Japan's Weekly Blu-ray & CD Rankings for February 18 - 24

dtshyk said:
Here are the weekly Blu-ray & CD rankings for February 18th - 24th.

Blu-ray
*1, 27,357 27,357 Ookami Kodomo no Ame to Yuki
*2, 24,733 24,733 Girls und Panzer vol.2
*7, 12,521 12,521 JoJo's Bizarre Adventure vol.2 Limited Edition
*8, 11,753 11,753 Chuunibyou demo Koi ga Shitai! vol.3
*9, 11,627 11,627 Kuroko no Basket vol.8
10, *7,119 *7,119 Ookami Kodomo no Ame to Yuki Blu-ray & DVD
16, *3,392 *3,392 Saki: Achiga-hen - Episode of Side-A vol.7

DVD
*1, 23,137 *,*23,137 Ookami Kodomo no Ame to Yuki
*2, 14,529 *,*14,529 Kuroko no Basket vol.8
*6, *2,764 *,**2,764 JoJo's Bizarre Adventure vol.2 Limited Edition
*9, *1,639 *,**1,639 Chuunibyou demo Koi ga Shitai! vol.3
13, *1,119 *,**1,119 Girls und Panzer vol.2

dtshyk said:

24, *,**3,053 *,**3,053 Hirano Aya "TOxxxIC"

symbv said:
The discussion among fans in Japan is how likely will Girls und Panzer beat KuroBas to take one slot among the TOP FOUR bestsellers for 2012 anime, and much hinges on how well KuroBas v8, with its drama CD boost, sells. Its current number of >26k certainly means KuroBas is not going to give up its spot without a good fight.

symbv said:
Last but not least, great to see a third singles from Love Live anime scoring >10k in sales, all the more amazing that it is just a single for insert songs, not OP or ED.

*2, 24,733 24,733 Girls und Panzer vol.2
*5, 16,546 16,546 Kyoukaisenjou no Horizon II vol.6 Limited Edition

*1, 27,357 27,357 Ookami Kodomo no Ame to Yuki

*1, 27,357 27,357 Ookami Kodomo no Ame to Yuki

dtshyk said:

BD
*1, 27,357 27,357 Ookami Kodomo no Ame to Yuki


DVD
*1, 23,137 *,*23,137 Ookami Kodomo no Ame to Yuki

bNq said:
glad for GuP still going strong - although I don't really get why it became so popular.

symbv said:
I hope to give a concise answer here:
Solid story structure + decent highlights of interesting characters + cute girls + orthodox portrayal of passion and commitment in a sports genre + attention to details and accuracy to military hardware and its animation + trivia reference galore throughout the series

Roloko said:
So when it comes to short anime like PoyoPoyo how many episodes are there per volume?

bNq said:
I guess Seitokai no Ichizon will start showing up next week, if it will rank at all? Volume went on sale at the 22nd, ordered my copy a few days ago as well. I hope they get to make some money out of it at least...

bNq said:
Guess that does sound reasonable, just didn't expect a show about tanks (or rather about cute girls with tanks) to be such a hit with the japanese. Anyway, really happy for them and can't wait for the next episodes.

Ejc said:


Stalker has it at 732 BDs, so it might be a steep ask for it to be within the Top 100 All Genre BD list on Thursday/Friday. No chance it ranked on DVD, since the list here is already the Top 30 Animation DVD list.

bNq said:
Nice to see it and Chuu2 doing better than kurobasket at least. .

phoenixalia said:

Ah, are you looking at BD data alone perhaps? If you include the DVD AND the BD, KuroBas volume 8 has crossed 26k.

bNq said:
Oh shit, I could cry my eyes out... I didn't expect it to sell good, but this is kinda crushing. I was so goddamn overjoyed when they finally decided to air S2, and now this :__: Hopefully LN sales increased a bit at least.

symbv said:
I hope to give a concise answer here:
Solid story structure + decent highlights of interesting characters + cute girls + orthodox portrayal of passion and commitment in a sports genre + attention to details and accuracy to military hardware and its animation + trivia reference galore throughout the series

shigeru212 said:

I wonder if the changes made to Seitokai no Ichizon are affecting disc sales.

Namely, the change in art, the change in seiyuu's, the change in the director (apparently the guy who directed Steins-gate directed the first season), and the decision to make the series 10 episodes instead of 12. There seemed to be a bit of an uproar about that here on MAL and even though I liked the second season, I can definitely agree with some of the sentiments. I wonder if the Japanese buyers feel the same way.

Kaioshin_Sama said:
I admit to not being the most in tune with what gets crazy popular in the moe scene or in Japan other than it helps A LOT to spark a meme on 2chan or niconico early (judging by videos I see on youtube that are 10 minute loops of incidental silly scenes I assume it managed this well) into a shows run, but I at least get why something like Love Live! would be picking up steam with it's overall production values and deliberate progressive plotting that is rare for the genre after seeing roughly the same number of episodes.

Kaioshin_Sama said:
I'll just never understand how it's this big a deal in Japan even as people try to explain it. It just does not resonate with me the same way even if I plan to finish it.

Kaioshin_Sama said:
See to me this is just meeting base standards so either it's just damn lucky or it's for some other reason.

I see you mentioned moe but what came for GirlPan is that moe does not come first in mind for fans when the show first started. To understand its appeal, you need to follow the mindset of the fans and how it changes from before season to after it started to when it exploded in popularity from ep.3 onwards.

At the beginning almost no one thought it would sell more than 3k and this was already taking into the moe factor of the character design into account. People expected it to be a slice-of-life comedy with girls driving tanks around -- not much different from Upotte for example. And as you said, the art is really nothing to special. It was indeed widely criticized as "obsolete style" or "unlikely to sell well" style.

Then once the season started they found that the characters were depicted with balance and the animation is solid -- the animation of the tanks already drew wide praise from ep.1 and this is something you failed to mention.

The ep.3 was where the truly groundbreaking thing happened, when Japanese fans found out the animation of the battle was realistically and thrillingly drawn, and the background of Ooarai battleground is depicted with minute details. Fans can even draw out the path of all the tanks and match the background with the actual scenery of the town. This is when the word of mouth of the anime spread and meme started. And it is only after this episode did the moe appeal of the characters truly took over (the pixiv art or nico video only exploded in numbers after this ep), as the fans found that because they love the anime they start to love the characters too. And subsequent covering of the characters and their background as well as their eccentricities further boosted their appeal to fans. So it is indeed an anime in which the moe comes afterwards, after the show becomes really popular, and this goes against the perception (particularly common in the west) that moe is the first and foremost factor that an anime pins down its fans (and buying customers).

The story structure that came afterwards is orthodox: relaxing day-to-day; meeting challenges; fight; driven almost to loss; win at the end. This is a time-honored tradition of a sports genre drama but it also has the advantage of allowing watchers to feel comfortable with the direction of the story and focused on its finer details. A story of characters striving to overcome the odds to achieve victory and meaning to their life, via bonding with friends and mates, always has the potential to attract people and it is also something that does not come as often these days for anime outside a bunch of well established shounen titles (which a lot of late night anime watchers have graduated from watching). This often is quoted as the main appeal by fans of this show, more often than those who say how moe they find the characters are.

Another thing you did not mention is how much effort it got the military data and references into the anime and how it got it right and entertaining. This drew in a lot of military otaku into the shows and their interactions with the usual anime otaku produced a substantial multiplier effect in terms of each side learning extra things they did not know from their original field and appreciating them.

I hope what I said above sheds some extra light on why this is such a success in Japan, and very much an unexpected one. Of course none of it can really explain it sells this much, but I guess it should at least provide some idea why it became a hit.

]Calling it lucky is just a way to try to avoid finding the reason or accepting it. Among the elements I mentioned, just the point of putting extensive effort to accurately portray military hardware and its animation is considered something beyond the best expectation from fans. Basically almost nobody expected the tank animation would go into such accurate details. And nobody expects so many trivia would be buried around the anime for fans to dig out and talk about. If you call all these just "base standard" then you are perhaps not looking close enough or your way of setting standard is just dubious.

Kaioshin_Sama said:
Didn't stand out much to me so can't really comment on it, though it's funny that certain people on this forum that seem routinely bothered by CGI to a significant extent seem unbothered by it in this instance. That to me is hard not to notice.

Kaioshin_Sama said:

Again just really did not stand out to me as all that exceptional. I watch a lot of mecha and war shows so maybe I've just been spoiled over the decades by tons of high quality mechanized combat sequences, but it was just alright to me again. Again much better than I would have expected going in.

Kaioshin_Sama said:
Yeah again it's executed in the manner I would expect which is competently and with a sense of purpose to an ultimate end, but it just sort of meets the absolute basics of what I've come to expect from these types of stories but doesn't really exceed them.

Kaioshin_Sama said:

I guess in this day and age where standards and expectations are so low (or at least appear to be) a nice surprise like this might be just the thing a show needs to kick it up from seasonal fodder to smash hit, but I'm not sure that paints a very good picture of the anime scene in general.

Ookami Kodomo no Ame to Yuki

edl01 said:
I'm blaming the fact so many series haven't sold as well as they could have this week is because they came out the same week as Wolf Children and Girls und Panzer. Sure Otaku are crazy but three DVD/Blurays in the same week is a lot of money.

edl01 said:
I'm blaming the fact so many series haven't sold as well as they could have this week is because they came out the same week as Wolf Children and Girls und Panzer. Sure Otaku are crazy but three DVD/Blurays in the same week is a lot of money.

symbv said:
Some may be bothered by character CGI but mecha CGI is more OK. And whether that stood out also depends on how well you know about how tank moves in real life.

Science fiction mecha combat in a lot of anime may look cool but for this title we need to compare it to historical combat. And you need to think about it is anime we are talking about. How often do you see highly accurate anime sequence portraying historical mechanized combat?]

And you also ignored the appeal for fans in Japan about the accurate portrayal of the town of Ooarai. This is one of the main things that fans found to be exceptional. They could have made up a fictional town and let the battle happen there, but instead they took great care in reproducing the exact look of the streets and buildings for the whole length of the running battle. These are some of the things that fans could tell that the anime staff really took great love and care about the production, and they are happy that they had to dig these details by themselves.

Also in ep.3 how the battle turned out is often unpredictable *which got people to stick to their chairs) but at the end quite convincing, and yet the excitement is mixed with loads of humor sprinkled around in good balance. Expectation was raised after each battle, but somehow fans found their expectation was still matched or even surpassed. This built up the momentum to pull in more fans simply by word of mouth.

I would say the story is "basic" but what you said about "sense of purpose to an ultimate end" is not really the "absolute basic" for an anime. As I argued before anime got popular often not because it has this kind of appeal, and so if you think this has to be the "absolute basic" for any good anime, you are restricting a great deal on what anime you can enjoy.

Honestly I never expected GirlPan could be this successful in attracting sales as well as fans' love (in terms of fan arts) but I can understand why it has the ingredients to become a good hit.

hpulley said:
I wonder if current pro nationalist sentiments help too?

jmal said:

Where standards and expectations are different from your standards and expectations. Not better/higher or worse/lower.

This single, very fundamental, distinction entirely sums up why you find always it so hard to understand other anime fans, and always express, at great length, such confusion at why people like the things they do.

parfaited said:
T&B <3333333