would make sense. Thanks a lot

Also how low is the cutoff to make it onto the list. I read that if it doesn't sell enough to make the list its not even reported at all?

[relentlessflame]

Originally Posted by Game8910

Man I really thought that Mashiro Iro would sell more, I was almost hoping Manglobe could finally get at least a decent seller. The show really seemed to have some buzz going for it while it was airing and personally I found it to be one of the better examples of good eroge adaptations. Looks like TWGOK remains their best selling series for now.

By the time you add DVDs to that, it'll probably end up just over 3,000 and that's actually not bad (probably actually higher than average for the genre these days). I really think that the audience has conditioned themselves to watch the anime (or not, even) and just buy the game, since the game is cheaper anyway and has more content. And I think that eroge adaptations have a bad enough reputation in general that a lot of people won't even give them a chance. Sales of eroge have been dropping over the last while, and the fans of anime adaptations of eroge are probably a niche within a niche. But all that to say, I only hope that they sold enough games and other merchandise to consider the project a success in spite of these numbers.

Originally Posted by ars89

Also how low is the cutoff to make it onto the list. I read that if it doesn't sell enough to make the list its not even reported at all?

It depends on the month sometimes, but usually by the time the longer lists come out, the threshold ends up being somewhere in the 500-1,000 range.

[Arabesque]

Something I had been thinking for a while about ...

Could it be that Manglobe's poor sales performance isn't related to the quality or reception of their shows, but with how they market them?

I don't know if anyone here (or anywhere on the net for that matter) has knowledge on the know-how's of TV anime marketing and what qualifies as a successful strategy or not, but it strikes me as being strange how they can't seem to find success no matter what they try.

[Last Sinner]

I'm being led to believe that pre-existing fanbases, specific creators/staff members/seiyuus and the studio brand are more responsible. Almost as if the leadup and Episodes 1-2 are what the series will live or die on and that pre-existing fandom fuels that more than anything. At the very least, that's what I felt to be a big factor in 2011.

I don't think manglobe's choices of shows have ever been ones to truly strike a chord with their domestic market. Samurai Champloo, Ergo Proxy and Michiko to Hatchin were titles that had more Western appeal - I almost wonder whether that aspect has left a lingering impression regarding what they do. Then you get House of Five Leaves via noitaminA, a completely different group/market to the aforementioned titles. Then the shift to more moe content. Consistency of content tends to help solidify a sustainable fanbase when they are assured what your brand stands for in the long run. Sunrise and Toei have had long-term success because their brands have a specific audience that is continually catered to and have well-structured merchandising operations of top of their big names. If manglobe wants to cater to a specific market, they need to properly attend to it. I just see no consistency with their content in the long run.

On Guilty Crown, I have two very different reactions. Firstly I wonder how and whether it will be sustained. Then I remember Production I.G. hadn't had a TV title go that high for quite a while, not since Library Wars I think.

[relentlessflame]

Originally Posted by Arabesque

Could it be that Manglobe's poor sales performance isn't related to the quality or reception of their shows, but with how they market them?

I don't know if anyone here (or anywhere on the net for that matter) has knowledge on the know-how's of TV anime marketing and what qualifies as a successful strategy or not, but it strikes me as being strange how they can't seem to find success no matter what they try.

I don't think the task of marketing is necessarily up to manglobe at all, especially not with their more recent projects that are adaptations of existing works. Sometimes the animation studio is used as advertising leverage (particularly if you get one of the big-name recognizable studios), but I think this is more "work-for-hire" than perhaps some of manglobe's earlier projects. That and I don't see that their recent shows are given any sort of unusual or poor marketing either -- both TWGOK and Mashiro-iro Symphony have nice Blu-Ray releases that seem to have been reasonably-well promoted and are priced/packaged akin to the market norms.

Perhaps manglobe needs to build up a reputation and a "brand" based on the projects they agree to do, and that may help some people give their shows a chance (as we see for example with KyoAni or ufotable), but ultimately I think it's the show itself that determines whether people will buy it. I think they just haven't been fortunate to have been working on the exact right show at the exact right time. (But, that aside, I suspect the Hayate movie will sell reasonably well.)

[Last Sinner]

Amazon tracker suggesting the following from January season and F/Z:

Nise v1 - 54k, v2 42k, v3 39k
Fate/Zero box set - 40k
Ano Natsu de Matteru - 7k
Highschool DxD - 5k
Aquarion EVOL - 4.3k
Rinne Lagrange - 4k
Amagami SS+ - 3.5k
Inu x Boku SS - 2.6k

Looks like Another, Bodacious Space Pirates, High School Boys, Kill Me Baby and Brave10 have bombed.

Didn't see Natsume on there but I think it would be around its usual 10k mark. Yamato 2199 had 3.7k.

[totoum]

Originally Posted by Last Sinner

Looks like Another, Bodacious Space Pirates, High School Boys, Kill Me Baby and Brave10 have bombed.

Didn't see Natsume on there but I think it would be around its usual 10k mark. Yamato 2199 had 3.7k.

Are you sure about Bodacious Space Pirates?Sales look like they're on the same level as Aquarion and Rinne no Lagrange to me.

[Xellos-_^]

Originally Posted by Last Sinner

Looks like Another, Bodacious Space Pirates, High School Boys, Kill Me Baby and Brave10 have bombed.

who could have guess

[bhl88]

Yamato remake bombed?

[Ithekro]

Yamato remake isn't even released yet. It comes to theaters April 7th and will be on sale first there. Then the discs will be sold afterwards (what they have I think is the preorder for those sales in May. One assumes that preorder will not cover those that buy in the theater in April).

That and it will be the first two episodes. The next 6 releases will be four episodes. Eventually it is suppose to have a TV release as well. bt for now, Theater then DVD/BD. Plus I think a live stream.

[bhl88]

Does it have subs though? Wish there was a remake of Star Blazers XD

[Ithekro]

I have no idea what it will have as I can't read the language well enough.
http://yamato2199.net/goods/bd_001.html

[Katapan]

Originally Posted by Last Sinner

Inu x Boku SS - 2.6k

You either missed the BDs or the DVDs for that one - 2,741 BDs, 2,655 DVDs, for a temporary total of 5,396. It's most likely on track to sell 8k (release date: March 21), though you have to keep in mind that the first volume is discounted, so there's no way the show will keep selling that much from volume 2 onwards. Either way, the show is most likely the most successful of the season when it comes to boosting the original work's sales (all the volumes have regularly ranked in the Oricon top50 weeklies), so the anime should be regarded as a success.

I'm quite sad that LagRin slowed down from its initial good performance - forecasts don't give it more than 5k in total by its release date. EVOL wasn't far away from suffering the same fate a while ago, but bounced back after certain episodes and is now doing fine again - with its release still pretty far away, the 10k mark might not be completely out of reach, which is about what I originally expected.

[Kunagisa]

• Horizon vol 3 selling more than vol 2
• Hotarubi no Mori e adds almost another 1000
• Stein;Gate's last volume
• Guilty Crown dropping 25% from volume 1
• Fate/Zero's number comes out next week
• Thinks that Pirates will not sell for 6k as I had hoped

[darkchibi07]

Everyone needs to read "The Anime Economy - Part 2" right now!

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/feature/2012-03-07

[Dextro]

Originally Posted by darkchibi07

Everyone needs to read "The Anime Economy - Part 2" right now!

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/feature/2012-03-07

That was a very nice article but it stops short of making the best conclusion: while it is true that for the us anime dvd/br business to keep on living it needs to up the prices and fight with quality instead of lower prices it is also true that you must tap into the lions share of the market that just wants to watch a show instead of collecting it. Do you do it by printing cheap copies of dvds? No! You do it by bringing the rental market back! No wait, I really mean it: rental is coming back hard but it has evolved quite a bit. We actually call it streaming now.

And this is where the japanese are holding their own product back a tad. I personally would love to pay a small monthly fee to watch the shows (and they buy what I like on dvd/br later) but I get constantly greeted with this:



I know this is no fault of CR, Funimation and others but it hinders quite a bit my options. I actually paid for CR for the duration of Nisemonogatari because I managed to see how their subs were coming out and they looked a lot better than I was expecting but I'm unable to legally watch the show. There is simply NO legal option whatsoever available to me (I'm not in the US as you can see). Would it hurt the production committees to license their shows for worldwide streaming with per-country exceptions when a suitable local distributor exists?

[relentlessflame]

Originally Posted by Dextro

That was a very nice article but it stops short of making the best conclusion: [...] We actually call it streaming now.

That's actually going to be in Part 3... and is a conversation for another thread, I think.