Top 10 UK Anime Sellers Revealed: April 2013

Ian Wolf

Ian Wolf

Mushi-shi
AUKN Staff
Anime Limited has revealed what were the top ten best-selling anime in April and over the course of the year so far.

<strong>Highest Sales Overall</strong>
&nbsp;


&nbsp;
1)&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <em>Pokemon 4ever</em> &ndash; Canal UK
2)&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <em>Persona 4: The Animation &ndash; Box 2</em> &ndash; Kaze / Manga
3)&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <em>Spirited Away</em> &ndash; Canal UK
4)&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <em>My Neighbour Totoro</em> &ndash; Canal UK
5)&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <em>The Girl Who Leapt Through Time</em> &ndash; Manga UK
6)&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <em>Howl's Moving Castle</em> &ndash; Canal UK
7)&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <em>Arrietty</em> &ndash; Canal UK
8)&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <em>Okami-San & Her Seven Companions</em> &ndash; Manga UK
9)&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <em>Redakai: Season Conquer the Kairu</em> &ndash; Manga UK
10)&nbsp; <em>Naruto Shippuden: Box Set 12</em> &ndash; Manga UK

All of these releases sold over 300 copies, with <em>Pokemon 4ever</em> selling over 1,050. The range given is reportedly "not out of the ordinary" for a regular month, but may change over the next few months due to the return of HMV.

<strong>Top Selling New Releases in April</strong>
&nbsp;


1)&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <em>Persona 4: The Animation &ndash; Box 2</em> &ndash; Kaze / Manga
2)&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <em>Okami-San & Her Seven Companions</em> &ndash; Manga UK
3)&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <em>King of Thorn</em> &ndash; Manga UK
4)&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <em>Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan &ndash; Series 1, Part 1</em> &ndash; Kaze / Manga
5)&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <em>Fractale</em> &ndash; Manga
6)&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <em>Tiger & Bunny: Part 2</em> &ndash; Kaze / Manga
7)&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <em>Oblivion Island</em> &ndash; Manga
8)&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <em>Loups=Garous</em> &ndash; Manga
9)&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <em>Shana: Series 2, Part 2</em> &ndash; MVM
10)&nbsp; <em>Ga-Rei Zero</em> &ndash; MVM

All of these releases sold over 100 with <em>Persona 4</em> selling under 800. <em>Vampire Princess Miyu</em> narrowly missed out, coming 11.

Source
 
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The original #10 in the second list (before Oblivion Island correction) was the FMA movie release this month, so the text about tenth place and Miyu presumably means they sold similarly. The rough guide figure given for the FMA disc was 55 units I think?

R
 
My guess is that the figures are brought down due to people by who already have copies of these discs on Region 1, those who don't want to change from DVD to Blu-Ray, or they are just put off by high prices.
 
It just goes to show how every single sale counts. If all of the mainstream content is removed from the lists (and even that is selling less spectacularly than I'd have thought), the core 'fan' titles really cannot be very profitable. If we had to pay for our own dubs and authoring here, we'd be sunk ^^;

It's sad that the April FMA releases must be selling horrifically given how big a series it is. Manga has tried to correct their huge mistakes, but it's too late to win back all of the fans they shed since they aren't going to double dip.

As a stray thought, the DVD/BD upgrade process coupled with wobbling between foreign releases and local ones mean that often the same content is competing against itself in multiple ways, to some extent. I don't know how many people see buying a BD rerelease as viable now, whereas rebuying on DVD when you owned it on VHS was an obvious advantage.

And the price thing... if Manga UK are giving us such outrageously low prices and still only shifting a few hundred units, I'm not sure what justification there is in the long term for continuing to avoid raising the prices in line with other markets.

R
 
Wasn't StudioCanal's Pokémon 4Ever release on blu-ray? If so, I hope that persuades Universal to release the newer movies on blu-ray too (Japan has had blu-rays of the last two movies and the first one was recently re-aired on Japanese TV, remastered into HD). I honestly don't see why The Pokémon Company International can't just author a Region A/B master and sell them across the licensees in America, Europe and Australia - they'd be dub only, so that would cut reverse importation fears.

In terms of the sales figures, I had imagined that the top sellers wouldn't hit 10,000 (or even 5,000) but not even 1,000? Then we have titles that get into the Top 10 charts by just selling over 100 (although to be fair, we do only get around ten or so titles released a month don't we?).

So that begs the question - how poorly does a show have to sell for it to not be worthwhile?
 
Yeah, the poor sales of the FMA Movie BDs have nothing to do with how late both the individual conqueror of Shambala release was, as well as the movie double pack. Remember as well that Funi's release was AB.

I do have to wonder why Okami-san is so high on the list though.
 
The numbers are depressingly realistic, as aware as I was of the limitations of the UK market it still makes for sad reading.

Mangaranga said:
I do have to wonder why Okami-san is so high on the list though.
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The only thing that surprises me is seeing T&B as low as it is.
 
ilmaestro said:
Mangaranga said:
I do have to wonder why Okami-san is so high on the list though.
Click to expand...
The only thing that surprises me is seeing T&B as low as it is.
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Manga seemed to push Okami-san quite hard, there was lots of social media plugging for it - it was also released early in the month (8th) so had a few weeks to pick up sales. T&B being that low did surprise me, but it was only on sale for 8 days in April, so that might be part of the reason?
 
ilmaestro said:
The only thing that surprises me is seeing T&B as low as it is.
Click to expand...
Probably due to people getting pissy about the price, which for once I think I now agree with, seeing as it's £26 for 6 episodes of Kaze QUALITY and no extras on the bluray.
 
I think it's even harder to agree with people moaning about prices now that it is easy to see how truly few copies any of these titles sell.
 
It really is quite a shock to the system to see how low the sales are for some of these.
However, like people have mentioned, it's not because the fans aren't out there, it's because you are also competing against US imports of DVDs (many people have a region free DVD player) and Blu-rays (quite a few Region A&B releases).
Those are down to a combination of mostly being cheaper, and also because fans can get their hands on shows asap.

It's a real shame.
Thankfully I think Manga UK have started to pick up the ball over the last year, and have started to gain some regular sales from me.
My only issue with some releases is the joint ones with Kaze tend to be either quite expensive or poor quality.
Tiger and Bunny, 6 episodes for £26 = very expensive (yes, it's DVD and BD, but still too expensive).
Code Geass, 26 episodes on 2 BD discs = poor quality (I can understand it's to keep costs down, but still...)

I will continue to support the UK industry's quality and fairly priced releases, but
 
I think the issue is actually this:

- Yes, some titles sell under 100 copies, these do not mean the market is bad but in this case both titles have had other releases and came out with little pomp or celebration. This is what happens when no push is required. In the case of FMA the Conquerer of Shambala - it'll likely sell constantly every month in due course. It's not a high value item but it makes sense to be in the catalog if someone has all the rest of FMA.

- The real issue is not market size, but market size aware the titles are out on homevideo (yes, some people really do not) and/or those who simply will not buy it. Not those who refuse to buy from the UK because [Pick any number of reasons ranging from the fair to the mental] - but those who simply will not buy 99% of what they consume digitally just now.

- Bringing us to point 3 - 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.

- The REAL issue - at least from an analysts point of view - is there is easily 9x or 10x the normal buying market who are aware of anime and just not buying for some reason. It's a huge market to tap into but the question on almost everyone and their pet's lips is "How?". I have a few ideas - but we'll see where it goes.

It's always been this way and people who worry it's some apocalyptic sign need to relax a bit - it's mostly as this data has not been regular until now. We're still very much a developing market that is finding its feet in the larger audience. Awareness is there but that now needs to be converted to sales - fun times for people like me!

I prefer to let people know the market realities so folks know we're no goliath media machines here, we're working hand-to-mouth to build something cool here.

Andrew,
El Presidente - Anime LImited
 
Great post Andrew, it's interesting to hear what your side of things consider to be the real issues aside from the hard sales data looking a bit grim from an outsider's point of view.

The only thing that continues to worry me is that the UK will remain "very much a developing market" until it finally dies off - it feels like every time the UK market takes some steps forward, the industry changes enough (either internally to the UK, with personnel or company changes, or in a more general sense such as the changeover from DVD to BD) that the UK has to redevelop all over again.
 
I honestly love the enthusiasm! It can really be a difficult job sometimes, but it's great to see you're up to the challenge Andrew! It makes someone like me get excited for what is next and want to continue to support the industry as much as I can.
Sure, there are problems at times but it seems to me more and more often they are being heard and acknowledged so that's definitely on the way to improving.
 
ilmaestro said:
The only thing that continues to worry me is that the UK will remain "very much a developing market" until it finally dies off - it feels like every time the UK market takes some steps forward, the industry changes enough (either internally to the UK, with personnel or company changes, or in a more general sense such as the changeover from DVD to BD) that the UK has to redevelop all over again.
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I think we're rapidly reaching a point where things will evolve for one reason or another - it's going to take another 5-10 years to grow but we'll get there now the "false" growth borne from professing that manga (as in comic, not Manga UK) was "TAKING THE UK BY STORM" and some of the unrealistic acquisition patterns are dying out.

We live in interesting times anyway - and even if things remain a developing market for a longer time than usual, I don't see it dying off. I've seen it take knocks but never go down & out. We'll see where things go from here though - but I remain optimistic that there is a future out there :).

AP
 
Andrew, I was wondering, how much do you think the availability of legal streaming (such as Crunchyroll) has affected the market in terms of sales by essentially cutting out "blind buying" for a lot of titles? On one hand, I can see the benefit of increased sales from people who might not have bought the show had they not tried watching it first, but there's also the people who would watch a show they might have been interested in buying, but choose not to buy based on opinions from watching it streamed. For a personal example, I wouldn't be waiting impatiently to throw money at whoever can license Bunny Drop or Wandering Son had I not seen them streamed legally (hinthint), but on the flip side I was intrigued by Negima but decided against it after watching a couple of episodes on FUNimation's YouTube channel.

Thinking about it, I think the only anime title I've bought this year (so far) that was a blind buy after only reading a product description was Dream Eater Merry. Then again, I tend to use manga adaptations to try out series' (as manga volumes are cheaper than DVDs =3).

Obviously, having informed, happy customers as opposed to some who might blind-buy and regret their purchase is a lot better, but I was wondering if sales have changed (for better or worse) since the rise of online streaming?
 
Joshawott said:
Andrew, I was wondering, how much do you think the availability of legal streaming (such as Crunchyroll) has affected the market in terms of sales by essentially cutting out "blind buying" for a lot of titles? On one hand, I can see the benefit of increased sales from people who might not have bought the show had they not tried watching it first, but there's also the people who would watch a show they might have been interested in buying, but choose not to buy based on opinions from watching it streamed. For a personal example, I wouldn't be waiting impatiently to throw money at whoever can license Bunny Drop or Wandering Son had I not seen them streamed legally (hinthint), but on the flip side I was intrigued by Negima but decided against it after watching a couple of episodes on FUNimation's YouTube channel.

Thinking about it, I think the only anime title I've bought this year (so far) that was a blind buy after only reading a product description was Dream Eater Merry. Then again, I tend to use manga adaptations to try out series' (as manga volumes are cheaper than DVDs =3).

Obviously, having informed, happy customers as opposed to some who might blind-buy and regret their purchase is a lot better, but I was wondering if sales have changed (for better or worse) since the rise of online streaming?
Click to expand...

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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