Top 10 UK Anime Sellers Revealed: April 2013

This makes me very sad. However it also makes me think that as a person im quite valuable to the uk market heh...


I knew sales were low but im amazed anything is profitable at those volumes
 
I think these numbers prove beyond all doubt that whatever UK anime distributors are in the business for, it's not for the sports cars and drugs and hookers. Where's the profit in a £30 set that sells a couple of hundred units? After VAT, the retailer's cut, distribution, and packaging, does what's left even cover the exorbitant BBFC fees?

kaze_andrew said:
I think those who actually parallel import are not as many as vocal fans would lead you to believe. Yes the lack of sales hurts the market here, but I don't think it hurts it anymore than those who do not pay. At least the money is still going back to Japan anyway and it motivates people like me to provide a better service to everyone. I think at most you lose 200 - 300 units of sales to the USA - maybe even less than that.
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I've always believed the number of UK fans importing from the US has been overstated, both by distributors (not naming any names, like) and other fans. It's never seemed plausible to me that thousands of people in the UK are importing anime, especially when US numbers aren't exactly through the roof by all accounts (though perhaps they are in relative terms).

Rosencrantz said:
On a wider note, why buy at all? Cruncyroll has stuff for free or for a very small fee you can get higher resolution/quicker releases.

The ability to try a series out would definitely swing sales one way or another but surely the ability to not have to spend a fortune on a physical release must also be a factor? Plus if you've seen a series online do you need to own it? granted there's dubs and improved footage to consider but that's only going to gain sales for a show that the viewer really enjoyed.
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Crunchyroll has definitely changed my buying habits. Last year, for example, I watched and thoroughly enjoyed their stream of Tari Tari. But why would I want to own a DVD version that looks no better (and probably worse), has barebones packaging, no dub, ugly arse yellow subtitles, and few or no worthwhile extras? I wouldn't, is the answer. Sorry Sentai.

Other than there being no legal streaming option, the only worthwhile reasons I can think of for buying anime in 2013 would be nice packaging and/or a dub - or in those rare cases where I love a show so much that I have to own a copy.
 
Not fussed about owning a good BD transfer? I guess some people wouldn't be, but I think it has to be classed as "a thing".
 
Why, certainly, but that ties into "do I like it enough" if I have seen it or "does it interest me enough" if I haven't. I'm finding myself answering "no" to these questions more often than not.

There's also the issue of whether a show looks good enough in terms of art and animation for me to consider whether a BD upgrade is worthwhile. A HD release of something like Hyakko would amount to little more than turd polishing :p
 
Rosencrantz said:
On a wider note, why buy at all? Cruncyroll has stuff for free or for a very small fee you can get higher resolution/quicker releases.

The ability to try a series out would definitely swing sales one way or another but surely the ability to not have to spend a fortune on a physical release must also be a factor? Plus if you've seen a series online do you need to own it? granted there's dubs and improved footage to consider but that's only going to gain sales for a show that the viewer really enjoyed.
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That's why I feel that companies need to focus on extras to make fans buy the physical releases (whether they be physical or on-disc). Obviously, make sure the quality of the show itself is as-good-as (if not the preferable, better than) the streaming, but add some extra incentives in there. Personally, I passed on Beez's Durarara release because it was sub-only...yet the series was on Crunchyroll (and there were apparently problems with the subtitles on Beez's release) and the releases were around £25 each.

However, I am buying Kaze's Tiger & Bunny releases because they are in awesome digipacks, are on blu-ray and have some cool physical extras.
 
Okay, this is Facebook/YouTube so I 'll take the comments with a pinch of salt, but in regards to Tiger & Bunny all I ever see is people moaning about the price.

Yet, they are the ones moaning that uk companies don't use nice packaging etc...

It just feels that no matter what they do, people won't find it good enough/find a reason to moan. I don't envy you guys at all, we are a tough crowd.
 
GolGotha said:
Okay, this is Facebook/YouTube so I 'll take the comments with a pinch of salt, but in regards to Tiger & Bunny all I ever see is people moaning about the price.

Yet, they are the ones moaning that uk companies don't use nice packaging etc...

It just feels that no matter what they do, people won't find it good enough/find a reason to moan. I don't envy you guys at all, we are a tough crowd.
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People will continue to whine about the price until things are absolutely free and then they'll whine because the quality isn't good (due to it being free). The way I see it is:
- Really nice looking digipack
- Monthly Hero booklets, featuring production artwork and such
- Hero cards
- 2 DVDs and 1 Blu-ray
- Easily the best English dub in recent years
So, worth the £25 asking price on a lot of websites.

However, I do find it hard justifying paying that same amount of money for a bare-bones, 3 disc DVD release when I've become used to a barebones DVD costing no more than £20. There's a very obvious difference in the quality of the release between Tiger & Bunny and say, Clannad. Of course though, I still remember the days when even long-running shows were released as singles (I still have all 13 volumes of Fullmetal Alchemist xD), but still...I guess we've just had the notion of getting anime for as cheap as possible for such a long time.

You know what is probably the pride of my collection though? Beez's The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya limited editions. 14 episode series split over 4 £30 volumes, but the extras were awesome - chipboard box, Haruhi's armband, Haruhi's headband, a CD single with each one (OP and ED singles, as well as 2 character song singles), pencil boards, pillow cases and iron patches. Those were the days.
 
I know that those people exist, but it just baffled me as to why even the people who were used to paying £20 for a '3 episodes on a fuzzy VHS' were moaning about this.

Which is why I don't envy the job of Andrew, Jeremy etc...

Edit: That does sound like a good bundle. Hopefully we can see those sort of things available in the UK at some point in the future.
 
GolGotha said:
I know that those people exist, but it just baffled me as to why even the people who were used to paying £20 for a '3 episodes on a fuzzy VHS' were moaning about this.

Which is why I don't envy the job of Andrew, Jeremy etc....


quote]Edit: That does sound like a good bundle. Hopefully we can see those sort of things available in the UK at some point in the future.
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I missed the VHS era (because I was but a small boy), but I don't want to think about how much money I spent on Fullmetal Alchemist or Mobile Suit Gundam SEED DESTINY...especially Destiny, as well....

The Haruhi sets were brilliant (even if the pillow cases are still sealed because I'm too embarrassed to use them xD). I do wonder if such a thing would sell now though, because we're living in an era where the main target audience feel really self-entitled.
 
Joshawott said:
So, worth the £25 asking price on a lot of websites../quote]
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I would agree if not for Kaze's apparent inability to display two simultaneous subtitle streams. The JP track gets the dialogue while the EN track gets the signs. I know there isn't a great deal of on-screen text that needs translating in T&B, but there is in other shows Kaze have released, and frankly it's not good enough. See also: song subtitles. Until they get the basics right I'm giving their stuff a wide berth.
 
Joshawott said:
I missed the VHS era (because I was but a small boy), but I don't want to think about how much money I spent on Fullmetal Alchemist or Mobile Suit Gundam SEED DESTINY...especially Destiny, as well....

The Haruhi sets were brilliant (even if the pillow cases are still sealed because I'm too embarrassed to use them xD). I do wonder if such a thing would sell now though, because we're living in an era where the main target audience feel really self-entitled.
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I think I was in year 5 at school, so about 8/9? And I used to go to Forbidden Planet every Saturday with my friend to buy anime with our pocket money.

I think Evangelion was over 9 VHS, so about £180....which is a stupid amount haha!

Haha, I say use them! My brother would if he owned them, nothing to be embarrassed about. I would like to say there are enough die-hard fans of certain anime series that would spend £100+ on a bundle such as that. So, fingers crossed!
 
GolGotha said:
I think Evangelion was over 9 VHS, so about £180....which is a stupid amount haha!!!/quote]]/quote]
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More like 13 tapes, though they were "only" £13-14 each. I have such fond memories of my Saturday (and occasionally weekday evening after work) trips to Tottenham Ct. Road to buy anime and manga at nearby Forbidden Planet and Virgin Megastore. That I regard that period as one of the best of my life says a lot about how it hasn't gone exactly to plan since.
 
Oh god, was it 13? That's even worse than haha! Why did I think it was over 9?

Well, you were lucky then. Most of my VHS Tapes have £19.99 stickers on them. Couple were £9.99, but they were probably in the 'bargain bin' at Forbidden Planet as they weren't well known titles.
 
It's more of, still living at home and not wanting Mum to think I'm a creepy pervert. Maybe when I have my own place....then I'll hide them once more if I ever get a wife xD.

I was born in 1992, so by the time I was of the age where I could realistically buy things with my pocket money, VHS was on its way out for DVD. Even though I watched Pokémon and Digimon as a kid, I didn't really get into anime until Shaman King and Naruto were on Fox Kids/Jetix. I still remember the price I had to pay for Fullmetal Alchemist. I think it was something like, £15-20 a volume? (Although I was lucky to get 9-13 for £10 each on sale). So you're easily looking at £170 for 51 episodes at a minimum, compared to about roughly £90 for five volumes of Brotherhood (which has 13 more episodes) - hell, you can now get the complete boxset of FMA:B on Amazon for only £35.
 
I'm not convinced the VHS generation or even the singles DvD generation are complaining about price nowadays, the change from singles to box sets was a massive price drop.

I think it's the more recent generation that have come to Anime from Social Media or on the back on the manga explosion that hit shops a few years back. When you compare Anime prices to US/UK shows they are more expensive and they don't have the background to know what things were like even just a few years ago.
 
I'm not sure the generation coming in today even want a home video release at all, in the long term. Like fabricatedlunatic's case only without any time to build up a habit of collecting the VHS/DVD/BD versions. Sort of like it is in Japan, where you can watch stuff on TV or rent in most cases, so the home video release is pitched only for the hardcore fans of a particular show.

It makes the poor quality video/audio/subtitles of most western releases rather problematic.

I still buy stuff all the time, but I agree that when you watch something in HD on a streaming service and fall in love with how sexy it looks there, it's really depressing to pay extra to get a barebones DVD with no quality control. In some cases there's no ideal release at all, even if you consider every region on the planet as a potential source. I've been buying more non-ancient JP BD releases since streaming took hold in my life because I don't have faith in the eventual localised versions.

R
 
It seems to me that just not everyone takes the effort to understand these things. There are a lot of casual anime fans who have no interest in buying. The pricing makes sense when you understand everything behind it but a lot of people just won't get that.

For me, being here and looking for myself has helped a lot. I feel I have a much better grasp of the way everything works thanks to that.
 
Somewhat relating to the point of discussion - my Nan has made a point several times in the past of not understanding why I buy DVDs when it's online. I don't want to watch everything for free - if I can support x company or x people and want to, then I don't see what the problem is.
 
I'm idling wondering just how many copies Red Garden has sold in total over time since it was an infamously poor performer for ADV.
 
reborn said:
Somewhat relating to the point of discussion - my Nan has made a point several times in the past of not understanding why I buy DVDs when it's online. I don't want to watch everything for free - if I can support x company or x people and want to, then I don't see what the problem is.
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Hmm, trying to decide if your Nan is trying to save you space by having you stick to legal online versions or if she's telling you to pirate away. Somewhat impressive eitherway.
 
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