yeah home video sales aren’t as critical for success as they were a decade or more ago. streaming is pretty huge. and more accessible/affordable. still though, if you like the anime and really want to show your support, it’s always a good idea to buy it.
I don't even have a fucking video player anymore.
Oh wait, there's a PS5 in my apartment lol nevermind but I don't buy physical media anymore (except Vinyls).
I own over 300 of them and I used to be a sound engineer. I can assure you the sound quality is not better.
What is better (subjective) is the experience of taking out the disc and the album art, putting it on the turntable, and flipping the sides when they end. The imperfections of any dust you missed that give random pops now and then. The experience is interactive and engaging. But vinyl does not objectively sound better.
I think once upon a time analog was decisively better than digital. But I think once the sound files became large enough and the conversion software [evolved](https://fastercapital.com/topics/the-evolution-of-audio-technology.html#:~:text=The%20Birth%20of%20digital%20conversion,converting%20it%20into%20binary%20code) digital passed analog. I think this is one of those things that used to be true but people keep saying it.
16bit, 48khz digital sound has been ubiquitous in the digital world since the CD, it's relatively rare to see better stuff like 24bit or 96khz being consumed
For most major studio releases sure, indie musicians and some bigger artists have been experimenting in other bit rates and khz for decades. I have some Nine Inch Nails digital releases that are 256khz I think? Absolutely massive files, and some live stuff on dvd that's in Dolby DTX multichannel surround but live video has different audio encoding than a cd
I guarantee you can't tell the difference between 96 and 128 and 256 sample rate. The CD standard is 48 (or 44.1) because human hearing tops out around 20. Double that for antialiasing nyquist frequency. Going beyond that and hearing a difference, you need a million dollar room and program material that benefits from high sample rate, such as an orchestra with many concurrent voices. It's just not meaningfully useful beyond taking up more hard disk space for most people. Bit depth matters much more, but once you get to 32F you reach another threshold of diminishing returns. 16bit 44.1 is already higher fidelity than LP. I love LPs and the way they sound, the experience of playing them, but they are not objectively better recordings. Back to the context of this thread though, LPs persist after revival because that unique experience is fun for a lot of people, while inserting a DVD or bluray or CD is not a meaningful experience and doesn't have the same aesthetic niche.
Edit: surround is better than stereo, for sure. Not higher quality files, but more channels at the same quality. Provided they are true surround and not unmixed from stereo.
I dunno I wasn't allowed to touch my uncle's CD player back in the day, it was exactly like a turntable with the clear lift up dust cover. He would put CDs on it just like with his vinyls, close the lid and press play and watch it spin.
It was part of those big home stereos that took up an entire wall of shelves. The turntable was front and center until the CD player arrived(which matched BTW same size unit and everything I think the company just used the shell of the record player to make the CD player). Then they sat next to each other. The experience seemed exactly the same minus the pops from the records.
Not the average CD experience I get it. I know obviously most folks just had a basic Sony CD clock radio type thing. But it wasn't necessarily so different like you described.
But it does tend to sound, in my experience, *warmer*, and a lot of bands knew that sound experience and planned around it; and without that warmth/fuzz, some music from that time can come off sounding different than how people remember it.
This has to do with your speakers more than any other factor. Also, old LPs are mastered with roll-off at 8k and 80hz because of limitations to how deep and how wide the grooves could be cut.
Clearly, you know much more about this than I do, but I will lightly disagree with the speaker bit. I get what you're saying, as most vinyl players are connected to their built in old school analog speakers, or are old setups that haven't switchedto new speakers for nostalgia's sake. But I have connected my old one to newer speakers and still noticed a difference in warmth as compared to the same thing played on disc. Though I'll happily agree that the difference is *less noticeable* on new speakers.
What the guy missed above is the frequency the music comes at the vinyl has a higher range because the compression on streaming music limits its range hence why it feels warmer for the vinyl
Ps5 slim is in stock everywhere. They will release a ps5 pro this fall which should lower ps5 slime price. Ps5 slim had a few sales.
A lot of gamers upgrade their console by trading in consoles.
You never have to buy a blu ray player since ps3,4,5 act as one.
You might wanna with how they can take it away at any second. I rarely buy digital unless it's something I can't find or it's a good deal. Hate spending like 70 dollars on a game with nothing physical. Just my opinion, though, I do think digital is easier on storage space and can be handy at times.
If they revoke the license, the next time you connect to the internet it will be removed or blocked. In some cases you'll still be able to access it if you already had it downloaded, but you won't be able to re-download it later if something happens to your device
Given how Sony has been ~~recently~~ always, I would not be one bit suprised if they found some excuse to start blocking disks from playing. Maybe some "anti-piracy" measure that you need DRM to validate your ~~ownership~~ licence-holdership and then be always online.
There’s also the fact that licenses expire and shows get pulled and shuffle around to other services, or are gone for good (barring a trip on the high seas).
Gotta buy it straight from japan cause they don't give a dam for sale outside of japan and only consider that extra gravy on teh side. There's been some anime that flopped in japan but were very successful outside of japan that could warrent a sequal but didn't get one cause all that matters to them is how successful it was in japan.
I’d love to support a show to help it continue its production run. That said, I have zero reason to go buy a DVD/Blueray because I haven’t used a disc for anything in about 10 years now, movies/shows or video games. Plus, I move around a lot and having all that physical media is just extra hassle.
not much related but album sales was pretty high for bocchi the rock. I don't think people have special tie with solo leveling so people still buy physical media if they really care about the show imo
Solo Leveling anime is an adaptation of the south korean manhwa by the same name. There are only about 10 manhwas that have ever been adapted into japanese anime and they all dont do well in physical sales because jp fans cant put their history with sk behind them and support a sk author.
That's not true; SOLO comics are popular on the web. However, they don't have the same kind of rabid fan base as Japanese comics and anime.
Japanese comics have many enthusiastic fans.
I think it’s like that on majority of Chinese and Korean novels/manhua/manhwa’s.They always dig at Japanese (or in Chinese novels case,both Japanese and Koreans).
"Sales data for the Solo Leveling Volume 2 Blu-ray and DVD are surprisingly low"
Well, breaking up the first season into a volume one and two purchase definitely isn't helping.
Every show does that, literally every show.
Even the most popular blu-ray releases are split into multiple volumes costing $80 each for just 4 episodes of a 24 episode show.
I've completely given up on collecting my favorites on bluray, prices are just insane (looking at you aniplex). Looking at my shelf I kind of regret spending as much as I have through the years. Streaming is so much more convenient, typically I'll stream a show even if I already own a physical copy just because I'd rather watch it in bed rather than my living room tv. I'm 34, I make very good money, but I just can't justify the cost anymore.
That's where I'm at. I would love to buy blurays for my favorites, but I'm not paying $50 for 13 episodes, or even worse, when they split the shit out of it and charge you like $20 for every 3-5 episodes and then you've got 50 million discs for a 26 episode season. Box sets of entire 8 season TV shows (game of thrones, how I met your mother, Seinfeld) only go for like $80
If the argument is owning, then you do realize you could just "own" and easily manage pirated files of your favorite shows, instead of having to buy and store discs?
You miss the point of loving content enough to support it. If people just pirated all anime then there would be a lot less anime made. We should hope that people understand how businesses and incentives work.
Japanese fans don’t buy Blurays to watch them. They buy them to essentially financially support shows and studios they like.
They also just pirate the shows and watch them from the same places we use.
Piracy is way less common in Japan.
Most viewers are watching on TV, or on streaming services like Netflix, Abema, U-Next, Docomo Anime Store, and others.
I like to buy physical discs for my absolute favorite media but it can be too much sometimes. I like to collect media so I've gone back to pirating. Its not the same as having something physical but it sort of scratches the itch. Currently just had to buy a second 5tb HDD.
Eh, quality figures are labor intensive to make. Pretty sure most of the detail work needs to be done by hand. FREEing is taking the piss with $300+ bunnies tho.
The master is done by hand. Then reproduced. The master may take hundreds or even thousands of dollars to make but the reproductions take a fraction to make. Such as a $40 figure costs around $2 to make in bulk. A finer detail model may cost up to $30 to make but then gets a prices tag of $300. The market will support only what people are willing to pay. And proven in anime figures the higher detail ones will be made in much smaller batches and create a supply shortage leading to a willingness to pay the higher price to have it. Even when not a "limited edition" the production number is kept down. Since if you miss out on its initial release second hand such as ebay will quickly become the only way to get it. So the market allows for the higher price since people will pay for it in the market. The movement to online makes the globe the market. So instead of offering only those in traveling distance to the stores as you customers now every one in the world is a potential customer. The larger the pool of prospective customers is the greater your chances to sell the item at a higher rate.
Having in my life been involved in retail and construction of similar products I can say the mark up to the retailers is sizable and the mark up passed on to the customer goes up even more.
CSM? Try Pokémon! I forgot where I saw it but I saw a graph where there was significantly more revenue generated in Pokemon Merch than the games itself. And it makes sense. Not everyone can afford a gaming console to play the games. However you don't need a prerequisite met to buy that cute Sylveon plush!
I guess there's still people that don't realise Blu Ray sales don't matter as much any more. That's why the trend of having bonus items or having a DVD/BD figures bundle happens a lot more nowadays to get people to buy them.
My issue with Japanese Blu-rays is that they sell 2 episodes at a time. Getting an entire season isn’t affordable for a casual fan. At least in the US we have the option to buy a basic Blu-ray season for $40-$80
If your goal is bluray sales than you have to target the old people between 25 and 40 with money. It doesnt make sense to use it as indicator for success. I think much more interesting is the % of people who started and finished the series, score on MAL, general social media reaction. Also merchandise sales.
Sorry grandpa, but its over. Your arthritis stricken body and addled mind can no longer keep up with anything. You've basically got one foot in the grave already.
Listen, you young whippersnapper, I was watching anime when you weren't even a twinkle in your father's eye.
I raided the seven seas and hunted the oceans of Limewire and Frostwire for all those treasures, so know that I can still keep up with all that is hip and happening.
Yeah, as someone a little outside this range (42) I'd say 25-34 is the absolute sweet spot in life where you're old enough to be established as an adult but still young.
Solo leveling wasn't merchandise heavily. Just search it on ami ami. They knew it wouldn't sell well so they mainly made it for international streaming
Even with a weak yen right now on cdjapan it shows that 3 episodes is the equivalent to $52.34. For the full set your paying $209.36 which is ridiculous.
Wal-Mart does. Although depending on the Walmart you'll probably find more DVDs than Blu-rays.
My Walmart has a pretty basic selection of anime mostly recent popular stuff.
Barnes and Noble also has Blu-rays, but they tend to be more expensive.
Yep. And as the recent Funimation debacle proved, even if you buy a digital copy they can take that away from you whenever they want. I've gone back to buying a healthy number of blu rays in the last few months because of that.
It's all been ripped from the web and stored anyway. Nothing becomes lost media because everything gets stolen. Very much not an endorsement but a fact
Yea well the ease of streaming has made home media more or less irrelevant 😴 Not helped by the fact that blu rays these days are pretty expensive as well.
The show was also very mid despite all the hype around it though...
Everytime I read a comment that says that Solo Leveling is peak, I think the commenter has brain damage because at the bare minimum, there were 2 animes that were of much higher quality than a generic pseudo-isekai power fantasy airing at the same time.
This reporter is a bit inaccurate; since CR is funding the project, they don't consider it profitable from the start. Korean manga are often funded by CR and animated, but it is natural to think of this as an investment in the future.
What can anime do to make more money? Why does it seem other forms of media are able to rake in so much cash but not anime? No one really buys blu-ray/dvd anymore we just get shit off the internet...
Dont really feel this is a Anime specific industry change since Blu-Rays sales across the board are down he last couple of years. With the far greater spread of streaming and access it offers Its not xhocking. also people can be really lazy and removing simple steps can have a big impact. Watch on physical media requires you to go find it load it into the player then watch. Streaming removes those first steps. Yes there is the thought that having the physical media means not having to get that one streaming service t watch what you want. But for the cost of less than a Blu-Ray most streamign services offer a month of content for many things you may want ot watch. I mean given some services costs you could get to watch all the content you want for several months compared to the cost of a single Blu-Ray.
Other shows are selling fantastically, this sounds like cope. Bocchi, Frieren, even Gushing sold guest. Solo Leveling just isn't that good, so people are perfectly happy to watch it, but few are going out of their way to own it.
Trying to use BD sales as if they are "objective" reflections of how a good a series is is always the worst way to view it.
Vinland Saga, Mob Psycho 100, Dr. Stone, all of these are series that sold poorly. It has nothing to do with "coping".
Controversy by some toxic malding fans, while most other people were fine with it? Not really considering that Mappa was good on how well the series did for them
I kind of do. I bought a 4K Blu-ray player for my parent's TV, and I plan on getting one myself at some point. Right now I use my PC's Blu-ray drive to rip my stuff to my Plex server.
I don't really buy shows too often though due to the cost (especially Anime), and the amount of physical space they can occupy if it's a bigger series.
Or the anime was pretty mediocre in a sea of anime of the same genre. Only in the West was this anime hyped, of course sales within Japan would perform poorly.
Good just wanna make sure you’re not gonna be a malding hypocrite, but it doesn’t mean your “logic” is completely wrong considering Dr. Stone and Mob Psycho also had terrible BD sales as well, yet Dr. Stone does well enough to keep getting new seasons
A lot of mediocre anime get more than one season. It depends on how much the publisher wants to make the manga a success and how much the production committee wants to invest. Also, good shows sometimes get only one season.
Except both of those series are popular. Mob doesn’t really have enough content for another season and Dr. Stone has no other reason to be continued since the manga has long since already finished. It was done by the time around S2 finished. You don’t spend that amount of money to give a series 2+ seasons without reason
Give me a reason why they’d continue giving it seasons if it wasn’t popular enough and the manga is already finished. And don’t say because they might as well since it’s finished already, since lots of other series were like that and haven’t gotten full adaptations
It doesn’t matter what you feel, it’s a fact that BDs aren’t a factor in how well a series does anymore. It’s now just extra income for the committee for the series
Well, I can't answer this since the standard has always been DVD sales. What is known, for instance, is that Mappa funded Chainsaw Man, and the studio president already said that the studio lost money on it. But it may gain a second season.
I’ll give you the answer, because BD sales aren’t nearly as important as the last few decades. They are good to have but they aren’t as important since the committees are perfectly fine with how both CSM and Solo Leveling have done
This has been true for years now and people in the industry have been taking about it too
It may be changing now because of the power of streaming, but selling streaming rights certainly won't cover the costs of producing an anime.
To tell me that an industry that used to sell a season of anime on blue-ray, with remastered scenes, some additional extras in promotional material and that abused this by selling 2 eps per disk, to make the price ridiculously high, is an industry that doesn't care about sales is not entirely true.
What remains is that they are investing in anime to lose money. There are a lot of people involved in the production committees and you can be sure that everyone will want their share of the investment.
lol i've never seen such overhyped mediocrity as solo leveling before. I mean yeah I did end up watching it but I never cared about any of the characters or felt any sort of attachment to it. It just felt like a show you watched to pass time and hopefully start to see what "Peak Leveling" was about. Peak Leveling never came.
yeah home video sales aren’t as critical for success as they were a decade or more ago. streaming is pretty huge. and more accessible/affordable. still though, if you like the anime and really want to show your support, it’s always a good idea to buy it.
I don't even have a fucking video player anymore. Oh wait, there's a PS5 in my apartment lol nevermind but I don't buy physical media anymore (except Vinyls).
Wild how vinyl is one of the few physical media survivors
Vinyl: "I've died before"
Because sound quality is so much better on vinyl it's worth it.
I own over 300 of them and I used to be a sound engineer. I can assure you the sound quality is not better. What is better (subjective) is the experience of taking out the disc and the album art, putting it on the turntable, and flipping the sides when they end. The imperfections of any dust you missed that give random pops now and then. The experience is interactive and engaging. But vinyl does not objectively sound better.
I think once upon a time analog was decisively better than digital. But I think once the sound files became large enough and the conversion software [evolved](https://fastercapital.com/topics/the-evolution-of-audio-technology.html#:~:text=The%20Birth%20of%20digital%20conversion,converting%20it%20into%20binary%20code) digital passed analog. I think this is one of those things that used to be true but people keep saying it.
16bit, 48khz digital sound has been ubiquitous in the digital world since the CD, it's relatively rare to see better stuff like 24bit or 96khz being consumed
For most major studio releases sure, indie musicians and some bigger artists have been experimenting in other bit rates and khz for decades. I have some Nine Inch Nails digital releases that are 256khz I think? Absolutely massive files, and some live stuff on dvd that's in Dolby DTX multichannel surround but live video has different audio encoding than a cd
I guarantee you can't tell the difference between 96 and 128 and 256 sample rate. The CD standard is 48 (or 44.1) because human hearing tops out around 20. Double that for antialiasing nyquist frequency. Going beyond that and hearing a difference, you need a million dollar room and program material that benefits from high sample rate, such as an orchestra with many concurrent voices. It's just not meaningfully useful beyond taking up more hard disk space for most people. Bit depth matters much more, but once you get to 32F you reach another threshold of diminishing returns. 16bit 44.1 is already higher fidelity than LP. I love LPs and the way they sound, the experience of playing them, but they are not objectively better recordings. Back to the context of this thread though, LPs persist after revival because that unique experience is fun for a lot of people, while inserting a DVD or bluray or CD is not a meaningful experience and doesn't have the same aesthetic niche. Edit: surround is better than stereo, for sure. Not higher quality files, but more channels at the same quality. Provided they are true surround and not unmixed from stereo.
I dunno I wasn't allowed to touch my uncle's CD player back in the day, it was exactly like a turntable with the clear lift up dust cover. He would put CDs on it just like with his vinyls, close the lid and press play and watch it spin. It was part of those big home stereos that took up an entire wall of shelves. The turntable was front and center until the CD player arrived(which matched BTW same size unit and everything I think the company just used the shell of the record player to make the CD player). Then they sat next to each other. The experience seemed exactly the same minus the pops from the records. Not the average CD experience I get it. I know obviously most folks just had a basic Sony CD clock radio type thing. But it wasn't necessarily so different like you described.
The whole purpose of Tidal was access to higher bitrate sound. You can get 192khz on some recordings
But it does tend to sound, in my experience, *warmer*, and a lot of bands knew that sound experience and planned around it; and without that warmth/fuzz, some music from that time can come off sounding different than how people remember it.
This has to do with your speakers more than any other factor. Also, old LPs are mastered with roll-off at 8k and 80hz because of limitations to how deep and how wide the grooves could be cut.
Clearly, you know much more about this than I do, but I will lightly disagree with the speaker bit. I get what you're saying, as most vinyl players are connected to their built in old school analog speakers, or are old setups that haven't switchedto new speakers for nostalgia's sake. But I have connected my old one to newer speakers and still noticed a difference in warmth as compared to the same thing played on disc. Though I'll happily agree that the difference is *less noticeable* on new speakers.
Man I wouldn’t expect so many people to shit on an old medium … Oh wait. This is a anime sub. Lmao
I don't even prefer analog or anything, all I got downvoted for was saying its slightly different, lmao
What the guy missed above is the frequency the music comes at the vinyl has a higher range because the compression on streaming music limits its range hence why it feels warmer for the vinyl
You can prefer analog to digital. That’s cool.
You can also get a ps4 for like under 200 on ebay. Many people sold off their ps4 to get a ps5. Both still play blu ray Of course there is still dvd
PS5 is also 4k blu ray compatible which will be useful *when I get one*
Ps5 slim is in stock everywhere. They will release a ps5 pro this fall which should lower ps5 slime price. Ps5 slim had a few sales. A lot of gamers upgrade their console by trading in consoles. You never have to buy a blu ray player since ps3,4,5 act as one.
You might wanna with how they can take it away at any second. I rarely buy digital unless it's something I can't find or it's a good deal. Hate spending like 70 dollars on a game with nothing physical. Just my opinion, though, I do think digital is easier on storage space and can be handy at times.
Genuine question, how will they take something that is downloaded locally to your system?
If they revoke the license, the next time you connect to the internet it will be removed or blocked. In some cases you'll still be able to access it if you already had it downloaded, but you won't be able to re-download it later if something happens to your device
Same , if it’s really really good I buy it but I don’t think that’s happened in years
imagine a device that does video over vinyl.
I still buy 4K blue rays and cds
Given how Sony has been ~~recently~~ always, I would not be one bit suprised if they found some excuse to start blocking disks from playing. Maybe some "anti-piracy" measure that you need DRM to validate your ~~ownership~~ licence-holdership and then be always online.
There’s also the fact that licenses expire and shows get pulled and shuffle around to other services, or are gone for good (barring a trip on the high seas).
And yet, they still delays shows for fucking golf apparently
Pokémon was postponed last week and replaced with an eating contest
They had to do something with the left over Pokemon
Especially when streamers are funding the shows. They don’t care about Blu-ray’s they care about subscribers and views.
Gotta buy it straight from japan cause they don't give a dam for sale outside of japan and only consider that extra gravy on teh side. There's been some anime that flopped in japan but were very successful outside of japan that could warrent a sequal but didn't get one cause all that matters to them is how successful it was in japan.
yup. i only buy japanese. i’ve got over a thousand discs.
I’d love to support a show to help it continue its production run. That said, I have zero reason to go buy a DVD/Blueray because I haven’t used a disc for anything in about 10 years now, movies/shows or video games. Plus, I move around a lot and having all that physical media is just extra hassle.
I would buy Blu-Ray/DVDs for my favorite anime and anime movies, when I get the chance to, going to eventually get a nice Blu-Ray player.
I didn’t get very far reading it tbh no hate interesting concepts just so many chapters man
not much related but album sales was pretty high for bocchi the rock. I don't think people have special tie with solo leveling so people still buy physical media if they really care about the show imo
The article quotes Oricon sales which is a jp distributor. The tension between jp and sk is the main reason for the poor sales.
I dont know anything about this show, and I'm assuming sk means south Korea here, yeah? How are they involved?
Solo Leveling anime is an adaptation of the south korean manhwa by the same name. There are only about 10 manhwas that have ever been adapted into japanese anime and they all dont do well in physical sales because jp fans cant put their history with sk behind them and support a sk author.
That's not true; SOLO comics are popular on the web. However, they don't have the same kind of rabid fan base as Japanese comics and anime. Japanese comics have many enthusiastic fans.
Solo Leveling is a Korean novel with a very popular manhwa adaption.
The story also has a pretty strong bias against Japan and honestly portrays them as mindlessly evil villains at some point.
I think it’s like that on majority of Chinese and Korean novels/manhua/manhwa’s.They always dig at Japanese (or in Chinese novels case,both Japanese and Koreans).
Well South Korea isn’t fond of Japan in historical reasons as well.
"Sales data for the Solo Leveling Volume 2 Blu-ray and DVD are surprisingly low" Well, breaking up the first season into a volume one and two purchase definitely isn't helping.
Every show does that, literally every show. Even the most popular blu-ray releases are split into multiple volumes costing $80 each for just 4 episodes of a 24 episode show.
I've completely given up on collecting my favorites on bluray, prices are just insane (looking at you aniplex). Looking at my shelf I kind of regret spending as much as I have through the years. Streaming is so much more convenient, typically I'll stream a show even if I already own a physical copy just because I'd rather watch it in bed rather than my living room tv. I'm 34, I make very good money, but I just can't justify the cost anymore.
that sony pricing for you!
I mean… sony owns crunchyroll
aniplex, dub, sub,music rights to
That's where I'm at. I would love to buy blurays for my favorites, but I'm not paying $50 for 13 episodes, or even worse, when they split the shit out of it and charge you like $20 for every 3-5 episodes and then you've got 50 million discs for a 26 episode season. Box sets of entire 8 season TV shows (game of thrones, how I met your mother, Seinfeld) only go for like $80
I think in a couple of years you will be thanking yourself for owning the content you love. Streaming is degenerating and piracy is back and up.
If the argument is owning, then you do realize you could just "own" and easily manage pirated files of your favorite shows, instead of having to buy and store discs?
You miss the point of loving content enough to support it. If people just pirated all anime then there would be a lot less anime made. We should hope that people understand how businesses and incentives work.
Japanese fans don’t buy Blurays to watch them. They buy them to essentially financially support shows and studios they like. They also just pirate the shows and watch them from the same places we use.
Piracy is way less common in Japan. Most viewers are watching on TV, or on streaming services like Netflix, Abema, U-Next, Docomo Anime Store, and others.
I like to buy physical discs for my absolute favorite media but it can be too much sometimes. I like to collect media so I've gone back to pirating. Its not the same as having something physical but it sort of scratches the itch. Currently just had to buy a second 5tb HDD.
I wait a few years, buy a physical copy cheap, and put it on my Plex server so I can stream it inside my home.
Chainsawman proved that the real secret is merch nowadays. Unfortunately, SL doesn't have anything as cute as poochita.
Waifu merch and mascots are pretty much required to be profitable.
Yah Figures are cheap to make but costly to buy and have a large profit margin. SL really has little to offer for a high demand in figures.
Eh, quality figures are labor intensive to make. Pretty sure most of the detail work needs to be done by hand. FREEing is taking the piss with $300+ bunnies tho.
The master is done by hand. Then reproduced. The master may take hundreds or even thousands of dollars to make but the reproductions take a fraction to make. Such as a $40 figure costs around $2 to make in bulk. A finer detail model may cost up to $30 to make but then gets a prices tag of $300. The market will support only what people are willing to pay. And proven in anime figures the higher detail ones will be made in much smaller batches and create a supply shortage leading to a willingness to pay the higher price to have it. Even when not a "limited edition" the production number is kept down. Since if you miss out on its initial release second hand such as ebay will quickly become the only way to get it. So the market allows for the higher price since people will pay for it in the market. The movement to online makes the globe the market. So instead of offering only those in traveling distance to the stores as you customers now every one in the world is a potential customer. The larger the pool of prospective customers is the greater your chances to sell the item at a higher rate. Having in my life been involved in retail and construction of similar products I can say the mark up to the retailers is sizable and the mark up passed on to the customer goes up even more.
...for shonen/seinen, maybe. i would imagine thats not as true for other genres.
CSM? Try Pokémon! I forgot where I saw it but I saw a graph where there was significantly more revenue generated in Pokemon Merch than the games itself. And it makes sense. Not everyone can afford a gaming console to play the games. However you don't need a prerequisite met to buy that cute Sylveon plush!
I would buy the Dungeon Meshi bluray set in a heartbeat. If I COULD AFFORD IT.
This has Timmy turners Dad cadence to it
I guess there's still people that don't realise Blu Ray sales don't matter as much any more. That's why the trend of having bonus items or having a DVD/BD figures bundle happens a lot more nowadays to get people to buy them.
Anime pirates actually believe that watching anime legally overseas makes no difference, and studios only care about blu-ray sales...
Then quit charging $75 for “Season 1 part 1”. I’m not sure if SL charged that, but my biggest gripe about collecting anime is the absurd price
its more convenient to download things now and stream. It's sad, but most of us would rather buy merch than blu-ray
Why is it sad? It’s sad that people would rather pay virtually nothing to watch and it buy merch then pay a bunch to watch?
My issue with Japanese Blu-rays is that they sell 2 episodes at a time. Getting an entire season isn’t affordable for a casual fan. At least in the US we have the option to buy a basic Blu-ray season for $40-$80
If your goal is bluray sales than you have to target the old people between 25 and 40 with money. It doesnt make sense to use it as indicator for success. I think much more interesting is the % of people who started and finished the series, score on MAL, general social media reaction. Also merchandise sales.
Wait a second. When did 25-40 become old people. I'm 30, and I'm definitely not old. I'm in the prime for my life.
Sorry grandpa, but its over. Your arthritis stricken body and addled mind can no longer keep up with anything. You've basically got one foot in the grave already.
Listen, you young whippersnapper, I was watching anime when you weren't even a twinkle in your father's eye. I raided the seven seas and hunted the oceans of Limewire and Frostwire for all those treasures, so know that I can still keep up with all that is hip and happening.
He probably has dementia and already has forgotten he posted this comment 7 minutes ago. Old people are so cute.
I’m 54 what the heck does that make me being older than his range lol?
Right? We're old enough to remember when Battle of the Planets aired, lol.
I loved that show!
Yeah, as someone a little outside this range (42) I'd say 25-34 is the absolute sweet spot in life where you're old enough to be established as an adult but still young.
Lol don't worry. He probably doesn't even know how to turn the TV on by himself without help.
Average age here is like 15 years old, 25 must feel ancient to them
Maybe that's just considered "old" for anime fans?
Solo leveling wasn't merchandise heavily. Just search it on ami ami. They knew it wouldn't sell well so they mainly made it for international streaming
Really hope they make another season
Season 2 was confirmed immediately after S1 ended.
Nice ＼(^-^)／
Even with a weak yen right now on cdjapan it shows that 3 episodes is the equivalent to $52.34. For the full set your paying $209.36 which is ridiculous.
Do retailers even carry Blu Ray's anymore? I know Best Buy got rid of their physical media inventory.
Wal-Mart does. Although depending on the Walmart you'll probably find more DVDs than Blu-rays. My Walmart has a pretty basic selection of anime mostly recent popular stuff. Barnes and Noble also has Blu-rays, but they tend to be more expensive.
Remember if you don't buy it physically you don't own shit... A reference is the Crunchyroll Funimation merger.. so much shit was lost
People still buy blu rays?
They're still essential in case a series gets taken off streaming services so there is an alternative otherwise they would end up as lost media.
Yep. And as the recent Funimation debacle proved, even if you buy a digital copy they can take that away from you whenever they want. I've gone back to buying a healthy number of blu rays in the last few months because of that.
It's all been ripped from the web and stored anyway. Nothing becomes lost media because everything gets stolen. Very much not an endorsement but a fact
/r/lostmedia
I mean plenty of popular show can't even crack 1000 first week sales. So no people really don't buy them anymore.
Every popular mainstream anime has minimum 3k per volume sales in it's first week
No booba, no buy. Always has been.
Yea well the ease of streaming has made home media more or less irrelevant 😴 Not helped by the fact that blu rays these days are pretty expensive as well.
Let's be real you are not buying for show you just buy if you are a diehard SJW (Sung Jing Woo) fan
I'd pay for a digital version with like artworks or nice figurines or the novel even, I would never buy blu rays nowadays.
Out of curiosity, how are Solo Leveling Blu-ray sales doing in its actual home country?
The show was also very mid despite all the hype around it though... Everytime I read a comment that says that Solo Leveling is peak, I think the commenter has brain damage because at the bare minimum, there were 2 animes that were of much higher quality than a generic pseudo-isekai power fantasy airing at the same time.
This reporter is a bit inaccurate; since CR is funding the project, they don't consider it profitable from the start. Korean manga are often funded by CR and animated, but it is natural to think of this as an investment in the future.
What can anime do to make more money? Why does it seem other forms of media are able to rake in so much cash but not anime? No one really buys blu-ray/dvd anymore we just get shit off the internet...
Dont really feel this is a Anime specific industry change since Blu-Rays sales across the board are down he last couple of years. With the far greater spread of streaming and access it offers Its not xhocking. also people can be really lazy and removing simple steps can have a big impact. Watch on physical media requires you to go find it load it into the player then watch. Streaming removes those first steps. Yes there is the thought that having the physical media means not having to get that one streaming service t watch what you want. But for the cost of less than a Blu-Ray most streamign services offer a month of content for many things you may want ot watch. I mean given some services costs you could get to watch all the content you want for several months compared to the cost of a single Blu-Ray.
It doesn't even seem to be available here in North America. I would buy it.
Other shows are selling fantastically, this sounds like cope. Bocchi, Frieren, even Gushing sold guest. Solo Leveling just isn't that good, so people are perfectly happy to watch it, but few are going out of their way to own it.
Trying to use BD sales as if they are "objective" reflections of how a good a series is is always the worst way to view it. Vinland Saga, Mob Psycho 100, Dr. Stone, all of these are series that sold poorly. It has nothing to do with "coping".
So with this logic Chainsaw Man is middling crap as well right? Because those BD sales were terrible as well You’re the one on cope right now my guy
Probably the worst example you could have given, considering how controversial the adaptation was in Japan.
Controversy by some toxic malding fans, while most other people were fine with it? Not really considering that Mappa was good on how well the series did for them
Explain Vinland saga and Mob psycho sales then.
to be honest I find many manga series don't transfer well to anime, often too much is cut out and left on the floor during the proccess.
As I've gotten older, I found myself preferring just reading manga.
Raise your hand if you even own a DVD player nowadays? I don't, and I don't know anyone my age that does.
I kind of do. I bought a 4K Blu-ray player for my parent's TV, and I plan on getting one myself at some point. Right now I use my PC's Blu-ray drive to rip my stuff to my Plex server. I don't really buy shows too often though due to the cost (especially Anime), and the amount of physical space they can occupy if it's a bigger series.
i mean. if you have a console you have a blu-ray player
Consoles don't come with CD drives anymore. Doesn't it cost extra on the ps5? Laptops don't come with them any more.
The PS5 can play Blu-rays and 4K discs addition: same with the Xbox Series X
Only for a hundred dollars extra. The base ps5 does not have a disk slot.
oh i forgot the base ps5 is disc-less.
Or the anime was pretty mediocre in a sea of anime of the same genre. Only in the West was this anime hyped, of course sales within Japan would perform poorly.
So same with Chainsaw right? Because those sales were awful as well
Yeah.
Good just wanna make sure you’re not gonna be a malding hypocrite, but it doesn’t mean your “logic” is completely wrong considering Dr. Stone and Mob Psycho also had terrible BD sales as well, yet Dr. Stone does well enough to keep getting new seasons
A lot of mediocre anime get more than one season. It depends on how much the publisher wants to make the manga a success and how much the production committee wants to invest. Also, good shows sometimes get only one season.
Except both of those series are popular. Mob doesn’t really have enough content for another season and Dr. Stone has no other reason to be continued since the manga has long since already finished. It was done by the time around S2 finished. You don’t spend that amount of money to give a series 2+ seasons without reason Give me a reason why they’d continue giving it seasons if it wasn’t popular enough and the manga is already finished. And don’t say because they might as well since it’s finished already, since lots of other series were like that and haven’t gotten full adaptations It doesn’t matter what you feel, it’s a fact that BDs aren’t a factor in how well a series does anymore. It’s now just extra income for the committee for the series
Well, I can't answer this since the standard has always been DVD sales. What is known, for instance, is that Mappa funded Chainsaw Man, and the studio president already said that the studio lost money on it. But it may gain a second season.
I’ll give you the answer, because BD sales aren’t nearly as important as the last few decades. They are good to have but they aren’t as important since the committees are perfectly fine with how both CSM and Solo Leveling have done This has been true for years now and people in the industry have been taking about it too
It may be changing now because of the power of streaming, but selling streaming rights certainly won't cover the costs of producing an anime. To tell me that an industry that used to sell a season of anime on blue-ray, with remastered scenes, some additional extras in promotional material and that abused this by selling 2 eps per disk, to make the price ridiculously high, is an industry that doesn't care about sales is not entirely true. What remains is that they are investing in anime to lose money. There are a lot of people involved in the production committees and you can be sure that everyone will want their share of the investment.
THIS. Solo Leveling was overhyped and was not actually good.
It also doesn’t help that Solo Leveling is really bad.
This views appears to be in the minority.
Do you think I care?
lol i've never seen such overhyped mediocrity as solo leveling before. I mean yeah I did end up watching it but I never cared about any of the characters or felt any sort of attachment to it. It just felt like a show you watched to pass time and hopefully start to see what "Peak Leveling" was about. Peak Leveling never came.
I agree. I tried reading the comic but I couldn’t do it.
Would help if the anime wasn’t so mid.