Anime DVD/BD Sales in Japan

27 Responses to “1999 and Earlier, Average Sales (including re-releases)”

1. torisunanohokori says:

   July 28, 2014 at 2:34 PM

   Where does the 9480 figure in first releases sales for Brain Powered come from? The DVD/BD wiki only seems to have the box data: http://dvdbd.wiki.fc2.com/wiki/%E3%83%96%E3%83%AC%E3%83%B3%E3%83%91%E3%83%AF%E3%83%BC%E3%83%89

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   • something says:

     July 28, 2014 at 3:09 PM

     From the unfortunately now defunct livedoor thread cited at the top. I’ll have to see if I saved an offline copy to check against.

     DVDBD wiki only has the DVD re-releases, the original would have been VHS/LD I assume.

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     • Progeusz says:

       July 28, 2014 at 3:24 PM

       http://log.shipweb.jp/?mode=datview&board_name=poverty&thread_key=1379599338&thread_id=1373718
       Repost with date of relevant week. Search for 9,480.
       It led me to:
       http://www3.atchs.jp/test/read.cgi/urisure/1359202731/43
       Which should be enough of a source?

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       • something says:

         July 28, 2014 at 3:41 PM

         Ah yeah that whole thread looks like something I had saved somewhere, I’ve been tempted to mine it for data but oh the time it would take… for stuff that’s very old.

         LD Rankings
         *23　***,377　*10,757　**8　ブレンパワード１巻
         *19　***,376　**9,127　**5　ブレンパワード２巻
         *20　***,266　**8,627　**4　ブレンパワード３巻
         *28　***,217　**8,238　**4　ブレンパワード４巻
         *21　***,389　**8,132　**4　ブレンパワード５巻
         *22　***,160　**8,148　**5　ブレンパワード６巻
         *49　***,128　**7,698　**5　ブレンパワード７巻
         *44　***,*99　**7,211　**4　ブレンパワード８巻
         **8　***,211　**8,076　**4　ブレンパワード９巻

         VHS Ranking
         *41　***,501　**2,560　**2　ブレンパワード１巻
         *21　**1,339　**1,339　**1　ブレンパワード２巻
         *20　**1,659　**1,659　**1　ブレンパワード３巻
         *31　***,524　**1,109　**2　ブレンパワード４巻
         *27　***,821　***,821　**1　ブレンパワード５巻
         v6 unranked
         v7 unranked
         *32　***,710　***,710　**1　ブレンパワード８巻
         *22　**1,114　**1,114　**1　ブレンパワード９巻

         Also wow LD thresholds got low around this time. VHS thresholds were more on par with modern DVD thresholds, though a bit higher.

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         • Progeusz says:

           July 28, 2014 at 4:08 PM

           Glad it’s the correct one.

           Reply
         • torisunanohokori says:

           July 29, 2014 at 1:14 AM

           Interesting, thanks. It kinda slipped my mind for some reason that VHS and LDs would have been a much bigger thing back then.

           Reply
2. Timeslot History: 1994-2000 Wrapup | Animetics says:

   September 29, 2014 at 3:52 PM

   […] them, late night slots and WOWOW accounted for half of the ten 10k+ hits from that same 1997-2000 time period; Brain Powerd, Cowboy Bebop, Hand Maid May, Initial D, and To […]

   Reply
3. Ejc says:

   October 1, 2014 at 6:30 AM

   You can find the old Livedoor thread on Wayback Machine (but it is from Nov 18, 2011): http://web.archive.org/web/20111118054123/http://jbbs.livedoor.jp/bbs/read.cgi/music/3914/1295395600/

   I looked at the sales for Cowboy Bebop, because someone on MAL hilariously stated it was a flop without posting any proof of this… but didn’t it average 19,651?

   3,330 VHS + 7,673 LD + 8,648 DVD = 19,651. Since we don’t know how Vol.1~3 of the DVD sold, then I simply divided the DVD total by 6 instead of 9, to get the 8,648 DVD average.

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   • something says:

     October 1, 2014 at 7:27 AM

     That’s the exact page I used for this, yeah. Not sure why they divided the DVDs by 9 instead of the 6 we have data for, that’s silly. Just an old oversight from when this tracking was new I guess. I only used the aggregate charts posted throughout that page though,so I’ll need to adjust its DVD value.

     (The Bebop details are in post #11 for those wondering)

     By the way, my last captured version of the page is from Aug 2012 so it’s a bit more recent, if you want to grab that: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/31857183/Livedoor%20historical%20thread%202012-08-09.html

     Also added the link to this version into the post.

     Reply
4. Exukvera says:

   March 10, 2015 at 8:17 PM

   Digimon Adventure’s 15th anniversary BD box sold over 10k. Should it be included or not?

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   • something says:

     March 10, 2015 at 8:41 PM

     Hmm, I haven’t really been updating this list, honestly. It was a one-off I copied over from the old Mania forums. I’d also have to find out what its original singles sales were, if they ever ranked.

     Reply
5. Randy says:

   January 31, 2016 at 12:29 AM

   Where do the first week sales and other pre-final VHS/LD sales figures for some series like Eva and Nadesico come from? Didn’t weekly reports for these formats only begin at 1999? It’s sad that Eva and a few others have these numbers listed while most others like Sailor Moon don’t.

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   • something says:

     January 31, 2016 at 10:09 AM

     Oricon started in 1999 but video disc sales have been tracked since long before then. We just don’t have access to a lot of that old data, and it’s not directly comparable to today’s data due to how different the market was and all that. So it’s mostly just the top sellers that people bother digging up data for when it comes to really old stuff.

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     • Randy says:

       February 4, 2016 at 10:11 PM

       Oh. That’s at least hopeful. Anyway, from what we have right now, is it safe to say none of the pre-2000s anime (except Eva) crossed the 30,000 mark in first-week sales? That’s what I’ve been trying to confirm to be exact.

       Reply
       • something says:

         February 4, 2016 at 10:36 PM

         At least based on the data we have, that’s a safe bet, yeah.

         Reply
         • Randy says:

           February 4, 2016 at 11:03 PM

           Thanks! One more thing, since it seems the BD sales for Macross F and Code Geass R2 come from the yearly chart, is it likely that their BD volumes did not cross the 10,000 during the first week?

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           • Randy says:

             February 4, 2016 at 11:04 PM

             And Gundam 00 S2 too, sorry.

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             • something says:

               February 4, 2016 at 11:49 PM

               They released BDs alongside DVDs, but back then Oricon did not publish weekly BD sales numbers, only rankings. So we only know their BD sales because of the yearly lists, not broken down by week.

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               • Randy says:

                 February 4, 2016 at 11:51 PM

                 And unlike the VHSs and LDs before, there are no buried data on their first-week BD sales out there at all?

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                 • something says:

                   February 4, 2016 at 11:52 PM

                   Nothing we have access to, if so.

                   Reply
6. kommsussertod says:

   March 1, 2016 at 6:08 AM

   Is it safe to assume that Eva has surpassed 200k total counting the BD release?
   At the time of first week results (2015.08.30) someone posted on /a/ this sales data:
   111,558 (LD/VHS original release – 1996)
   ***,224 (DVD re-release – 1997)
   **3,570 (DVD re-re-release – 2000)
   **7,455 (DVD re-re-re-release – 2003) – Individual release
   *25,581 (DVD re-re-re-release – 2003) – Box release
   *25,964 (DVD re-re-re-re-release – 2007)
   *26,353 (BD/DVD re-re-re-re-re-release – 2015)
   Do we have any idea if this data is accurate or not? Thanks!

   Reply
7. Ejc says:

   September 14, 2016 at 4:27 AM

   I’m not sure how long this has been on the DVD/BD Japanese sales wiki, but there are now average sales for the original releases and also the totals given for all the re-releases, with the number of re-releases given in brackets, for anime from 1989 to 1999:
   http://dvdbd2.wiki.fc2.com/

   Notice the extra 2 in the url compared to the usual http://dvdbd.wiki.fc2.com/

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   • something says:

     September 14, 2016 at 9:45 AM

     Guess I ought to get to updating this page at some point then. I tend to forget it exists. Will try to do something this weekend, thanks.

     Reply
8. something says:

   September 17, 2016 at 2:09 AM

   This post has been updated based on the data available from the pre-2000 DVD/BD wiki.

   Reply
9. something says:

   September 19, 2016 at 3:35 PM

   One thing to note is that the top five studios (Sunrise, Toei, Deen, Pierrot, Group TAC) make up 46.3% of this entire list.

   We can’t cleanly compare these numbers against the 2000-present data (really more like 2004-present in terms of having full data available) because I don’t include kids shows in the latter. But those same five studios only make up 13.2% of all series since ~2004.

   The current top five studios (JC Staff, Deen, Madhouse, A1, Gonzo) account for 24.6% of the total.

   Even if adding kids shows would change things somewhat, there’s been a major diversification of studios since the 90s. Also of note: only one studio returns (Deen). Though Sunrise is virtually tied with Gonzo and since they do more anime now than Gonzo does, should be passing them easily.

   In part this seems obvious. The number of shows per year has also increased dramatically, so the same few studios couldn’t handle everything. True, the length of shows has also decreased markedly with so many late night anime being one cour, but there’s still only so many that one studio can do at a time.

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   • Primadog says:

     September 20, 2016 at 12:48 AM

     Top five measured by number of productions, revenue, total units sold?

     Reply
     • something says:

       September 20, 2016 at 6:26 AM

       Most prolific in terms of pure number of productions.

       Reply