Another month, another set of anime releases to track on amazon. Of particular note are Hetailia The Beautiful World (~5000th with 4 weeks to release, big US fan presence) and Deadman Wonderland (~3000th with 3 weeks to release). Those two have legitimate shots at the big charts, though any series should have to rank 500th or lower for multiple days to have a realistic chance.
This is just an infodump post for the May series I’ll be tracking, compiled via amazon’s upcoming anime releases list. Not much beyond the initial numbers here. The April summary post will be up in a week or so (though it won’t have updated charts – I want to just keep collecting data for the next few months before I try identifying trends again).
Way back in December, I started a rough, bare-bones look at a bit of publicly available data; US Amazon TV/Movie bestseller list rankings for anime releases. That data collection is mostly done, pending K’s release this Tuesday, and it yielded some potentially interesting nuggets (expect that summary post to happen before this next weekend). Enough so that I plan to do the same at least for the month of March. This is a list of the releases I’ll be tracking over the next 30 days, with their release dates, prices, and initial rankings. All series were accessed via amazon’s upcoming anime releases page.
Two points before the list itself:
-I compiled my February list too early (several titles were only announced for release after I built my list), and missed the opportunity to track some releases that way. Since most titles tracked in the February sample were relatively steady and very low on the list until a week before release (save for Robotics;Notes’ ridiculously discounted edition), I’m going to start tracking monthly rankings approximately one week prior to the first set of releases from now on.
-The price I note is the series’ MSRP price. If the series becomes listed at more than 50% off that price at any time during the amazon solicitation, I will note that both now and during the final analysis. The February part 1 release of Robotics;Notes had such a discount.
This post represents the first of three entries our blog is submitting to the Manga Olympics for Bloggers. Voting begins in a few days on June 16th, so just enjoy the article for now. Or check out our illustrious competition.
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Shonen manga, as literally defined, are manga marketed towards young boys. There are several implications of this definition, but I’m going to zero in on one in particular for the moment. Because shonen manga is popular with and being marketed towards younger boys, it must to some degree adhere to their notions of manliness, but still holds a unique opportunity to redefine what they see as cool, manly traits to aspire to. Let’s dive right in and take a look at some of the many shonen manga that subtly teach kids life lessons.
Animetics 