According to a ranking released by Amazon.co.jp, of the top ten best selling Blu-ray titles, six were anime. Anime fans are thought to be a discerning crowd where visual quality is concerned, and the presence of so much anime seems to bear that out. The content of the list is not wholly surprising, though lack of Blu-ray releases removes some of the more popular titles from the ranking:
1 Biohazard Trilogy Box バイオハザードトリロジーBOX(3枚組) 2008/03/19
2 Pirates of the Carribean パイレーツ・オブ・カリビアン/ワールド・エンド 2007/12/5
3 5 Centimeters Per Second 秒速5センチメートル 2008/4/18
4 I Am Legend アイ・アム・レジェンド 2008/4/24
5 .hack//G.U TRILOGY 2008/3/25
6 Mobile Suit Gundam Char’s Counter Attack 機動戦士ガンダム逆襲のシャア 2008/2/22
7 The Place Promised in Our Early Days 雲のむこう、約束の場所 2008/4/18
8 The Phantom of the Opera オペラ座の怪人 2007/12/21
9 Ratatouille レミーのおいしいレストラン 2007/12/5
10 Mobile Suit Gundam F91 機動戦士ガンダムF91 2008/2/22
A strong showing for Gundam.
Whilst the DVD buying propensity of anime fans comes as no surprise, I do find it a little surprising that anime is so alluring considering it seems to benefit relatively little from the platform – only the best quality animation seems to be in a position to benefit from being able to display fine details which simply aren’t present in lesser animated titles, whilst even amateurishly filmed HD video gains dramatically in quality from the higher resolutions on offer.
Source is obviously Amazon, coming by way of AnimeAnime.
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I'm a big fan of Makoto Shinkai movies since Hoshi no Koe.A bit suprise when these things come out and thought about what happened to Ghost in the Shell movies?
Ratatouille is an anime?
It would also one of the few on the list to actually benefit from being hi-def.
Seriously, I have the Toki O Kakeru Shojo SP ED DVD, and it looked beeeautifil playing on both my Samsung DVD player and PS3. If they release a Blu-Ray version without an extraordinary amount of special features in the near future, I will raze Kadokawa headquarters to the ground.
-That is, if I was onipotent.
I love 5 Centimeters Per Second it was so moving.
Watching anime in HD is excellent. Might upgrading to Blu-ray too.
And note that two Shinkai movies are top the list. The Place Promised in Our Early Days was FanTasTic! Haven't got a chance to watch 5 Centimeters yet (still on my HD).
Exactly my thoughts, regarding the movies.
I wonder how many people preordered the Patlabor movies...
Air TV has me severely tempted to go get a Blu Ray player... >.<
Amazon sales are somewhat skewed towards the otaku crowd, though. It's quite common that popular otaku-ish products (Yotsuba& tankoubon, Haruhi CDs, whatever) make it unusually high on their sales ranking. HMV sales figures for BluRay releases would probably look different.
@A Day Without Me: I think the OP and ED are the only parts of AIR that have actually been remade in high definition. The rest is DVD quality on fewer discs.
You raise a good point, although it needs to be remembered that the likes of Yotsuba-to do actually sell millions of copies in Japan, so the effect may not be an excessive overstatement. We'll have to see what the industry groups have to say; I recall anime also dominated music royalties, but Blu-ray is another matter.