Namaenash

You mean like how endgame and no way home tickets sales show that they were/are gonna be the highest grossing films of the year they came out?

It's mostly arguments and debates against the fans that are pro ss & sakura, against the anti SS, anti sakura or both. With the arguing whether or not the actual novel has sold well or not in Japan.

With both sides using sources and input from fans from Japan about how well the series is doing. One example is here claiming a Japanese fan told this person that apprantly the sasuke novel is on its 5th reprint, showing that its selling well.
https://twitter.com/...ZjbTyqSzSQ&s=19

To be more accurate, media products are event-driven and seasonal. Their distribution method is not like our iPhone (or smartphone in general), in which we have a pretty stable demand throughout the year for the phone. It's more like music album sales back in the days. So yeah, the first few weeks after the event it's tied to, would typically determine its lifetime sales.

I personally would stay away from debate that's not referring to official figures. It's not worth your time. Stay away from folks that have been consumed by confirmation bias. Nothing will change their mind and you'll better spend your time elsewhere. If the light novel sold well, it would have been in the Oricon chart weekly, half yearly or yearly. It's that simple (as far as Oricon tracking goes).

The Twitter account owner (WSJ Oricon?) was sharing information on a good intention, but he/she is still not an official source. Not to undermine him/her or anything, but I'd prefer to quote from the official website like Oricon (there are legal consequences if Oricon spread misleading information). If he/she has the official information, share it with public alongside his/her quote. It's good for everyone.

Reprint is basically a mechanism for which the producers back-order to the printing companies to add or to replenish supply. It's a common practice in the printing industry. You'd order a high volume to get better discount from the printing companies if you are confident that your product will be well received (based on market research and other go-to-market strategy). You'd order lower volume if you'd like to be more conservative, observe how market react to your products and reprint as needed. It's all about maximizing your gain/profit.

Remember that books in circulation does not equal to the sales figure. So, it's a pretty wild stretch to correlate the number of reprint as a measure of product success. You back-order (reprint) 10k copies 5 times does not mean your product is more successful than a product that's sold 80k for the same time period.

When it comes to light novel, my reference for sales trend was "your name". It's seasonal and event driven. By September 2016, the light novel had sold around 1,029,000 copies. In the second week on September 2016, the novel had sold around 112,000 more copies. After the wide release of the film adaptation in August 2016, the novel reached the top place in Oricon's weekly bunkobon sales charts for three consecutive weeks. The novel has sold over 1.3 million copies as of December 2016. They never bragged about how many reprints they did. They're on Oricon chart that year. If your product is good, it'll be well received. As simple as that.

I think it's more recently for one piece from what I have seen

Anyway can someone clarify which of these sales data is true or not in regards to the sasuke novel sales

https://twitter.com/...Xrf6FSIQwg&s=19

https://twitter.com/...8OWVUEHHMA&s=19

Not sure what's being debated. I suppose, whatever claims that was mentioned need to quote the actual source, even if it's in Japanese language.

Oricon has few layers of tracking, the weekly ones, the half yearly aggregate and the yearly aggregates.

So, if Sasuke Retsuden sold that much (300k, as some claimed to be), it would've been in one of these lists:

https://www.animenew...me-2019/.153766

https://www.animenew...me-2020/.159998

https://www.animenew...me-2020/.166846

I personally biased towards the weekly sales tracker as proxy metrics. It's similar like Box Office ticket sales. The first few weeks determine the overall lifetime revenue. Have a look at "your name" light novel sales trend as a comparison.

Looks like there is more proof of boruto not making a profit, with demon slayer also being the number 1 franchise, which still kinda shocks ne that one piece is in 5th place. Plus if any boruto fans try to say its a monthly excuse attack on titan and record of ragnarok are both monthly manga up there. Granted I'm still surprised attack on titan is up there given the backlash to the ending https://twitter.com/...ZtTNW7BeSA&s=19

Yes indeed and thanks for the list. If I recall correctly, the last time Naruto was in that Oricon Top 30 franchise list was in 2015 with USD ~34 million (revenue from Q4 2014 - Q4 2015). It was their lowest in the top 30 before they dropped off perpetually. Before 2015, Naruto has been on par with the likes of One Piece, etc.

If Naruto franchise generate money with Boruto, they will be on the list. What's interesting is the top 30 stops at franchise having an income of USD ~15 million in the year. And not all of them have animated series. The franchise ranked 30th, "Apothecary Diaries" is a light novel with no anime product. To compare with 2015 stats, the franchise ranked 30th in 2015 generated USD 17.6 million.

So, the takeaway is Naruto franchise generated less than USD 15 million nowadays. How much exactly, nobody knows except the producers.

If we put USD 15 million per annum as the minimum benchmark, we're getting USD 1.25 million per month. Let's say there's 100 people working on the franchise, gross revenue wise, everyone is getting USD 12.5k. Now, of course it's never that simple :) and the above illustration is way too simplistic. Most of the revenue goes to the publisher. But you get the ideas. There are many sources out there tried to dissect how much exactly a mangaka earned. This is one interesting take: https://okuha.com/ho...a-mangaka-earn/

Attack on Titan ending was well received in Japan. That's what matters from financial perspective, frankly. Naruto ending, on the other hand, wasn't well received in Japan. Look at where it is now.

Demon Slayer, to my opinion is an anomaly. Its journey as a product has been one of its kind and there are various compounding factors come into play. Nonetheless, it's a great example and a positive proof that customers will spend their money when the right product comes along.

https://www.reddit.c...ta_2022_thread/
 
So, JumpFesta happened and Boruto had a panel to lazy to watch but from what the comments say the announcements were only.
 
Bandai-Namco: For Shinobi striker they are finally adding in the fourth character of their fourth season pass, and that mobile game is adding karma form bolt & nail.
 
That Sasuke light novel is going to be manga adaptation. Didn't it get adapted in the anime already? Or, is this the one about Naruto coming down with the flu so Sakura and Sasuke have to go on a mission?...*More looking* ah, the second one. Well, this well give us more data how 'popular' that pairing is. Apparently, they also may be adapting some of the other Post-Ending Naruto light novels into manga. Oh the other one receiving a manga adaption was already made filler in the anime. It was the Asuma's daughter guards Gai and Kakashi on their hot spring vacation. Also, these will be at the end of next year.
 
Celebrating 20 years of Naruto.
 
And going through the reddit apparently Nail may get a new eye power.
 
There was no interview with either Ikemoto or Kishimoto.
 
Apparently, it was very underwhelming. #1 in Japan-No. #1 In the WORLD guys.
 
My impression is Bandai is just doing the bare minimum and wrapping up thing they were already working on (seriously not even an announcement of a fifth season pass apparently,) Tv-Tokyo as Namaenash showed can't afford to do anything else like a movie, and Shueisha is seeing if there is any profits to be made from this IP through something other then just the Boruto manga; also, likely trying to give some of their writers and artists some work.

Pretty obvious Naruto franchise will get nothing. Nobody is buying. WSJ wouldn't spend a dime to invest on it. If games addons / skins and Sasuke Retsuden light novel are the only thing worth announcing in the biggest WSJ event, you know for sure Naruto franchise is as good as (almost) dead.

Sasuke Retsuden (the latest light novel) only sold 7k copies in the first week. It has sold a total of 16k before it dropped out of the tracking radar. For an apple to apple comparison, Sakura light novel released a couple of years ago sold about ~140k.

TL;DR: Naruto franchise decided that a product that only sold 16k to be one of the items announced at the biggest WSJ event.

Let that sink.

That does explain why TvTokyo needed Naruto to continue, since there is a possibility that it made up around 50% of their annual earnings. They were also likely the company really pushing for it to continue and the ones that really wanted that sequel. Especially, since the other two seem to have dropped it to focus on other franchises.
 
Well, "its #1 or #2 on the fourth biggest station," doesn't seems as impressive. What are they three biggest stations?...I'll check if those have any anime if you don't want to. Also, wasn't the old adage for over a decade that Naruto was popular in the West and One Piece was popular in Japan? So, for their new claim to work. Making Hinata the love interest suddenly makes the sequel shoot pass One Piece and any other anime like Detective Conan, MHA, or Yokai Hunter in Japan. Despite the fact that even in the West, no one talks about Boruto unless Naruto is doing something cool.
 
Boruto is just some random Sunday cartoon. They watch it because is on at a convenient time and there nothing better to do, but it isn't interesting enough for them to care beyond that. Especially, if there are better anime its competing against.

For sure it's not 50% of their revenue :). The anime segment according to the report contribute ~8-10% overall TV Tokyo Earnings. So, most likely Naruto franchise contributes about 3-5%. It's a wild guess since there's no public number about Naruto earnings.

Hinata/NH popular outside of Japan is also a myth. We would have Boruto sales at the top of the chart, New movies every year will still be ongoing, New games every other year will be there, merchandise, DLC featuring Hinata/NH.

That's never happened. It's a baseless claim without actual weight.

Naruto manga sales in Japan account for more than 90% of the manga revenue. The remaining of 10% is all other countries in the world combined.

It's recognized in the West, sure. But it doesn't necessarily commercially significant.

So the market isn't democratic, and that's fine, they try to hold on a really minority, data say so. Why is happening in every platform. Netflix's Cowboy Bebop got axed, Boruto is making really bad, at least the Manga. Why companies just don't realize how much they are losing.

I would argue that Boruto as anime product isn't doing that great either.

If you read the latest earnings report from TV Tokyo, Boruto is ranked under Naruto. It's a red flag when an active/on-going anime generate less money than an anime that ended more than 5 years ago.

Furthermore, I can't stop giggling whenever Naruto apologists mentioned "It's number 1 or 2, it must be very popular in Japan".

We'll, no. Not necessarily. First off, TV Tokyo is not the only broadcasters in Japan. They're big, but not the biggest in Japan (to be precise, they're at 4th rank most of the time according to many public reports).

Secondly, TV Tokyo net income has been declining since 2016 by ~45%. In absolute figure, it's a decline from 4.7 billion yen in 2016 to 2.6 billion yen in 2021. Many believe that the decline is across the conventional broadcasting industry due to the rise of streaming services. Also, I believe TV Tokyo has never shared the absolute figures of how much each franchise in their report is making. They just shared the ranks in their annual report. Given that all of the segments shrunk in TV Tokyo net income, we can only assume that Naruto franchise absolute figure was also declining. How much exactly is not known to public. Now, to put it into perspective: What Boruto earned this year is potentially lower than what it earned last year and the year before. Compound that to the fact that it ranked below Naruto, then you will immediately see that it's not doing that great.

If people are comparing it with other franchise like Pokémon, they really have no idea how all these things work. Pokémon is THE highest grossing media franchise of all time, and majority of its income generated from merchandise. To put it into perspective, Pokémon grosses roughly about 3.2x all Marvel Cinematic Universe franchise products combined. Trying to compare Naruto franchise with Pokémon franchise would be a joke.

Another indicator is customers stickiness. Behaviorally, when broadcasted products are doing great, its customers will buy things related to the franchise outside of the broadcasting corridor. Not just manga but also merchandise, games and others. We've seen this happening at all times, whether it is Dragon Ball, One Piece, Attack on Titan, Kimetsu no Yaiba, etc. It's a network effects. When Japanese kids are talking about a character in anime series, their parents would find something related to that franchise as gift for family occasion, etc. Before long, everyone regardless of age would be familiar with the franchise in one way or another.

This is the stark customer behavioral differences between successful broadcast products and ordinary broadcast products. It distinguished which products customers are buying and which one that are "just there for the sake of it." Boruto anime falls into the second criteria. If you label your product as kids anime, shown during the time families are at home, it is almost guaranteed that your show would be "popular". It's that kind of kids show in which other options are either Chibi Maruko-chan or Sazae-san (both are great, btw). For Naruto franchise, its manga sales have always been the proxy indicator of the franchise's success. Naruto franchise doesn't rely on merchandise and their latest game (Shinobi Striker) was a flop.

There's a term for that. It's called "Franchise Killer".

Ironically, Naruto has always been in top 3 until 2013. We are talking about one of the best-selling manga franchise in the history (250million in its 15 years run).

They were a frequent top 2 or 3 in the list for the longest time. They clearly loosing sales after volume 64 came out (the one with NH handholding cover). This was the first time ever, if I recall correctly, they lost 20% sales year-on-year and keep declining until today. I would imagine that at that point, The Last movie was already in production (it takes about 2 years to make animated movie).

After NH handholding scene, the scene where Naruto mentioned Sakura is her girlfriend in front of Minato (and in front of Hinata) was drawn and also the CPR scene (the only kissing scene between opposing gender in the manga) were created to cast doubt, so the fandom financing the series (NS) won't go away.

Now we all know which fandom was actually financing the series and make it afloat in top 3 for the longest time.

Remove NS and it only takes 5 years for Naruto franchise, who used to be in top 3 AND one of the best-selling manga all time, to be completely out of top 50. Wow!

Never in the history of manga industry this happened to an active franchise. Let alone the 4th best-selling manga franchise all time (https://en.m.wikiped...t-selling_manga)

That's NH/SS for you. The smallest dog barks the loudest indeed. I believe no one in the production team would have ever imagined this when they went with NH/SS route. This makes NH/SS the franchise killer for Naruto.

Speaking about sales, check out this https://twitter.com/...Gbi-yW1PRQ&s=19

Oricon has released their yearly stats for manga sales
https://www.oricon.c...pecial/57840/4/

https://www.oricon.c...pecial/57840/5/

By the look of it, 2021 would probably be the year that Naruto franchise won't be in top 50, for the first time ever. They were at rank 46 last year with Boruto. We'll see sometime next year in February.

Making NH/SS happened so that the series can continue with their children really have killed this franchise.

Speaking about sales, check out this https://twitter.com/...Gbi-yW1PRQ&s=19

Online manga sales made up more than half of overall market. Rakuten is not the only platform providing the service (Kobo, their platform, is a good one and I'm a returning customers there). Nonetheless, their figures can be treated as a good proxy metrics when it comes to online market for manga. I personally take it with a grain of salt.

It's known that manga sales are trending up since the past couple of years. Last year was even higher despite (or rather, thanks to) pandemic. https://www.animenew...in-2020/.169987

As for Naruto / Boruto franchise, it's a gone case since the disastrous ending. Not surprised that in the rank it's part of the long tail, 74 and 88 respectively. A manga that ended 7 years ago performing "better" than its successor by 14 spots. Yikes.

If only they didn't mess up with NH & SS ending that jeopardized the whole story structure, it would've been in top 10, or at least top 20.

One Piece is in the top 10. Likewise MHA. Heck, even Bleach that suffered from declining sales in its last 1/3 of volumes is at rank 48.

Not only Boruto is performing worst than Naruto, a manga that ended 7 years ago. Its sales volume by volume today is gradually declining. To put it into perspective, those who dropped the manga in volume 15 are Boruto/Naruto loyal readers that has been waiting for 7 years, hoping the manga would be better. That shows even the pro-enders have given up on Naruto.

Made no mistake, I believe heads were rolling. Not just the recent editor who got fired. Why would they need to move the manga to a second tier distribution? Ever wondered why suddenly Hinata / NH / SS never been seriously featured in Boruto manga or anime? Why Sakura got the top 1 most popular character in Boruto poll? Why the story of the franchise move very slow and gets all over the place?

The franchise lost over 90% of its paying customers. Of course they'd be scrambling around to bounce back.

SS / NH depicts what would happen when you don't marry the love of your life. They end up miserable :)

...
 
It's 2021 (soon to be 2022). Kishimoto is disgraced writer who nobody gives a crap anymore about. Look at his new manga getting axed because he betrayed his own home fans and lost their trust. For someone who wanted to get out of making Naruto for years. The guy is stuck writing a spinoff where everything positive he created is crapped upon. All those characters based on himself, his wife, his friends. Getting butchered left and right for a brat nobody gives crap about. And the sales/ratings are dropping down like flies. His international audience of tens of millions fans has been reduced to few fans who keep the spin of on life support. Well them and Shueisha who refuse to admit they made a mistake. Well publicly. You know they were/are eating their own pants over what happened.
 
Which leads to this conclusion. Just like Hollywood. You know that in 1 year or even 10 or 20 years Naruto will be rebooted. Brought back in some manner. Imo much sooner since I doubt anyone would care about Naruto that far into the future. Least of all the old fans. It's already been 7 years since Naruto ended. And everything is falling apart for Kishimoto and Bolt for Shueisha. So you can expect them remaking stuff to please the fans who left. Would people care? Sure. Many would want to see them admitting mistakes and correcting the end. I know I would. Just so I can troll current pro-enders with waving my canon ship around like a flag.

I don't think there will be any reboot. Here's why.

Economists use the concept of opportunity cost to explain decision-making and the potential for regret. In other words, it's the regret you anticipate having for not making a choice.

Opportunity cost is the forgone benefit that would have been derived by an option not chosen.

The metapoint of being consistent with the story (in which making NaruSaku happens was part of it) is an opportunity cost. The publisher went ahead serving the loud minority, thrown away character development of 15 years and gave the loyal fans one of the most attricious, unsatisfactory ending in manga history. Of course they paid a hefty price for it, with now Naruto sales merely 10% of the original series, or even less.

In 15 years, Naruto original manga sold ~250 million copies. Whereas Boruto barely sold ~5 million in its 7 years run.

Now, here's the thing: you can't recover opportunity cost.

No matter what they do, the ship has sailed and whatever benefits they may realize are no longer there. Course correct now would be a waste of effort.

Look at how Kishi's new manga got axed within 5 volumes. Its first volume barely sold 10k copies in the first week. He can try again and I'll guarantee he'll get the same treatment from Japanese readers. I bet you that no sane editor out there in WSJ would want to put Kishimoto's name in their project. It'd be a good recipe for project failure. It's been more than a year since Samurai 8 was cancelled and there's a good reason no rumors of Kishi starting a new work or series.

So, why bother making a reboot when they don't even treat their loyal customer right?

So, for comical relief, Hinata is a tsundere and she beats Naruto/her kids when she's angry now? Very unfitting and out of character for Hinata. Not to mention it contradicts in and of itself.

Shy, silent, obedient character won't beat opposing person even for comical relief. It doesn't work.

NH supporters dislike such character traits. Who are they fan-servicing now? The people who loved NaruSaku dynamic has left the franchise.

Must be very desperate for WSJ and Pierrot to turn Hinata into Sakura just to get a bit of sales hike, risking the loyal NH to leave.

No similarities at all between the two. The person who did the comparison was either delusional or shallow minded.

Further shows what type of people supporting SS. SS is probably amongst the top most toxic relationship ever depicted in manga.

Cool I forget that narusaku is big in Brazil

It's big everywhere. It's just unfortunate that the minority in this franchise speak the loudest (and got the attention somehow)

Indeed. At least it stays true to the character and dynamics