Japan's Weekly Blu-ray & CD Rankings for Nov 4 - Nov 10

by tsubasalover
Nov 12, 2013 4:22 AM | 195 Comments

Here are the weekly Blu-ray & CD rankings for Nov 4th - Nov 10th

Rank / This week's sales by copies / Cumulative sales / Titles

Blu-ray
*1. 15,984 15,984 Free! Vol.3
*2. *7,930 *7,930 Hataraku Maou-sama! Vol.5
*3. *6,263 *6,263 Senki Zesshou Symphogear G: In the Distance, That Day, When the Star Became Music... Vol.2
*4. *1,620 20,378 IS: Infinite Stratos 2 Vol.1
*5. *1,521 *1,521 Pom Poko
*6. *1,358 93,293 Mahou Shoujo Madoka★Magica Movie 1: Hajimari no Monogatari/Movie 2: Eien no Monogatari
*7. *1,104 *1,104 Watashi ga Motenai no wa Dou Kangaetemo Omaera ga Warui! Vol.2
*8. **,873 **,873 Genshiken Nidaime Vol.3
*9. **,844 **,844 Tales of Symphonia The Animation Extended Trilogy BD-Box
10. **,713 38,545 Monogatari Second Season Nekomonogatari (Shiro) Vol.1 Tsubasa Tiger 1 of 2
(cut-off 713)

DVD
*1. 11,156 *,*11,156 Free! Vol.3
*2. *2,640 *,**2,640 Crayon Shin-chan Movie 21: Bakauma! B-Kyuu Gourmet Survival Battle!!
*3. *1,838 *,**1,838 One Piece 15th Season Gyojintou-hen Vol.12
*4. *1,192 *,**1,192 Hataraku Maou-sama! Vol.5
*5. *1,106 1,221,323 Tonari no Totoro
*6. **,943 *,***,943 Naruto Shippuden Ninkai Taisen - Kanata kara no Kougekisha Vol.3
*7. **,700 *,**6,438 Hetalia: The Beautiful World Vol.4
*8. **,697 *,**5,505 IS: Infinite Stratos 2 Vol.1
*9. **,663 *,***,663 Senki Zesshou Symphogear G: In the Distance, That Day, When the Star Became Music... Vol.2
10. **,606 *,521,699 Majo no Takkyuubin
11. **,565 *,*27,205 Dragon Ball Z Movie 14: Kami to Kami - Regular Edition
12. **,524 *,*11,514 Uchuu Senkan Yamato 2199 Vol.7
13. **,505 *,*17,492 Usavich Season 5
14. **,489 *,*64,065 One Piece Film Z
15. **,439 2,392,809 Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi
16. **,417 *,364,740 Mononoke Hime
17. **,372 *,777,199 Tenkuu no Shiro Laputa
18. **,365 *,***,365 Sore Ike! Anpanman: Doremifa Jima no Christmas
(cut-off 365)

CD Single
*4. 37,259 *37,259 Mahou Shoujo Madoka★Magica Movie 3: Hangyaku no Monogatari ED "Kimi no Gin no Niwa"
*6. 21,431 *21,431 Magi: The Kingdom of Magic OP "Anniversary"
*9. 14,419 *53,865 Mahou Shoujo Madoka★Magica Movie 3: Hangyaku no Monogatari Theme Song "Colorful"
10. 12,633 *12,633 Yozakura Quartet: Hana no Uta OP "Sakura no Ato (all quartets lead to the ?)"
13. *7,795 **7,795 Tokyo Ravens OP X-encounter
14. *6,944 103,582 Kakumeiki Valvrave 2nd Season OP "Kakumei Dualism"
15. *6,476 **6,476 Gundam Build Fighters OP "Nibun no Ichi"
18. *5,844 **5,844 IS: Infinite Stratos 2 OP "True Blue Traveler"
19. * 5,826 **5,826 Machine-Doll wa Kizutsukanai OP "Anicca"
25. *3,608 **3,608 White Album 2 OP "Todokanai Koi '13'"
28. *3,333 **3,333 Little Busters!: Refrain ED "Kimi to no Nakushi Mono"
30. *3,208 *13,584 Aoki Hagane no Arpeggio: Ars Nova OP "Savior of Song"
31. *2,904 **2,904 Diabolik Lovers Character Song (Sakamaki Reiji) "Toaru Yogensha no, Schicksal"
32. *2,864 *12,957 Kyoukai no Kanata OP "Kyoukai no Kanata"
34. *2,737 **2,737 Coppelion OP/ED "Angel / Tooku Made"
38. *2,448 **2,448 New Prince of Tennis Character Song "Megane☆Party"
41. *2,138 **8,306 Strike the Blood OP "Strike the Blood"
44. *2,012 **2,012 Non Non Biyori ED "Non Non Biyori"
53. *1,725 *48,088 Log Horizon OP "database feat. TAKUMA(10-FEET)"
57. *1,509 **5,113 Aoki Hagane no Arpeggio: Ars Nova ED "Blue Field"
59. *1,378 **1,378 Outbreak Company ED "Watashi no Houseibako"
65. *1,289 *24,375 Kuroko no Basket 2 OP "The Other self"
68. *1,222 *15,287 Outbreak Company OP "Univer Page"
69. *1,192 **4,952 Nagi no Asukara OP "lull ~Soshite Bokura wa~"
70. *1,181 **8,060 Little Busters! Refrain OP "Boys be Smile / Mesameta Asa niwa Kimi ga Tonari ni"
75. *1,081 **4,022 Non Non Biyori OP "Nanairo Biyori"
76. *1,050 226,587 Shingeki no Kyojin OP "Jiyuu e no Shingeki"
(cut-off 1,000)

Source: Oricon Youtaiju

20 of 195 Comments Recent Comments

jmal said:

You have a tendency to defend things by saying "well it's not the absolute worst thing" which while technically true is not a good defensel. I dislike unhelpful things period, whether they're just "bad" or "the worst".

Just because you see it as worst or a major cause of the problem does not mean that everyone needs to agree with your analysis. I personally do not believe the manabi line is a major cause of confusion or misunderstanding where the 3k line is taken as the breakeven line. You can follow your analysis and go along with your like/dislike. I will keep to my own analysis and do what I see appropriate.

jmal said:
This has literally nothing to do with whether it's important. Old and early != important, it just = old.

I said important as being important in the history of sales discussion. As I said time and again before, the line indeed created a zone of relatively successful anime and the unsuccessful anime (in terms of sales) for comparison purpose. I never say it is important now - to me it is just as "important" as the 3k line.

jmal said:
If it doesn't help people today understand sales, it's not important for use today.

Doesn't matter. If manabi line is as useful as 3k line and help (or not help) people understand sales as a 3k line, then I would opt for manabi line. Period.

Nov 19, 2013 2:03 AM by symbv

No double post please.

jmal said:
after seeing how it's never actually helped anyone understand sales and only caused confusion (overandoverandoverandover), I've switched to being decidedly opposed to its use..

Well, I do not see manabi line as the prime source and cause of the lack of understanding of sales. The issue goes way deeper than just a simple term. Those confusion you mentioned is not caused by manabi line itself. The root goes much deeper and manabi line comes only as an occasional manifestation of the general misunderstanding.

jmal said:

symbv said:
As I said, manabi line played an important part in the development of the sales thread discussion, and this is something that "frt" can never claim.

But nobody can explain why it's important. It just "is".

Because you were not there when the 2ch sales discussion thread came into shape and started to look at the numbers and data in more systematic manner. So it is fine if now you find the nostalgic value has lost on you. I don't. So I will stick to the manabi line, even if it is for a personal nostalgia factor.

And as I said, I do not see it as a main cause of confusion. People who want to find a breakeven line will look for the 3k line, and those people often do not even recall the name of the term manabi line.

Nov 19, 2013 1:52 AM by symbv

jmal said:
Tradition != utility. The "frt" is a 2ch tradition too, and it's just as useless for measuring, well, anything. So the Manabi Line is on par with a joke. I don't want to use terminology just because it's a ~6 year old 2ch meme. I understand the feeling that it's entrenched and familiar and therefore we need to defend its use (I used to, sort of) but after seeing how it's never actually helped anyone understand sales and only caused confusion

You don't 'frt' to describe break even point - that's a difference.

Nov 19, 2013 1:49 AM by Kitchiri

jmal said:
Tradition != utility. The "frt" is a 2ch tradition too, and it's just as useless for measuring, well, anything. I don't want to use terminology just because it's a ~6 year old 2ch meme.

Did I ever mention utility?? No, a 3k line or manabi line serves similar purpose and utility, and people who want to find a break-even line will find either one useful for their pet theory or misguided grunges/hypes about the industry, the studios, the titles and the fans. I just opt for a revered tradition which went way earlier than "frt" (which actually has fallen from use while manabi line is still around). As I said, manabi line played an important part in the development of the sales thread discussion, and this is something that "frt" can never claim.

To be honest, only less than a year ago you were still talking about using it out of a sense of nostalgia. I don't see how you were fine using a 5 year old 2ch meme then and now see it as such a problem that you have to turn so much against using it.

Nov 19, 2013 1:41 AM by symbv

Happy for Sweet Melty Love (NouCome OP) and Yui Horie's Golden Time OP/ED, both great discs to series which look like they will get only 1K Bluray/DVD sales sadly as both come from good light novel series but are not what the video disc buyers want apparently.

jmal said:
... I just can't see how GJ-bu would have cost much less to make than, say, Tamayura or Non Non Biyori or any other average production quality slice of life show.

I guess the beautiful countryside stills aren't that expensive but Non Non Biyori feels like higher production value than average to me.

Nov 19, 2013 1:39 AM by hpulley

symbv said:

21　10345　Kill la Kill OP
23　7676　Samurai Flemenco OP

Nice.

Nov 19, 2013 1:09 AM by VioLink

Threshold for BD this week is 306 !! A historical low I believe. Now I am very very interested in the full list later this week as I have a feeling that some titles released long time back could make a comeback to the chart and tell us how much more they have sold in all the weeks they were absent from the chart. And I wonder if we are going to see any BD selling <100 in the full list....

On the other hand, the singles chart is full of titles with good sales. All the top 21 titles sold >10k !! Record shows this last happened 6 years ago. And for this we need to thank the bunch of IdolM@ster singles and other anime singles:

*4　28796　NouCome OP
11　15045　IDOLM@STER CINDERELLA MASTER 021
12　13843　IDOLM@STER CINDERELLA MASTER 022
13　13503　IDOLM@STER CINDERELLA MASTER 024
15　13082　IDOLM@STER CINDERELLA MASTER 023
16　12999　IDOLM@STER CINDERELLA MASTER 025
18　11675　KuroBas2 ED
19　11559　Golden Time OP
21　10345　Kill la Kill OP
23　7676　Samurai Flemenco OP
29　4640 Daiya no A ED

Nov 19, 2013 12:38 AM by symbv

jmal said:

phreeak said:
it always depends on how expensive an anime is etc...

Yes, the cost per episode (per minute really) is another complication that's not accounted for by a focus on unit sales.

GJ-bu made ¥73,260,000 with a 3,275 average.
LagRin (s1) made ¥112,460,000 with a 3,137 average.
KoreZom (s1) made ¥166,510,000 with a 3,177 average.

It's doubtful any one of these series cost drastically more than the other two to produce.

I heard that GJ-bu had certain cost-saving measures that were used to significantly reduce production expenses. I doubt it offset the lower revenue (the Gj-bu revenue total is less than half of Korezom) but how much money do you think the director managed to save?

Nov 18, 2013 9:15 PM by shigeru212

jmal said:

symbv said:
3. I do not really mind sticking with the term Manabi-Line. To be honest, who knows what "Manabi" means anyway?

The only purpose of the Manabi Line is to describe break-even, which is therefore the one thing almost everyone knows about it, and yet at the same time there's zero evidence that it is break-even so... it serves literally no purpose other than to confuse people. It's just a name that describes nothing.

Well, I wonder where "the only purpose" came from. As I said, even in 2ch the manabi line is not used to describe break-even. And when people describe break-even in English speaking forums, I see people often use 3k line without mentioning the term "manabi line". So if even if the term is not used it is not as if people would stop talking about breakeven.

jmal said:
And it's precisely because all "lines" are arbitrary that I prefer not to give them fancy-sounding names, because when you give something a specific name people understandably assume there's some special meaning to it when there isn't.

Manabi line has special meaning in the development of BD/DVD sales discussion thread and its history, and I don't see any problem with keeping the tradition. Problem is people here come to associate a different special meaning to the term, but as I said, the term itself does not give rise to the concept of breakeven line. Without the term, people who do not know better will still use the 3k line to talk about breakeven line.

jmal said:
In general lately I've been trying to shy away from jargon that might be innocuous enough to people who already know a lot about sales, but rather misleading/confusing to new people (the exact people we should have in mind when talking about sales).

Problem is even those who are not new to BD/DVD sales discussion (and we have seen a couple of examples even here) still keeps to the 3k line as breakeven point. Manabi-line itself is not really the issue here, but something more entrenched and complicated.

Nov 18, 2013 8:09 PM by symbv

it always depends on how expensive an anime is etc...

if an Anime cost around $100.000/episode and has 13 eps, the anime has to sell an amount of total 21666 BDs/DVDs with an price of 60$. OR 3611 copies each volume (6)

an anime that cost 150.000 and 25 eps 62.000 copies.

only for bd/dvd sales without merchandise etc...

i am curious how much Highschoo DXD f.e cost each episode and what the average price is each volume. :p

Nov 18, 2013 10:02 AM by NiQue_

Progeusz said:

scytheavatar said:
Think a animenewsnetwork article has mentioned, a long time anime executive has said before that given enough time 70% of all shows can at least break even. If you need to sell 3k to break even then the anime industry wouldn't have been booming like it is today, because more than half of all shows sell less than that. There's near zero basis in that "3k" number, I have no idea why people are using Manabi Straight as some kind of benchmark. Without concern about genres, potential to rerun in TVs, etc.

No, no, no. You don't need 3k to break even. I only said it's safe to guess that something selling 3k broke even. You should remember that implications work one way, not both. There are many shows who don't really have to sell 3k or even sell at all (educational/cultural anime (I think Chihayafuru qualifies? nothing else comes to mind but I surely watched some), shows meant to promote source material (shoujo/josei) or toys (kids shows, BRS)). That's why I also said 3k should suffice for typical show, not every single one.

Your "Manabi Line hate" is blinding you, not the first time it happened, try to be wary of that.

Also, I think I know the ANN article being referred to, and from what I read I did not get the impression that the industry is "booming" today (although people like symbv and jmal would probably know better than I). In fact, I got a very different impression, as in the industry is somewhat in a state of flux. While it may have transitioned away from rentals, it has, perhaps, not quite figured out how best to make money in an era in which, I think it's fairly safe to say, the internet has become a dominant force in entertainment. Therefore, it remains fairly heavily dependent on a limited number of hardcore fans who will spend a LOT of money to own physical copies of their favorite shows. This is for disc sales, though obviously there are other forms of revenue. That was the impression I got from the articles, but I could be wrong.

Anyways, if that is the case, then I think the practice of including extras is really a good idea for a lot of these companies. Giving people something they can't just get from watching it on tv or the internet seems like it would be a good way to get people to buy (what I think a lot of people would admit are) exorbitantly priced DVDs and BDs.

Nov 18, 2013 9:09 AM by Hahalollawl

Nov 18, 2013 8:03 AM by Progeusz

Hahalollawl said:
LOL seriously? That's it? That's all that's behind the famed "Manabi Line"? I thought there would at least be something a bit more concrete than that...Why even attach any significance at all to the Manabi line then?

People placed way too much imagination or wishful thinking behind manabi-line. Manabi-line is still used in 2ch sales discussion because it has been used for so long and it became sort of a tradition in BD/DVD sales discussion, and there the context is not much about breakeven. Besides, as some others pointed out in this thread, the line also neatly puts roughly half (or more precisely, somewhat more than half) the titles in a cour above it so it is a nice benchmark line to separate the relatively successful titles from the less successful ones.

Hahalollawl said:
I thought maybe someone with particular knowledge might have commented off hand about it breaking even and thus the "Manabi Line" was born or something like that, but we don't even know that it broke even? Sheesh.

One way myth is created is by miscommunication and erroneous reporting, as well as by people wanting to believe something. Look this way and you can see why the idea of a break-even line took hold because the idea is so simple and tempting, particularly for those who do not spend time to understand the anime industry and business but want to make comments about this and that studio or this and that work (and there are so many of them around).

Hahalollawl said:
I still think I may use 3000 as sort of rough guideline for determining how well some shows that don't have high expectations are doing,

That is what I have been doing. The 3000 line (or the manabi line, both will do) is still useful in terms of separating the more successful titles from the less successful ones, and we can also use the number (or proportion) of titles making the 3000 (or manabi) line to compare the relative performance of one cour versus another.

Nov 18, 2013 6:26 AM by symbv

symbv said:

belatkuro said:

symbv said:
3. I do not really mind sticking with the term Manabi-Line. To be honest, who knows what "Manabi" means anyway? It is just a fancy term to separate relatively successful anime (in sales) from the less successful ones.

Didn't it come from Manabi Straight having sold 2899 copies for vol1 and breaking even apparently, hence being called 'Manabi' Line? At least that's what I know.

It sold 2899 for vol.1 but there is never any evidence that it broke even (or not broke even). The first part of your statement is true but the second part is a myth. And almost nobody in Japan now mentions the Manabi line as a break-even point. For more details, I wrote more about manabi line in a previous thread:
http://origin.myanimelist.net/forum/index.php?topicid=523817&show=140#msg18677876

LOL seriously? That's it? That's all that's behind the famed "Manabi Line"? I thought there would at least be something a bit more concrete than that...Why even attach any significance at all to the Manabi line then?

I thought maybe someone with particular knowledge might have commented off hand about it breaking even and thus the "Manabi Line" was born or something like that, but we don't even know that it broke even? Sheesh. I guess I see why jmal is so vehemently opposed to using the Manabi Line as a measure of success (or breaking even), since we don't even know how successful the show from which it takes its name was...

I still think I may use 3000 as sort of rough guideline for determining how well some shows that don't have high expectations are doing, but as far as finding any sort of break even point, it seems like it would be hard to ever know...

Nov 18, 2013 5:03 AM by Hahalollawl

According to the official site, Diamond no Ace BD/DVD is rental only. Though I guess it is also going to be sold as box sets later.

Nov 18, 2013 1:20 AM by melina_putri

belatkuro said:

Didn't it come from Manabi Straight having sold 2899 copies for vol1 and breaking even apparently, hence being called 'Manabi' Line? At least that's what I know.

Nov 17, 2013 10:51 PM by symbv

Didn't it come from Manabi Straight having sold 2899 copies for vol1 and breaking even apparently, hence being called 'Manabi' Line? At least that's what I know.

Nov 17, 2013 10:36 PM by belatkuro

Takuan_Soho said:
I confess that I picked 4K as a round up of the "manabi" line. I think that line is something that is "generally" true, but as with all averages it means very little on an animation by animation basis.

Since manabi line is 2899, rounding up would mean 3k. I thought you moved it up to 4k just to give a buffer so that there is a higher likelihood that your guess that different parties in the production committee are satisfied is true. Correct me if it was not your intention.

Takuan_Soho said:
To Illustrate: the series Aoki Hagane no Arpeggio: Ars Nova has not sold a single BD yet, however vol 8 sold 20K more upon release than vol 7, a 100% increase (Symbv, please correct me if I am wrong, but I believe I read this on the book release thread).

You are generally right. To be precise, v8 sold 33k in its first week and v7 was not even ranked at all. Given the threshold for the week of v7 release was a bit below 13k we could tell that v7 sold <13k in its first week of release.

Takuan_Soho said:

To stress, these numbers are estimates and are used for illustration purposes only. But it does show that 1) a publisher could pay the production studio several 100 thousand dollars to animate a marginally successful series and 2) what the publisher considers a success is not connected to what the production studio considers a success.

Precisely. For a manga adaptation, the manga publisher is always a part of production committee which means it always pays into the cost of making the anime. However, there is no sufficient information to tell how much of the cost is usually paid by the publisher and what a profit-sharing agreement for the publisher is usually, and yet I think the two points above are pretty reasonable conclusions.

Nov 17, 2013 9:59 PM by symbv

symbv said:
I think Takuan_Soho's "long explanation" is well said, although I am not sure about the part "based on industry standards, 4,000 discs seems to be the level where all of these competing interests seem to be relatively happy."

I confess that I picked 4K as a round up of the "manabi" line. I think that line is something that is "generally" true, but as with all averages it means very little on an animation by animation basis. Sort of like how "generally" every family has 2.5 children, but I have never, in my life, met a family that has 2.5 kids. So when I wrote my explanation I didn't want to completely say that the line is bunk, but at the same time I wanted to place it into context with the double "seem", still maybe even giving this much will lead people to the wrong conclusion. Depressing thought, but I think you are right.

Hahalollawi: to accent Symbv, not only is it easy to come to pass, I would insist that it is by far the norm because the Manga team doesn't care if the animation is successful as long as it leads to higher manga sales. Of course there is a positive correlation between a successful animation and higher manga sales, but the correlation is not required.

To Illustrate: the series Aoki Hagane no Arpeggio: Ars Nova has not sold a single BD yet, however vol 8 sold 20K more upon release than vol 7, a 100% increase (Symbv, please correct me if I am wrong, but I believe I read this on the book release thread). In that those extra readers for vol 8 probably bought the first 7 volumes as well, then the publisher already has had a windfall of 800K dollars (20K volumes * 8 volumes * 500 yen per volume) already on this animation, despite not selling a single BD. That said I believe the animation will prove to be relatively successful, however regardless of this, the animation has been without doubt a success for the publisher.

To stress, these numbers are estimates and are used for illustration purposes only. But it does show that 1) a publisher could pay the production studio several 100 thousand dollars to animate a marginally successful series and 2) what the publisher considers a success is not connected to what the production studio considers a success.

Nov 17, 2013 9:32 PM by Takuan_Soho

I think Takuan_Soho's "long explanation" is well said, although I am not sure about the part "based on industry standards, 4,000 discs seems to be the level where all of these competing interests seem to be relatively happy." because I don't think we have enough data to assert that besides guessing that since 4000 is an above-average sales it must mean that things do not look bad to the production committee.

And I have a few lines of short summary to say about the whole Manabi Line and break-even point issue

1. There is no simple break-even point we can tell from the BD/DVD sales date alone. Anybody who talks about XXX does not sell enough to break-even because it sold <3k does not know what he is talking about. One-number-fit-all "break-even point" is always a myth.

2. That said, very good BD/DVD sales is a sufficient condition for an anime to be called successful. It is just that it is not a necessary condition. A very good sales data of BD/DVD sales always mean the project is a success, if only because of the fact that if expensive BD/DVDs sell well, manga/LN or merchandise are most likely to sell well too. On the other hand, the lower the BD/DVD sales, the less likely products in the franchise would sell well, though how well the franchise does in other areas is not as easy to tell.

3. I do not really mind sticking with the term Manabi-Line. To be honest, who knows what "Manabi" means anyway? It is just a fancy term to separate relatively successful anime (in sales) from the less successful ones. People using 3k or whatever as break-even point very often do not even use the term. So drawing a 3k line or manabi line does not really change what those (misguided) people want to say and I would just keep using Manabi-line as a nod to a 2ch tradition. And I agree with Progeusz that we should not worry too much about this manabi thing (although I would disagree that saying "It sold 3k so it broke even." is preferred because it will indeed cause confusion)

Hahalollawl said:
I have a question actually, is it possible for a show produced by a combination of companies on a production committee to be deemed successful for some of the companies on the committee but not others?

It is possible. It is easy to see how it can come to pass. Take an anime adapted from a manga. The franchise owner would be the manga publisher, so it is likely that it will get to get money from sales of its merchandise. However, the merchandise maker is unlikely to get money from sales of the manga. So if the sales of merchandise is not good but sales of manga gets a good boost, the manga publisher will be happy but not so the merchandise maker.

Nov 17, 2013 8:41 PM by symbv

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