Index Novel Sales Figures and Discussion

[Kuroageha]

Originally Posted by Marcus H.

Or maybe because BorN simply didn't give the light novels justice.

Third season screwed up not just once but twice, first with the budget (after the fiasco of the studio other series) and then pulling that with the adaptation.

[tsunade666]

Eh? What's so bad in the 3rd season adaptation? Pm me to not further derail the thread.

But seriously, its rare for an anime to have that many season. Specially for a light novel adaptation. The only other works, I remember that has that many adaptation is zero no tsukaima.

[mark1246]

Originally Posted by Kuroageha

Third season screwed up not just once but twice, first with the budget (after the fiasco of the studio other series) and then pulling that with the adaptation.

that why you give the series a break, wait for a 1 or 2 years, then bring it back when fans are thirsty for it

Originally Posted by tsunade666

Eh? What's so bad in the 3rd season adaptation? Pm me to not further derail the thread.

But seriously, its rare for an anime to have that many season. Specially for a light novel adaptation. The only other works, I remember that has that many adaptation is zero no tsukaima.

PS: I know other LN that had many season adapted, but it was a military BL anime LN. NO! there was no SEX, it was military fantasy war, but it was all male and their were guy and that had like 52 or more Episode if i remeber

[dniv]

Well to be honest, I don't think a reboot would be that bad. I don't really think it is necessary, but they could try to go for a much more detailed season 1 and 2 of Index, and then use those additional details and side-stories to actually have a more intricate, detailed, and less asspull plot in the later seasons. People don't like Infodumps, but it is done in a way like UFO table has done Fate series, then I doubt there would be any complaints. Everything in Fate Series has been redone SO MANY TIMES (not exactly, but kinda) that I bet that if Index were done again with the effort that they put into the first half of Railgun S it would spark a lot more popularity than it previously drew. Like if much more of Touma's internal monologue were shown, and if the deeper reasons and philosophizing for why stuff is happening, as well as Aleister's real shenanigans and etc... then people would stop viewing the show as something that is just wannabee deep, and understand that it actually delivers.

The anime is fine for LN readers who know the extra details, but while the experience is good enough for anime-only viewers, it's not the same experience. I think the series would appeal to more people if the character motivations were more deeply explored and if the pacing weren't quite as fast. Everything happened so fast in seasons 1 and 2, that it honestly felt at times like the series was sort of extremely rushing.

It's not necessary, but if they redid things with a quality difference like the difference between Pokemon X and Y to previous seasons of Pokemon, then the viewing experience could literally feel fresh, new, and different and compel people to buy the BD's and get new people interested in the series. Obviously, it would take too much funding, so I don't expect it to happen though...

But really though Pokemon XY is fun to watch compared to other season of pokemon because of the quality it has. The same could be said if Index had quality like UBW's FSN remake. Obviously, it doesn't have to be nearly as good. Railgun S quality would more than suffice, but... still... I feel like there's a lot of things they could do to make a remake popular or at least more successful. If they focused on development for Index, less on ecchiness, and less on S/L and fanservice, then I could see a remake being worthwhile and appealing to a larger audience. Of course, this is all hypothetical, and it won't happen... so oh well...

[dragon1412]

A reboot is extremely unlikely, For Index, a reboot could potentially bring a lot of new fans for the series, so the publisher will keep it as the last card to play in case of massive sales down after a long period of time, season 3 seem more likely at this point

[tsunade666]

I don't think Index is popular enough for a reboot.

[dniv]

Originally Posted by tsunade666

I don't think Index is popular enough for a reboot.

It depends. If you account for all of the spin-offs it has plus the light novel sales potential it could generate from a reboot... then it may be considered popular enough. If 1/20th of the people who read OT bought the anime it would be a large hit... and don't forget the potential of new fans...

I'd argue that Index came out before they knew how to adapt unusual LN's correctly and before animated LN's were understood as their own niche thing that should be considered separately from a regular anime of the season. I think that'd all factor into a reboot.

As I keep saying, I'm not expecting one. I just think it could ultimately be quite profitable if pulled off correctly.

[ACertainStark]

I thought it'd be interesting to post this: I'm obviously not knowledgeable about Dengeki Mobile Neo, but assuming a ranking is similar to any other ranking, they released some of their July titles this past week (NT13 included) and NT13 sits at the top:
http://mobile.dengeki.com/ranking/weekly/
Also, Blood Sign vol 1 and NT12 feature in the top 10.
Index & Railgun pretty much cover the yearly rankings.

[Chaos2Frozen]

Originally Posted by ACertainStark

I thought it'd be interesting to post this: I'm obviously not knowledgeable about Dengeki Mobile Neo, but assuming a ranking is similar to any other ranking, they released some of their July titles this past week (NT13 included) and NT13 sits at the top:
http://mobile.dengeki.com/ranking/weekly/
Also, Blood Sign vol 1 and NT12 feature in the top 10.
Index & Railgun pretty much cover the yearly rankings.

Wait, is that... Inukami at no. 13 ?!

[tsunade666]

Originally Posted by ACertainStark

I thought it'd be interesting to post this: I'm obviously not knowledgeable about Dengeki Mobile Neo, but assuming a ranking is similar to any other ranking, they released some of their July titles this past week (NT13 included) and NT13 sits at the top:
http://mobile.dengeki.com/ranking/weekly/
Also, Blood Sign vol 1 and NT12 feature in the top 10.
Index & Railgun pretty much cover the yearly rankings.

what is rank 11?

God of breaker? huh?

[OH&S]

Originally Posted by ACertainStark

I thought it'd be interesting to post this: I'm obviously not knowledgeable about Dengeki Mobile Neo, but assuming a ranking is similar to any other ranking, they released some of their July titles this past week (NT13 included) and NT13 sits at the top:
http://mobile.dengeki.com/ranking/weekly/
Also, Blood Sign vol 1 and NT12 feature in the top 10.
Index & Railgun pretty much cover the yearly rankings.

Index LNs, Railgun Manga Volumes and Accelerator Manga Volumes all listed. All of Kamachi's material published under Dengeki is there (except for things released within the last month). So this where you get the ebooks for them.

Index Manga, Index-san, Crossover Manga ebooks aren't a problem either as they're available on Kindle (though some cheating is needed to get them outside of Japan).

Curiously, SAO and Mahouka LNs aren't available on the site...yet. Although, their manga volumes are listed.

What confuses me though is the method of reading them. I'm assuming there's an app for it but why are things listed with points instead of yen? Where do you get points from?

[ACertainStark]

Yeah this, at least internally, is ASCII/Dengeki's primary digital platform. I'm also curious about the points as I only know they (obviously) have their own point system and have what I'm assuming is a discount campaign going on in conjunction with the 3000 Titles Gratitude Fare. It looks like you need to register an AMV ID.

Originally Posted by tsunade666

what is rank 11?

God of breaker? huh?

The Breaker
http://dengekibunko.dengeki.com/?s=%...82%AB%E3%83%BC

[dniv]

Originally Posted by ACertainStark

I thought it'd be interesting to post this: I'm obviously not knowledgeable about Dengeki Mobile Neo, but assuming a ranking is similar to any other ranking, they released some of their July titles this past week (NT13 included) and NT13 sits at the top:
http://mobile.dengeki.com/ranking/weekly/
Also, Blood Sign vol 1 and NT12 feature in the top 10.
Index & Railgun pretty much cover the yearly rankings.

So this likely explains the smaller than usual Oricon sales number huh? Since they don't have access to these records, it seems even more likely that this is why the number is lower than how it usually is.

[OH&S]

^
I'm not so sure about that. Maybe.

I guess that the main takeaway from the weekly ranking (as far as Kamachi is concerned) is that NT12 and Blood-Sign is still ranking well quite a while after their release. NT13 was released this month so its ranking is to be expected.

Unless I see sales numbers for this I wouldn't make such a claim. Although, I'm currently at a loss to explain the noticeable dip in sales for NT13 apart from ebook sales.

[tsunade666]

Originally Posted by ACertainStark

The Breaker
http://dengekibunko.dengeki.com/?s=%...82%AB%E3%83%BC

This one looks interesting. the heroine doesn't look like the typical annoying tsundere and has the mystery air to it.

[dniv]

Originally Posted by tsunade666

This one looks interesting. the heroine doesn't look like the typical annoying tsundere and has the mystery air to it.

Aww I was hoping it wasn't in Japanese lol. I would have given it a try.

@OH&S... I suppose that we don't really have true confirmation yet for why there was such a decrease in sales. Well, we'll be able to know better after more time passes. If NT 13 still stays high on the mobile sales, then we'll know it got a relatively high portion of mobile sales, and if it doesn't, then oh well.

[felc57]

Sorry if this was mentioned in this thread already, but 51 pages is too much to look through. And sorry for long post.

My question: Why are the sales of the LN for NT dropping? I'm hoping you guys that know more about this than me can explain. I'm no expert nor do I really ever follow sales of any kind (anime, LN, VN, etc), so I can't say for sure, but does it have something to do with how many people just don't like reading?? The second idea I have is that since there's like no adapation of Index since like 2011 (Not considering Railgun), the love for it dies down? I know it sure as hell isn't the story that kills the sales. The story gets so much better with each volume imo.

Rant:

Based on personal experience, I know a lot of people that watch anime, BUT when I ask them about LN's, they either know what they are but say that they don't want to / like to read, or that they don't know what it is. And even more sad is that no one knows what VN's are (which basically is a reading game; I play them btw).

Call me bias, but the two best animes that I love have an even better LN to it (Hataraku Maou sama, and obviously To Aru Series). There's so many good LN's out there and I love them more than anime because they flesh out the story way better and it continues the story since most adaptions go unfinished. However, most people don't seem to even try and go to LN's beause you know the reasons like "Oh, too long... too boring.... reading?! ... etc"

It's rather annoying that I try and "convert" people to read LN's lol, but they just don't want to read that much. At this point, especially with the To Aru series, even getting someone to watch it is a big step for me. It pains me to say that I really know no one that has watched the entire To Aru series at this point. I have friends that watch like season 1 at most, but they just stop for whatever reason. Just a bit sad to me.

[Marcus H.]

The decrease of sales as time goes by is natural for long-running series in any media.
Longer series tend to lose loyal readers due to various factors, and the sheer length of a series can also scare away potential beginners, thinking that it would be a huge cash sink to start one.

So yeah, unless it dips down to dangerous levels like half of its average, then there's nothing to worry about.

[dniv]

Originally Posted by felc57

Rant:

Based on personal experience, I know a lot of people that watch anime, BUT when I ask them about LN's, they either know what they are but say that they don't want to / like to read, or that they don't know what it is. And even more sad is that no one knows what VN's are (which basically is a reading game; I play them btw).

Call me bias, but the two best animes that I love have an even better LN to it (Hataraku Maou sama, and obviously To Aru Series). There's so many good LN's out there and I love them more than anime because they flesh out the story way better and it continues the story since most adaptions go unfinished. However, most people don't seem to even try and go to LN's beause you know the reasons like "Oh, too long... too boring.... reading?! ... etc"

It's rather annoying that I try and "convert" people to read LN's lol, but they just don't want to read that much. At this point, especially with the To Aru series, even getting someone to watch it is a big step for me. It pains me to say that I really know no one that has watched the entire To Aru series at this point. I have friends that watch like season 1 at most, but they just stop for whatever reason. Just a bit sad to me.

I've noticed that this is definitely a thing in the U.S. and it doesn't really seem like you can do much about it. People like lots of pictures, as opposed to some, or they like watching things. Regardless of how much better the story is, readers/viewers are often lazy. Even animenewsnetwork reviewers and the like don't appreciate the difficulty of adapting LN's into anime, and don't consider the original works when they criticize adapted shows.

Frankly, the Western anime base is IMO shameful in how much it doesn't know about the nature of LN's and their high foothold in Japanese anime culture.

VN's I don't know as much about, but I will say that Ace Attorney is an excellent VN even if it's the only one that I have played. That game series is tied for my third favorite.

In the end, I just think that it will take a really long time for people to understand what LN's are, and to start appreciating them. Yen Press translating so many LN's should help, but it'll still probably take quite a while longer before they sink in, and fans will appreciate the inherently better writing found in them. That's my viewpoint anyway.

[Kuroageha]

Originally Posted by Marcus H.

The decrease of sales as time goes by is natural for long-running series in any media.
Longer series tend to lose loyal readers due to various factors, and the sheer length of a series can also scare away potential beginners, thinking that it would be a huge cash sink to start one.

So yeah, unless it dips down to dangerous levels like half of its average, then there's nothing to worry about.

Guin SagaR never had such drops though and that series is like 5 times longer Index seres + its spin offs(Guin has them too).