Namaenash

A good benchmark is Spy x Family since its targeted at the same female audience segment.

Spy x Family had ~500 million views on that platform in 2019, their volume sold for more than a million copies (pre-anime) each ever since. Growth and stickiness is what matters for any series, and well see when the physical + digital copy sales figures are out. Thats the true yardstick.

Remember: Shonen Jump+ is free. The producers publishing their content there are well aware that the platform is meant to advertise their product, to entice readers buy & collect the actual copy in which the true revenue is made, as far as manga goes.

Global poll would be a statistical nightmare since one will face challenges separating noises from the true signals. You would want to hear inputs from your customer segments that actually gave you money. Not some anonymous that contributes nothing to your business.

Either they know what theyre doing, hence these are all PR stunts.

Or they are so clueless and desperate to get validation externally from the internet, that the franchise is still going strong. News flash: it isnt anymore.

At this stage, Boruto series is a sunken cost. The new others are desperate experiments. Take the Sasuke manga for instance. Its a damned if you do, damned if you dont situation. If they sell better than Boruto, it means the whole franchise depends on old fandom. That means they cant expect significant growth from new generation readers. If they sell worse than Boruto, that means it only proof once again that the whole SS/NH pairings popularity as a hoax. Nothing but a rumour spread around that single-handedly killed this franchise.

They have no other choice, else theyd be jobless. Moving on to new series wont work, since people remember names. Look at Samurai 8. Thats whatll happen to Kishimoto, Ikemoto and others should they attempted to start fresh. Theyre primarily illustrator first, and story-teller later. Hence new series would be tough to launch under their names.

Sakura as a character? Sure. Sakura as a plot device to show Sasuke I couldnt give two kitten shakes about this woman before Uchiha actually is jealous/ protective of his wife is another issue. Especially since said moment is not actually in character with Sakura in the first place because like I said, she should have punched any perpatrator of molestation/assault a dozen feet away. She did that when she was 12 so why not now? And perhaps Sasuke and Sakura being a couple is something that all of us should at least be indifferent to at best, I admit it but they are not like Naruto and Hinata. Their relationship up til their marriage was toxic, plain and simple. It does not erase chapter 693. It does not erase Sasuke trying to kill Sakura at least twice in the Kage Summit Arc. It does not erase Sakura turning into a sobbing depressed mess whenever Sasuke is brought up after the time skip. Most of all it does not erase the fact that Sakura regressed to her 12 year old self because she got her dream man back. And you know what turns me off to it now? The fact that Sasuke said sorry but he hasnt changed. Hes still mostly indifferent to Sakura and he left her alone to essentially play overworked single mom and barely if ever shows up to be part of his familys lives.If he actually tried to better himself and attmempt to be a family man as best he can, instead of being a vagabond spy, I wouldnt be complaining. And you know Im not making this up. As for Reading because you want to see Sakura moments, sure. But for how long I wonder? How long will she she be relevant to the plot and how long will or until we see the strong and intelligent Sakura Haruno we all love? Shes already been reduced to damsel in distress so Sasuke can have his manly, hands off my woman! moment so Im not too hopeful for much considering it is essentially a SS fanfic. Yes anyone is welcome to look past old wounds to objectively enjoy it but I cant. Now yes I get that if there is anyone not even willing to try it theyre better off refraining from commenting altogether but I just want to express my opinions. Dont let me stop you though, I have nothing against anyone liking it.

+1. They tried to kill each other in the past, furthermore Sasuke tried without hesitation. Its the toxic relationship context on which their interactions is built upon that turns off rationale female readers. Clearly not their target demographic with this story. Although its clear they are targeting female SS old fans.

Im waiting for the manga sales to come out. Theres a past study that reveals 67% of manga readers are female. Therefore series like Spy x Family picked up very well the series reached 500 million views in Shonen Jump+ , with 10 volumes, it has 27 million copies in circulation (physical) while its digital version was ranked 5th on Rakuten's Top 20 Best Selling Digital Manga of 2022. Since its targeting female readers, I think we can use Spy x Family as a benchmark and mental model for this spinoffs sales performance. Well see.

People are free to enjoy whichever content theyre interested in. True contribution to the franchise is demonstrated by purchasing their products, not just debating online.

No thanks.

Sakuras character is destroyed by the end of the manga. Im not sure who is the target audience of a character that throw away her self-dignity, self-respect and self-worth for someone who doesnt even care for her and her daughter.

Well see how the manga sales fare when it comes out. Thatll be the true yardstick.

People can say whatever they want, which pairings are more popular, etc. But at the end of the day, numbers don't lie. And that numbers are represented with sales figures. Why sales are important, that's the only way a media franchise can survive and keep producing quality content. Supply and demand.

This is proven many times, with Naruto franchise in particular. People used to say NH/Hinata is very popular, the fact says otherwise. So much so that in 20th anniversary of the anime, you don't see Hinata / NH at all in the rehash clip.

Litmus test is simple: if NH and SS pairing are popular, the sales won't be where it is at today.

Sasuke retsuden's  manga will arrive  this year.
They are betting  on Sasusaku now 

The light novel that only sold 16k copies after 3 weeks?

Yikes. Talk about desperation.

Anyways, we'll see. Finally we'll get to see how large SS fandom actually is.

 
A recap... wow. That's literally nothing.
 
This is a milestone and that's all they could do?!

They don't have budget to do anything new for financial gains. Despite all the claims that Boruto anime earns well, the fact that for THE 20th year milestone they can only produce a 10 minutes video clip without new content tells a lot about the actual financial situation with this franchise. lol.

New movie? Nope.
New game? Nope.
New spinoff or storyline? Nope.
New merchandise? Nope.

Naruto franchise's audience is 10-20 years older now. They'd lead a different life today. I suppose they should be in the age group where their disposable income is amongst the highest. So, why not go all out and entice the old loyal fans to spend $$$ on the franchise?

Who are their target audience with the clip? If it's to get new audience, why doing recap? If Sakura was hated so much and unpopular, why put her in the celebration clip? If Hinata is so popular and NH is very big, why there's no Hinata / NH?

Other franchise like DragonBall celebrated its 20th anniversary by broadcasting DragonBall Kai, a re-edited and remastered version of the Dragon Ball Z anime. The episodes were remastered for HDTV, with rerecording of the vocal tracks by most of the original cast, and featuring updated opening and ending sequences. In other words: a mega project for its fans. They were confident that loyal fans will spend their $$$ on the DragonBall franchise. They did. Hence till date you'd still see new games, New content are being produced. Whether you agree or disagree, DragonBall producers did well financially.

Stark contrast with Naruto franchise. They cut ties with segment of the fans that give them the most financial support (NS fans), tried to please the smallest dog that barks the loudest (NH fans), disregard all the 15 years of Manga storyline just so that a below average series Boruto can be born.

If there's anything, Naruto franchise is THE prime example of what NOT to do to grow your franchise.

I like the fact that the decline is accelerating after Kishi took over.

Naruto franchise is dead the moment they killed NS.

 
I can discuss Boruto objectively, I just have no interest in reading it, since I could already tell with it playing off of Naruto's plot points the story was stretched beyond it's breaking point and snapped in half long ago ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
 
 
 
Ironic don't you think? What do they even have to disprove NaruSaku for, if they are catering to a new audience rather than the, old one? I've ready accepted the fact that NH won and what it costed was only the very story established itself, so I feel they are only doing it TO CONVINCE themselves NaruHina was worth alienating and pissing off the original audience because at this point it is completely unnecessary if barely any are even watching it

On another news, latest Boruto volume sold only 67k for first week (7 full days).

That's about ~6% of what typical Naruto volume sales in the same time span (1st week, full 7 days) prior to vol. 64.

A good proxy to indicate 90% - 95% fans have done mass exodus, moving out of the franchise.

The last two volumes of Boruto sold less than 100k before it's thrown out of the top 50 list. The best part? Kishimoto's name was officially on it, replacing the previous editor. lol. As if slapping Kishimoto's name would solve the declining sales issue. It actually accelerates it.

Hinata and NH have practically killed the series. It's clear that Boruto is as good as dead the moment they moved it to VJUMP. It's basically KTLO (keeping the lights on) from that point onwards.
 
We're probably going to see sub 20k sales in first week within 3-5 years if this trend continues. It won't get cancelled. It'll just continue to be the sunken cost for the producer.

"... he was mere inches away from killing his own daughter."

Boruto Gaiden is another proof of plot setup that goes nowhere. At that time I can't comprehend how on earth an author capable of producing one of the most successful manga all time, to come up with Boruto Gaiden.

There's no point to the story at all. lol. A father who has never visited his wife and kids for 12 years? A wife that has little recollection whether his husband wear a glasses or not? Let's not mention she pasted her photo on top of Karin's. There's zero thought process. Zero creativity to come up with compelling story. It further exposed us that Kishi is not as good as we thought him to be. No wonder the market corrects itself.

"What was that all about?" and "What was the point?"

These are the takeaway of Naruto as a franchise, given the ending. For that reason, readers appreciating a great storytelling stopped buying it. There's no point supporting the series.

A franchise that sold 250 million copies in 15 years, with an average sales of 3.47million copies per volume decided to change its storytelling direction for a recycled cash grab.

Naturally, its market will correct itself and it will leave behind handful, while the rest dropped it.

Boruto: Naruto Next Gen volume 16, sold 95k copies before it dropped out of Oricon top 50 rank radar in the 2nd week.

From an average sales of 3.47 million per volume to under 100k per volume. That's not even 3% of what it used to be.

Put it simply: people realised that there wasn't much thinking process from the franchise's author and producers, so, why bother? Why waste their time and money for Naruto. There's absolutely zero reason to care, really. If one enjoy it, by all means. The latest sales told a different view: most of us (who used to support it) are no longer care.

And if anyone argue that there's a free manga version available, let me tell you this: Japanese readers are no cheapskate. They'll buy and support as a sign of gratitude. It's just their culture. It's the reason why piracy has never been an issue in Japan. It's a cultural thing.

So, Naruto/Boruto producers made their product available for free is not to discourage people from buying. It's the other way around: the free version is to attract as much readers as possible (an advertisement, if you will) so that people are incentivised to buy the manga.

In all memorable manga fiction, most of the author had a vivid pictures of how they'd end the story. "Begin with the end in mind.", as the old saying goes.

When an architect designs a beautiful building, they draft the grand vision, the art blended in the space and they subsequently work towards that end vision. Similar with car designer, industrial designer, products designer and many others. That craftsmanship is what made it different. People buy the craftsmanship poured into their creations.

Same goes with manga and literature products. It's the idea and the craftsmanship that people buy. Without realizing it, these ideas turn into a multi billion franchise and leaving a footprint in pop culture.

Just did some double checking, was just one narusaku artist from south Korea. Sorry if I made it sound bigger than it seemed.

Who didn't like this merchandise here from that period given its history for south korea and has decided to drop anything naruto related https://twitter.com/...MqmpYAKsIg&s=19

I saw Karin and Shikamaru merchandise on top of the usual Team 7, where's Hinata? /s

Hinata / NH doesn't sell. Only delusional shippers would say otherwise. Remember the flopped merchandise related to The Last?

Happy New Year folks!

Regarding the Retsuden novel, I've seen some points being made that they are super popular outside Japan, that they have been in top for sales on Amazon and Rakuten something something so that's why it's popular and in-demand.
 
Now I don't know what to say because I haven't been following the topic too closely. But even so, shouldn't this amount to something towards Boruto's popularity as a franchise?
 
From what I'm seeing, it keeps decreasing?
 
The way I've seen it, it's an attempt to somehow keep the franchise afloat by catering more to SS because from what it seems the NH family doesn't sell that much. 
 
Meh, anyway...

If it sold very well, the producers will proudly share the facts and advertise it :)

Rakuten and Amazon publishes bestseller ranks by product category every year in Japan or internationally. You can check it out at both of their websites (Japanese ones or by country to which they operate in).

Retsuden novels wasn't in the top 100 at Rakuten or Amazon in 2020 (let's not even think of 2021, lol). Folks can fact check themselves and I'm happy to be corrected if I'm wrong :) --here's the current rank at Rakuten for your reference: https://books.rakute...html?junle_id=3

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.

Just to close the case, turns out the claim that Sasuke Retsuden sold 300k copies has no basis and it has no accountable source.

https://twitter.com/...7019496457?s=21

Morale of the story: always argue from the first principle with the right, factual and trustworthy data. Otherwise one will embarrass himself/herself.

It is widely known that Sasuke Retsuden was one of the lowest selling products from Naruto franchise (16k copies before it's out of top 50 tracker). These are the data from Oricon that's been trusted by many.

Yet, they decided to adopt it as a separate manga product. Not sure if the producers were delusional, misinformed or desperate (since no other choice).

For sure, it will expose how many SS fans out there that contributes to the franchise financially through manga sales. I'm personally curious, but at least this SS manga sales will be a good proxy metrics to confirm how big (or how small) SS fanbase actually is.

We know for sure by now that NH+SS is not that big in terms of their financial contribution. I've been saying this many time, but I'll say it again: Naruto franchise is doomed the moment they take out NS out of the equation.