At least now when people say "All anime is tentacle porn", we can say "No it isn't and even when it is, it doesn't sell!"?
To elaborate on my previous comments regarding marketing, given that the vast majority of Manga UK's Top 10 titles are from franchises targeted towards an adolescent audience, I think a potential issue could be that distributors might be doing the equivalent of trying to advertise softcore pornography to the
Ben-10 crowd; although it would be great if we could see some purchaser demographics as I wouldn't be surprised if people in their late-teens or early-twenties are buying a number of them due to being on TV in their younger years, such as
Yu-Gi-Oh!. So perhaps it might be worth exploring other potential avenues to advertise mature titles to a more appreciative audience?
I think another potential issue could be that a number of these shows are simply marketed too ambiguously; leaving people unfamiliar with the franchise unaware of what the product actually entails. As an example, I'll go back to the previously mentioned
Samurai Girls:
Amazon Synopsis said:
Things seemed to be going so well for Muneakira Yagyu. On top of dealing with Jubei, the immortal samurai warrior who fell out of the sky and into his arms and lips, he used his ability to awaken the latent power of a female samurai with a kiss to successfully juggle a handful of very powerful, very female master samurai, AND led them all to victory against the minion of a great evil. So was it too much to ask for a little break in the routine of saving Japan? Apparently it was, as another great evil has appeared in the land, this one even stronger than the last. However, that's the least of Muneakira's problems, because with all the women he's kissed in order to awaken their latent samurai powers, the inevitable has finally happened. Someone's taking the long walk down the aisle with a samurai girl! It's going to be a really old fashioned wedding and any resistance by the groom will be totally feudal!
At first glance the
cover art doesn't really strike me as the series being "that" kind of show and the official blurb doesn't really help either. I mean, aside from the single phrase "Juggle a handful of very powerful, very female master samurai" it could actually arguably pass for the synopsis of a shojo-action series
.
Conversely however, I think a fine job was done with
High School DxD's first season. While the
front cover doesn't really say much and the
DxD in the title probably speaks for itself, the spine features an image of Rias with clearly visible cleavage that would likely jump out even when sorted into the overcrowded blu-ray section at HMV. Then there's the
back cover with clear sexualised imagery and the legendary tagline (which Jeremy Graves famously read out enthusiastically at a panel) - the intent of the series is clearly there. To that end, I'll be interested in learning how MVM's release of
So I Can't Play H! does for them because I think the
back cover in particular is a stroke of genius.
At the moment, one of Marvelous Games' most successful video game franchises is the ridiculously sexualised
Senran Kagura series, which I imagine is largely down to the franchise being so unashamed to admit that it is what it is. I mean,
this is the front cover of a niche game that made the
UK Top 40 on release and convinced the North American publisher that it would be worth giving future games physical releases in that territory. Then when it came to releasing the sequel, pre-sales
went pretty fast. The video game and anime markets tend to crossover nicely even before
Senran Kagura's anime inspired visuals, so perhaps this could be a sign that the market responds more strongly to more suggestive artwork? Sadly, the artwork on FUNimation's release of the
anime is pretty pedestrian (and I heard the adaptation as a whole was too, but that's another topic entirely).
I guess the tl;dr of what I'm trying to say is that maybe the best way to sell smut is to fully embrace what it is and run with it? I can already see
Monster Musume: Everyday Life With Monster Girls being a strong seller for MVM because from the outset that series' marketing was frank about what it is and then it spread like wildfire through word of mouth. Of course, there is always the chance that a production committee may not actually want you to do that. It must work for Sentai Filmsworks though, considering how often they sex-up their covers.
(On that note, does anyone know which cover
The Comic Book Artist & His Assistants used? The UK release is oddly absent from Amazon.co.uk, while Base.com shows
different artwork compared to
Manga UK's website; which was used by Sentai Filmworks and frankly, I feel captures the nature of the series better).
EDIT: Dear Arceus, did I really write such a long post about selling ecchi anime? I think I might need to go to bed...
