Japan's Weekly Blu-ray and DVD Rankings for May 2 - 8

There are actually many in Japan who also spend lots of money on merchandise, rather than the more expensive Anime discs. I will use Love Live! as an example to illustrate my point. This is how its fanbase distribution looked like as of 2014:

●　30.2%　15~19 year old females
●　12.3%　20~29 year old females
●　*0.9%　30+ year old females
●　25.5%　15~19 year old males
●　18.9%　20~29 year old males
●　*8.5%　30~39 year old males
●　*3.8%　40+ males

Total (some rounding issues):
●　43.4%　females
●　56.7%　males

●　55.7%　15~19 year olds
●　44.4%　Adults (20+ year olds)

In 2014, Love Live! made ￥5,371,600,000 according to Oricon, which includes the sales of music CDs, live concert BD/DVD, anime BD/DVD, and the manga. However, its total sales for 2014 was actually ￥42,300,000,000. A few things Oricon does not account for are the sales from mobile games/apps, Box Office tickets, live concert tickets, merchandise (probably the biggest for many series), etc. As we can see in the fanbase distribution, many of Love Live!'s fans are teenagers, who most likely doesn't have the purchasing power of adults with stable full time jobs. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that these fans are spending money on the cheaper alternative goods such as Box Office tickets, music CDs, merchandise, cosplay items, etc.



Sources:
http://myanimelist.net/forum/?topicid=1416495
http://yusaani.com/l-ra/t-ra/lovelive/2015/09/19/194023/

My point is, disc sales can be a small fraction of what a series actually makes, but live concerts are a big deal in Japan if the artist themselves are popular. Love Live!'s μ's is not considered mainstream, but still managed to fill Tokyo Dome (50,000~55,000 seating capacity) for their final 2 day concert and also had 150,000 people watching it on live stream + 1 day later re-run, and many more thousands watching it live overseas in South-East Asian countries + Australia. They also made it to the 66th Kouhaku, where only the most influential artists of the music industry are ever invited to perform there.

Oh my when you say it sounds a bit frightened because you know more about sales then I do but have you ever seen a shoujo sell as awful as Nijiiro Days though? I do agree on that because I remember checking out Akagami and Akatsuki no Yona sales and they both didn't do as bad as other Shoujo's do. I expect a season 2 of both near the future.

Oh no your right I know that if I was Japanese i would die to see any of my favorite Seiyuu live in concert but living on the other side of the world I prefer wasting my money on 2D figures, discs and posters.

Nijiiro Days sales are really awful which is too bad as I really enjoy the show. The sales are bad for the reason's I've stated, no one seems to buy standard shoujo anime anymore. Historical/fantasy shoujo has done a bit better. The manga is cheaper so people still buy it. When girls stop buying shoujo manga that will really be the end of it.

You aren't a Japanese anime fan. You have to remember that. Western fans often prefer to buy figures than even the cheaper localized disc releases we get here. There are very few Japanese seiyuu who do concerts here, just a few rare ones at conventions which usually just cost the price of convention admission. It is a different world living in Japan.

Oh god I'm currently watching both and I forgot to mention them to you. My apologizes btw do you have any idea why Nijiiro Days disc sales are selling so bad compared to the manga which seems to be doing well?

It's not new Shoujo never sell good but Nijiiro days first volume sold only 166 then I heard the second one sold less then 100 that's a new record for a shoujo I personally like.

Well in my case I would rather waste my money on 2D posters or figures then a Seiyuu Concert unless maybe I really loved the Seiyuu's voice.

@-Janet there is shoujo anime airing right now! Nijiiro Days (Rainbow Days), 12sai among others. So it certainly isn't dead though it could be dying given the sales numbers.

No shock about the fans wanting concert tickets. Seiyuu as more than just voice actors is how things go these days. 2.5D is all the rage.

Well I agree it might not die out anytime soon but there's less shoujo anime being made. Last one I recalled was Wolf Girl and Black prince ( excluding Akagami and Akatsuki No Yona ) right now I'm talking about a romcoms.

No need to apologize I see its's understandable that girls who range between the ages of 10-14 wouldn't be able to afford discs. I never knew it was so expensive to purchase one , but I'm a still a bit curious why females older then 17 don't read nor watch shoujo much. I mean I'm 23 years going to 24 soon and I sure enjoy the hell out of my shoujo more then any other genre. So it's kinda disappointing to see more females purchasing tickets to see there favorite seiyuu's live in concert then saving up to buy a disc. If I lived in Japan and had a stable job that paid well I sure would buy every single shoujo that came out on dvd, as a fan of the genre I wouldn't hold myself back. But that's just my opinion I'm aware everyone thinks differently.

Oh I'm also aware it's easier for men to purchase anime merchandise because of there jobs certainly pay higher and thanks to that it' keeps the anime industry still going

Well I knew the whole idolish thing was very popular right now in Japan, obvious reason why so many replicas of Utapri are being made but who would've thought females would waste half of there money on disc sales or other anime merchandise just win concert tickets to see there favorite seiyuu live in concert. That's quite shocking but everyone has the right to waste there money on whatever they feel they like I have no say on it.

Osomatsu is also a Shounen!

I don't think shoujo anime will die out anytime soon. As I've said, it is useful as an advertising medium for the shoujo manga.

Sorry, shoujo means young girl. The girls who buy shoujo manga are young, 10-14 years old, perhaps some in the 15-18 year range. They don't have a lot of spending money. A manga volume costs about $5 (550 yen) while a disc costs ten times that, $50-80 (5500-8800 yen or even more). If you are a young girl without much spending money you will not buy discs but one manga volume every few months is easy for them to buy. That's why the manga may sell but the anime will not.

Shounen is bought and read both by young males and older males who have jobs and much higher buying power. It is also bought by older females with jobs and money but they also love UtaPri and Osomatsu san.

The female otaku really want to see concerts with their favorite seiyuu which helps to drive the sales. Concerts are also very expensive, especially if you have to spend 8000 yen on a disc volume (maybe multiple copies for more chances) for a lottery ticket to win a chance to buy the actual concert ticket for 8000 yen, then you have to buy the T-shirts, the pen lights, the towels, of course you already have the CDs, hug pillows, cloth posters and bedsheets of your favorites... it is not cheap to live the otaku lifestyle! Of course a real fan buys at least 10 copies of everything, maybe 30 or 100. Many of these fans are actually josei themselves, young women instead of young girls. They may still read some shoujo manga for nostalgia but probably won't buy shoujo anime. It's all about the hot 3D guys for them, not the hot 2D guys. If someone made a shoujo manga about hot idol boys it might sell some discs.

I'm surprise to hear that I always thought female in Japan didn't waste a dime on anything anime related except for an idolish show like Love Live or Shounen. But it's not a surprise Osomatsu san was very successful, the show has always been big in Japan plus all the seiyuus on there are super popular so that kinda boost the popularity some more.

I ask myself which group of people keep supporting Shoujo and why can't they be as successful as any other Shounen anime would be. Back in the early 2000's more shoujo was made with a 26-51 episode run but now you see them adapted every other season with only 12 episodes. I don't really understand why females wouldnt waste money on cute fluffy shows but somehow Shoujo is still being made so I'm thankful for that but I know for sure that in a few years Shounen will take over the world and Shoujo will be History.

On the last part you kinda of lost me there. What exactly do you mean by the girls who buy shoujo manga are shoujos who don't have the money to buy the anime? I'm totally lost there and your saying that as long as the disc sales go well the publisher will be happy and consider making a sequel to whatever was successful? I wonder what Shoujo manga right now is selling well enough to receive an adaption.

The animation studio is PAID by the production committee to make the anime (even if they are on the committee themselves too). The disk producer may not be on the committee either, they may just be paid to press and distribute them.

There are times where the studio is on the committee for S1 but not S2, perhaps because they didn't get their investment back. Other times another studio comes in for S2. Same for disk production, sometimes they even pull out partway for shoujo anime like Yona where Vap pulled out and they had to find another distribution partner.

And you're right, I didn't say that Kamisama Hajimemashita was the only shoujo to get a second season. KnT must be one of the best selling shoujo series. They did well enough in S2 that you might think it deserves S3 but in this case perhaps the manga publisher decided it wasn't worth their while to fund it, even if the distributor would have been happy if it had dropped from 6500 to 4000 discs in S3.

The production committee relationship is a complicated one. Basically they get together and pool their money together to pay for the animation studio and seiyuu to make the anime. In the old days they paid to have a music company make the theme songs but these days the theme songs are often done in conjunction with the anime but again it depends on the committee setup. Most character songs with covers drawn by the character designer are attached to the committee while many big artists do separate songs as their own single, often with a different record company than the one on the production committee.

But the Animation Studio and the Disk Production and Distribution aren't the manga publisher. So why would they accept to enter in a project where they know they will be the shorter end of the stick?

Kimi ni Todoke got a 2nd season!

Female otaku spend lots of money on anime in Japan. There are very successful projects who target them like Osomatsu san. And you're right that they buy anime which is adapted from many shounen manga like Haikyuu!! As you say, Female otaku do not buy shoujo anime or cute fluffy anime; I am not sure who does buy it, there aren't many of them to ask. But I would say the female otaku are a huge buying force today and are affecting the decisions on what anime to bring to market. They seem very focused on popular male seiyuu more than anything so events and songs done by those popular guys is what seems to drive sales. The anime is secondary to them.

All that said, the shoujo publishers still want to advertise their shoujo manga so they make shoujo anime too, not just anime they know will appeal to female otaku. The girls who buy shoujo manga are shoujos who don't have the money to buy the anime or just aren't interested in buying discs but if they like the anime enough to buy the manga then the publisher is happy and considers the production investment money to be well spent.

As you say it does make me and many other anime fans wonder why Japan keep adapting Shoujo mangas into anime when there dvd's sale very poorly but now you bring up a very interesting point about the reason why Shoujo anime still continues to be produce when there disc sales are terrible. But at the end of the day the sales of the manga are the reason why they might still continue to adapt stuff like Akatsuki no Yona or Kimi ni todoke into anime but it doesn't explain why the dvd's sell so poorly. I have notice there's less josei manga being made I have no idea why but anything targeted for females never seem to be successful in Japan unless were talking about something like Utapri or Haikyuu which usually sell over 20,000 discs.

Well even if Chihayafuru disc sales sold well or vice versa, girls aren't really into fluffy cute shows as much as there into shounen. So I don't expect any time soon for a 3rd season to be made and same goes for Kamisama Kiss which I absolutely adore and don't understand why the manga nor anime sell well.

Sadly I don't have the honor to live in Japan but I could imagine mostly everything on tv would be anime which helps determine how successful the show will be in some cases that doesn't help some, or even if the show is being advertise a few times a day it doesn't really help boost the disc sales at the end. So in my opinion for an anime to receive a Sequel it depends how successful it is and how much money it brought the studio that produced it.

Well yes I agree the first season of any anime usually gets more attention then the second one but in the case of Attack on Titan it seems like the sequel might be getting more attention then the first one. It seems like the anime left an impact on Japan. I have no idea why because killing Titans isn't something that would leave me in shock but somehow the manga and anime made a lot of money.

Sales of shoujo anime certainly make you wonder why they bother to make them when they could make another kind of anime instead. I look at it the other way: the fact that they continue to make shoujo manga into anime regardless of poor disc sales tells me that, at the end of the day, shoujo anime does have a positive effect on the publishers of shoujo manga. It must increase the sales of shoujo manga and magazines enough that it is worth their while to continue making it. All the publishers in Japan are large enough that they make shoujo, shounen, seinen and josei. They could choose to stop making anime for a genre. For the most part it seems they have stopped making josei anime as very few josei manga are adapted. But shoujo for some reason still gets made so it must help with the print sales enough to justify the cost of making the anime, even if the anime itself doesn't break even and we have no proof of that either. It's possible that with foreign streaming and re-runs on AT-X and D-anime Store that they could break even somehow on the anime itself.

As I said before, sequels rarely give another boost to the print material. One of the rare cases was the josei adaptation Chihayafuru which got a second season despite poor sales but it had a good TV deal so the disc sales may not have mattered anyway. It got a good second manga boost but so far they haven't gone back to try for a third one.

Shoujo with a sequel... Kamisama Hajimemashita did. It only got 3.1K disc sales in season 1 though for shoujo that's pretty good. The second season sold about half that which is a normal drop off and which is a reason why many shows don't bother with a sequel when the first season sales are so low. Kamisama Hajimemashita's manga sales aren't even spectacular so I can't really explain why it got a second season... or a first season. I'm too busy tonight to attempt to correlate the anime releases and the manga sales to see if there were bumps. But my point above was that the publisher must have felt it was worth their while.

When I look at anime adaptations sometimes I think I can see a pattern where a publisher just wants something, anything adapted into anime at least a few times a year to keep the name of their magazines and manga on TV. If you've ever watched anime live on Japanese TV you'll notice that late night especially is often a long ad for everything connected to the companies that make the anime. In the commercials in the anime timeslot they'll have ads for their other manga, the CDs for the theme songs, discs from the anime they made previous seasons... by having some anime on the go at all times they ensure that they have a TV advertising vehicle. I'm not sure it is always important for every anime to make money or even perhaps any of their anime to make money as long as it keeps up interest in their line of products.

A new anime may get more interest than a second season. Something fresh. Just conjecture on my part since the publishers and production committees aren't telling us why they still bother to make shoujo anime.

But if that's the case as of lately Akatsuki no Yona, Ookami Shoujo to Kuro Ouji, Kimi ni Todoke mangas are selling pretty well so they should be receiving a sequel by now. Btw do you remember a shoujo ever getting a sequel?

How I see it in my opinion Japan wouldn't waste a dime on a sequel for any shoujo they rather put there money on a new shounen series that will eventually become popular and earn more money

For shoujo it seems they look more for a manga boost from the anime airing as the discs almost never sell well at all. Sometimes with enough of a manga boost they will give the anime a second season if they feel they can get even more new readers though that is actually fairly rare.

Ahhh that makes more sense as to why the first volume would sell better then the rest but in this case volume one only sold 166+ which is terrible but honestly I'm not surprise shoujo never seems to sell well in Japan, compared to shounen which sells fantastic.

But I get the whole thing about the dvd's being so expensive in Japan but it's not something new to a shoujo fan like me or anyone else that females aren't interested in buying dvd's they rather just waste there money on mangas or something unrelated to anime. Though it would be nice to see a miracle happen with Nijiiro Days, at least if it sold over 800 dvd's ( which I doubt would happen ) it could receive a sequel.

But I do wanna thank you for taking time to respond to all my questions Ejc-san you've been a great help

Looking at sales trends, sales either slowly drop off or sharply drop off depending if earlier volumes had bonuses bundled with the intention to boost sales (event tickets for example). The reason why, is that buyers may find something else to spend their money on in a future season, as anime is very expensive in Japan. Buyers do not have unlimited amounts of money to spend, so they have to choose what to spend their money on if they have a huge selection of anime that they enjoyed and deem rewatchable to buy.

This sort of trend can be seen very easily by looking at the lowest selling volume of an anime, which is an indication of how many people bought all the volumes of a particular anime.

Ouch I knew volume 2 sold poorly but to not even make it on the top 100 list that's depressing to know. The way I see it if in total there's 294 DVDs sold that means the second one only sold around 80. As I said before there goes my hope for a second season though in rare occasions some do receive a sequel.

But I am curious what makes you say further volumes will sell even lower? Are the Japanese that disappointed on Nijiiro Days? Now I'm totally worried after you said that I can't believe people aren't buying the Dvd's when I find the series absolutely amazing.

Yeah, I was talking abt scanlations only, sorry. It has been more than three months iirc.