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Originally Posted by Bri
K-on! has been heavily criticised by anime fans for having poor animation (by Kyoani standards) and being light on content. As Ithekro says, the cast doesn't do much either during the season except have fun. Supposedly K-on's succes is more based on the Kyoani brand name then it's own merrits. However all this didn't stop this anime from becoming very popular and getting massive Blu-ray sales. If anything, the accusations of being a moeblob series helped spread the hype.
Compare this to Haruhi, after the first season we have only seen viral advertising and trolling, seemingly without consideration for the fans and the series popularity.
In this thread the assumption was made that Endless Eight would have a negative impact on DVD sales.
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The word
"assumption" does this argument - which I myself continue to hold to - a gross disservice. There's no "assuming" involved in looking at the awful ratings that these Endless Eight episodes are getting here on Anime Suki (last I checked, 3 of the last 4 Haruhi episodes have a majority of ratings in the "1" category, and the other one is very close to majority '1' status).
I'm going to quickly check out K-On's board here on Anime Suki, and see if that applies to 4 or more of K-On's episodes. And the answer is...
A
huge no.
Not a signal K-On episode got more than a measly 2 or 3 people voting a 1 for either of their episodes. The total series rating for K-On has approximately 70% of its voters voting it between 8 and 10. This is a healthy, satisfied fanbase.
Whatever you or I may think of K-On, it's
own fanbase (foreign fanbase at least)
loves K-On.
Haruhi Suzumiya's
own fanbase (foreign fanbase at least)
hates Endless Eight.
It's one thing for an anime to be hated by anime fans
in general - heck, Haruhi itself has its share of critics out there that loath how hyped it is. Check out the general board here sometime - there's
plenty of Haruhi critics in the "Most overrated anime" thread, last I checked.
The real question - from a sales standpoint - is what do the particular anime's fanbase (and not just anime fans in general) think of that particular anime; the question is what do Haruhiists think of Haruhi - not what do anime fans in general think of Haruhi.
Well, these ratings tells us that K-On's fanbase loves, or at least really likes, K-On. Current Endless Eight ratings tells us that Haruhi's fanbase is, at best, starkly divided on Endless Eight - at least half the fanbase utterly hates it.
The
real question, as Vexx said, is... do Japanese fans of Haruhi share the same view as many of us anti-Endless Eight foreign fans do? Unless there's some way of tracking that in a statistical way,
that much
is a bit speculative... involving assumptions on
both sides of the issue. However, I have my doubts that the Japanese are so radically different from the rest of humanity so as their tolerance for repetition is eons beyond our own.
In any event, there's no assumptions involved in saying that EE sales will hurt on the international market at least. It's a logical hypothesis to make given these horrid ratings that Haruhi is getting.
Us posters here on Anime Suki are the core
of the core of Haruhi's foreign fanbase - we're the ones who love the anime and/or franchise enough to go on the internet to talk about it, start fan groups about, and even make an entire vibrant sub-fandom entirely out of the concept of gender-swapping the entire cast. If the anime loses a significant portion of us, that
has to hurt.
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As long as people talk about Endless Eight, it will help sell Haruhi S2.
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I disagree. Extremely bad word of mouth can and does hurt sales.
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Remember that for a season that was not announced without significant advertising, S2 managed to generate a massive amount of buzz, mainly due to the secrecy and the controversy around Endless 8.
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No, Endless 8 didn't cause that buzz - that buzz was probably at its highest peak with Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody. Endless 8 is killing the buzz. It really is. I've seen it on blogs and other boards - Endless 8 is resulting in people talking less, not more, about Haruhi.
The reason being that not everyone is going to play the minutia game. Some people simply find this repetition boring... if not downright offensive. It's leaving a lot of people with out anything to say about the actual content of the episodes. That's not good.
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If publicity equals popularity and popularity equals sales, then Haruhi S2 might end up becoming a sales monster.
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We'll see.
Perhaps I have too much faith and respect for the Haruhi fandom - perhaps we really will buy anything that's thrown in our faces.
Or perhaps we'll see an awful and horrid arc concept for the cynical and fan disrespecting marketing ploy that it is.
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