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NEWS: Navarre Talks Afro Samurai Sales Numbers, Future Plans


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Onsokumaru



Joined: 26 Jul 2008
Posts: 71
Location: New York
PostPosted: Mon Aug 04, 2008 8:08 pm Reply with quote
What the hell? Was Afro Samurai really that good? I haven't seen it yet.
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v1cious



Joined: 31 Dec 2002
Posts: 6202
Location: Houston, TX
PostPosted: Mon Aug 04, 2008 8:08 pm Reply with quote
never underestimate the power of Samuel L Jackson.
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ryusaki





PostPosted: Mon Aug 04, 2008 8:12 pm Reply with quote
v1cious wrote:
never underestimate the power of Samuel L Jackson.

QFW!
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doctordoom85



Joined: 12 Jun 2008
Posts: 2093
PostPosted: Mon Aug 04, 2008 8:15 pm Reply with quote
v1cious wrote:
never underestimate the power of Samuel L Jackson.


Exactly. A samurai, Jedi Master, ice-powered superhero, and soon the wielder of the Avengers? The man's a titan. Very Happy

On a more serious note, Jackson's name probably did have a significant impact on sales.
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KabaKabaFruit



Joined: 20 Sep 2007
Posts: 1871
Location: Winnipeg, Manitoba
PostPosted: Mon Aug 04, 2008 8:26 pm Reply with quote
doctordoom85 wrote:
Exactly. A samurai, Jedi Master, ice-powered superhero, and soon the wielder of the Avengers? The man's a titan. Very Happy

You forgot snake baiter. Wink
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TheVok



Joined: 09 Mar 2007
Posts: 613
Location: North York, Ontario, Canada
PostPosted: Mon Aug 04, 2008 8:38 pm Reply with quote
It's not just a matter of Sam Jackson; by airing with lots of hype on Spike (which has to my knowledge never aired any anime in the past), Afro Samurai was marketed to a fairly broad audience that was not previously in the habit of buying anime DVDs.

The Spike airings got great ratings in themselves, but they also featured many promos for the impending DVD release.

It's also a lot easier to sell folks one DVD with five episodes on it than a whole series of DVDs comprising a medium- to long-run show.
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sabriyahm



Joined: 24 May 2005
Posts: 291
Location: Georgia
PostPosted: Mon Aug 04, 2008 9:47 pm Reply with quote
TheVok wrote:

It's also a lot easier to sell folks one DVD with five episodes on it than a whole series of DVDs comprising a medium- to long-run show.


I think this helped a lot. A single DVD for a series is an easy buy for the non anime crowd. It was a wise marketing decision. Of course they had probably made most of their money off the TV run anyway.
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GATSU



Joined: 03 Jan 2002
Posts: 15305
PostPosted: Mon Aug 04, 2008 10:09 pm Reply with quote
Vok: Actually, it got horrible ratings; but I guess by Spike standards, you can call them "great".
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Zalis116
Moderator


Joined: 31 Mar 2005
Posts: 6867
Location: Kazune City
PostPosted: Mon Aug 04, 2008 10:11 pm Reply with quote
KabaKabaFruit wrote:
doctordoom85 wrote:
Exactly. A samurai, Jedi Master, ice-powered superhero, and soon the wielder of the Avengers? The man's a titan. Very Happy

You forgot snake baiter. Wink
And also shark bait.
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Dargonxtc



Joined: 13 Apr 2006
Posts: 4463
Location: Nc5xd7+ スターダストの海洋
PostPosted: Mon Aug 04, 2008 11:08 pm Reply with quote
v1cious wrote:
never underestimate the power of Samuel L Jackson.


I am just wondering how much of that 4.5 they got to keep since Samuel was in it?
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Daimao Raki



Joined: 03 Jul 2008
Posts: 593
Location: Dark Side of the Moon
PostPosted: Tue Aug 05, 2008 12:27 am Reply with quote
GATSU wrote:
Vok: Actually, it got horrible ratings; but I guess by Spike standards, you can call them "great".
Those horrible ratings translated into 4.5 million, so it evens out.
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domino



Joined: 25 Nov 2004
Posts: 373
PostPosted: Tue Aug 05, 2008 2:37 am Reply with quote
Wow. It's interesting to see sales figures like this. It seems every time there's a show I take one look at and think "there's no way anyone would actually watch this junk!", those types end up selling the most. Go figure.

But I guess maybe anything will sell no matter how bad it is as long as it has a celebrity's name somewhere on it (Princess Ai suddenly comes to mind...)
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enurtsol



Joined: 01 May 2007
Posts: 14761
PostPosted: Tue Aug 05, 2008 3:28 am Reply with quote
This just goes to show how small the anime market can be compared to some other markets out there. Can put things into perspective.

Take videogames, for example. There are videogame-based anime that don't sell well with the typical anime crowd but have whopping sales figures provided mainly by the videogame crowd.

And Family Guy and Futurama sell over a million copies - and to think both were cancelled initially.
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TheVok



Joined: 09 Mar 2007
Posts: 613
Location: North York, Ontario, Canada
PostPosted: Tue Aug 05, 2008 7:44 am Reply with quote
GATSU wrote:
Vok: Actually, it got horrible ratings; but I guess by Spike standards, you can call them "great".


Quoting ANN itself:

***

Spike TV: More Afro Samurai Ratings

posted on 2007-01-09 22:11 EST

Funimation and Spike TV have provided ANN with additional ratings data for Afro Samurai. Thursday's premiere averaged a 1.1 rating for males 18-49, and 775,000 people watched the 11 p.m. airing. Including two repeats later that night, over 1,666,000 million people saw the episode.

***

That's great by pretty much any U.S. cable standards, especially for so late in the evening.
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Zin5ki



Joined: 06 Jan 2008
Posts: 6680
Location: London, UK
PostPosted: Tue Aug 05, 2008 8:29 am Reply with quote
enurtsol wrote:
But I guess maybe anything will sell no matter how bad it is as long as it has a celebrity's name somewhere on it.

This could be an interesting trend. I think the sales could be increased even higher if Jackson did all the voices in the English dub. Even the female ones.
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