18 Responses to “Macross F: Nyan Tama Debuts in Oricon Daily Rankings at #2”

1. Haesslich Says:
   December 4th, 2008 at 10:11 am

   I guess the “Macross” name sold the disc – but it’s the WEEKLY rankings (and monthly) which count more. Mind you, the Tokumori version of the Nyan Nyan Service Melody’s nothing to sneeze at.

2. omo Says:
   December 4th, 2008 at 11:13 am

   I don’t think it’s just “Macross” name that sold the disc–it’s the fans for the music and the series. The show’s now over, the fans are in full buying mode.

   A lot of people bought Nyan Fro only after the series was going on for a while, which explains the weaker (but only relative to the other two full albums) first day stats when you’d think people who bought OST2 would want OST1 too.

3. mai Says:
   December 4th, 2008 at 11:32 am

   @Haesslich – I don’t think the name is the sole cause of the good sales. There seem to be quite a number of people in forums I visit who wanted a vocal-only release, and here it is. I’ll also stay tuned to see if the CD keeps itself afloat in the weeklies.

4. Haesslich Says:
   December 4th, 2008 at 11:58 am

   @mai: At the same time, most of it’s already been released before, and in better versions at that (the Sheryl on Stage ones). Yes, we’ve got our Vocal Best collection now, the way Gundam series of recent memory have put out their “Complete Best”… but was that alone enough to convince people who already bought OST’s 1 and 2 (along with the singles) to buy this? I kinda doubt that…. and for those people who may not have known the series that well, the name alone probably sold the CD for them, in the way that the Lion and Diamond Crevasse singles may not have even though the songs had gotten their big openings on the show that week or the week before (in their full form, animated with a concert).

5. danie~ Says:
   December 4th, 2008 at 12:18 pm

   I’m ashamed that up until now I haven’t got the time to finish watching the anime, but I do own every single Macross CD possible, because I love good music. :-/ And this CD is no exception, since there are many songs (or should I say versions) that weren’t in other CD..

6. danie~ Says:
   December 4th, 2008 at 12:21 pm

   ..and my point was, there are people who buy not because of the “Macross” name selling power, but purely for the music. But I’m sure we made the minority lol.

7. Haesslich Says:
   December 4th, 2008 at 1:06 pm

   danie: I still say the Macross name on the disc contributed more than the music for many people who may not have watched the anime, but may have heard the name recently in some form or another and also heard it had ‘good music’… whereas if they’d just heard the title “Lion, sung by May’N and Megumi Nakajima”, it wouldn’t have impacted their decision to buy as much.

8. mai Says:
   December 4th, 2008 at 1:22 pm

   @Haesslich – what about “Yoko Kanno”? May’n also has her fans, one of her CDs before has made it high in Oricon too. Anyway, there’s no way to prove any of these guesses, so I’ll just take it as it is: a success.

9. Haesslich Says:
   December 4th, 2008 at 2:55 pm

   mai: Yoko Kanno isn’t really all that known outside of anime circles, last I looked – it’s different from say… Yuki Kajiura, whose work has been heard outside of anime and game circles as part of some musicals and in the see-saw stuff, or pop stars like Utada Hikaru or T.M. Revolution. So there are Yoko Kanno fans, but they’re mostly anison/anime fans who’ve heard her work primarily through those before… or the odd fan who started with her CM’s.

   May’N at least had a fanbase prior to Macross Frontier, but her last few albums (Crazy Crazy Crazy, Sympathy, Ｆａｌｌｉｎ’　ｉｎ　ｏｒ　Ｎｏｔ　ｆｅａｔ．ＳＥＡＭＯ) didn’t even crack the Oricon Top 30 for the weeks (or months) they were released… and I suspect the current sales figures on Amazon.jp are due to the exposure she got for Macross Frontier and the popularity of her tracks there has encouraged others to explore her past work. The artist name isn’t the big seller here, at least for people who aren’t already fans of the show or at least of the artists involved – unlike say, recent Gundam shows where T.M. Revolution’s name is used to sell the music there more than the fact it’s a Gundam series.

   But just about everyone in Japan by now has probably at least HEARD of the name “Macross” (as they would have the name ‘Gundam’), and heard about how it usually has music which stands on its own merits… and those newbies may be what are propelling initial sales.

10. mai Says:
    December 4th, 2008 at 3:51 pm

    @Haesslich – First of all, Kanno may be known for anime, that’s right, but not just for Macross F. Her fans are a gathering of those who like Bebop, GITS, Escaflowne, etc. I wouldn’t equate the fans of these animations as also fans of the Macross franchise who would readily buy her work just because it’s under the name “Macross”.

    Besides, I don’t find it wrong at all to say that Macross is a prime factor in selling the CDs – in fact, if it weren’t for the way it was used in the animation and how well it fit, I suppose it wouldn’t sell either. But to say that the name “Macross” sold it sounds like an insult to the people who worked to get the music to fit the animation very well (which in Macross F, it really fit so well). GITS is also a very well known franchise inside and outside of Japan, but did her CDs for that series sell this well? Does the Macross name trump even the ever so popular Gundam which she has also scored before, enough to sell this much much more?

    Why can’t we just say that people loved the music enough to buy it? Is that too much of a praise to give the music staff?

11. Haesslich Says:
    December 4th, 2008 at 4:25 pm

    mai: Kanno fans may buy Kanno music, but there aren’t as many of those as there are ‘average Joes’ who haven’t watched Macross before but have heard the name in passing, which may inspire sales due to the ‘oh, I’ve heard of that’ reaction. And, to be blunt, OST 1 wasn’t the best work Kanno’s put out – not hardly. There’s not the same sort of stuff in OST1 or OST2 which would get someone who got hooked on her work with Bebop or Escaflowne to follow it, and as a GITS OST collector, I’d have to say that Transformation was probably the closest track to something out of GITS:SAC out of the whole lot in terms of feel and style. She really doesn’t have that ‘brand name’ recognition that another composer might have, nor do the singers have the built-in fanbases commanded by the bigger names who have been gracing Gundam OP/ED’s for the past three or so years.

    The music was good, but at the same time over half this material has already been released in other OSTs and only the obsessive-compulsive fans would clamour for a collection of tracks which they already half-own, rather than just buying the tracks they don’t have off iTunes if they’re available on there. Yes, there are quite a few Macross fans, but I suspect the larger numbers we’ve seen in the past few months suggest that the music isn’t being sold to just Macross fans – and neither May’N under her old stage name or Megumi Nakajima (or Yoko Kanno) had the sort of fanbase which would build the OSTs into the Oricon Weekly and Amazon Top Sales figures we’ve witnessed the past while. Therefore, I’d have to suggest that those extra numbers aren’t just fans who are obsessed with getting five copies of everything, or are just the people who were staying up late at night to watch the show, but rather people who were on the edge of the anime scene or not even involved recognizing the name and, after hearing the praises of the fans, decided to check it out only to be pleasantly surprised by the music they discovered.

12. Haesslich Says:
    December 4th, 2008 at 4:28 pm

    … and should I note that Macross Frontier, out of all the anime in the past four or five years, has the largest number of insert songs and extra pieces out there which weren’t Character CD’s or ‘related material’ which only anime otaku usually buy (like the Lucky Star Character CD’s, the Re-Mix CD’s, the Music Fair CD, the Hayate no Gotoku Chara CD’s, etc)? And it’s POP music, which is a huge change from the instrumental and orchestrated or synthesized stuff we usually see? Most of the time, these ‘extra’ OSTs are populated by ‘inspired by’ songs which represent character states of minds or whatever that give the seiyuu an extra chance to make money…

13. mai Says:
    December 4th, 2008 at 4:41 pm

    @Haesslich – The reason I find some of your arguments difficult to buy is that it’s hard if you don’t have statistics to back them up. The other parts of your argument also support that it’s not just the “name” that sold it – say for example, if the animation didn’t make use of the songs within the animation, and you slap on the “Macross” name on the CD, would that enable it to sell this much? We will see how the Bobby CDs fare this December, and find out if the mere “Macross” label on it will enable it to sell. Nevertheless, I welcome your suggestion on the possible reason this album went up there in the charts.

14. Haesslich Says:
    December 4th, 2008 at 5:14 pm

    mai: Remember, anime is seen as being something for kids and teenagers in Japan, as cartoons are here, albeit one with a better reputation as an art form due to the way people like Shinkai, Miyazaki, and Oishi have turned out works which were thoughtful as well as beautiful to look at. Yes, there’s a larger population of OCD-types who call themselves otaku in Japan… but they’re more like the sci-fi geeks over here than anything else in how they’re regarded, which is probably why they’ve been targeted by both criminals as well as police in Akihabara with regular shakedowns, robberies, and police ‘inspections’.

    Macross and Gundam enjoy a lot of brand-name recognition for being among the oldest franchises that have continued to perpetuate themselves over the past twenty-five or so years (I dare you to find a Super Robot show that’s done the same), and thus have the same sort of mindspace that titles like “Star Wars” or “Star Trek” do here… and a similar sort of niche as far as sales go, for the most part, due to the same reason that you can’t get away with just slapping “Star Wars” on a frisbee. However good the music, however, if nobody listens to it… nobody buys. The reason anime OSTs don’t usually sell well is because, no matter how good the music may be… it’s anime – it’s something not for adults, or for students who are in or just finishing college unless you’re a ‘geek’. So, as a result, you don’t see Oricon listing anime OSTs often – although GITS:SAC OST3 did make the Top 20 in August 2005 (IIRC), which was considered a minor miracle at the time.

    Now… Macross is an old franchise, and people who saw the first show have some nostalgic feelings for it, much as Star Wars Episode I was so eagerly awaited some 22 years after Episode IV came out – those kids who had grown up with it had fond memories, and thus returned to see what it was like now they were adults. So, that part of the franchise watches the show, sees some familiar things, and is happy. They buy OST’s – great, you’ve got some sales there. Other people buy the OSTs because they heard Kanno’s working on them; excellent. Others may have been May Nakabayashi fans – excellent. So, OST 1 sells decently.

    Then OST 2 rolls around – those people who buy OST 1 buy OST 2. And then we see extra sales for OST 2 show up, which put it into the #2 spot on the Oricon Daily sales; where did those extra sales come from? People who are watching the show? According to the figures for the last week Macross Frontier was on the air, about a week before OST 2 hit the shelves (9/26), the ratings for the show were 2.3% of households polled were watching, with the figures for the few weeks before that being 2.0% and 1.7%… way behind the 18.7% that Sazae-san or the 12.7% popularity that Chibi Maruko-chan enjoyed… or even the 3.5% popularity of Code Geass S2′s ending. Yet OST 2, a week later, sells even better than OST 1 or the singles did.

    Why the big bump in sales? It can’t just be the fans of the anime – there’s obviously not THAT many of them. It can’t just be the fans of Kanno, May’N, or Nakajima – there aren’t that many of them either yet, although their numbers have undoubtedly grown since the show began airing. Where did the extra sales come from? People buying 10 copies at once? Or those disinterested people who never saw the show, but saw the name “Macross” on the OST’s cover, maybe had heard about it or saw an episode of the original series or Macross 7 way back when and had fond memories, who decided to pick up OST1 or one of the singles on a whim? And then decided they liked the music?

    Yes, the music’s important, but the mindshare’s required to get bigger sales figures that the pop stars these CD’s are competing with already have with their fans…. who are not going to necessarily be the same people that normally buy an anime OST. Thus I suggest the name ‘Macross’ itself may have intrigued people who would not have otherwise thought about buying an anison OST (since anime is a thing for kids or losers)… but because the name was familiar like Gundam, merited another look, and then they found they liked what Kanno, May’N, Nakajima, and Sakamoto (in this OST) did. Notice that Gundam OST’s these days also make the Oricon Daily or Weekly charts as well.. although they don’t stay there long, and usually don’t post the numbers that Nyan Fro and Nyan Tra did.

15. Haesslich Says:
    December 4th, 2008 at 5:15 pm

    And for the record, I -have- been going through the Oricon site, as well as checking out release dates for May’n's other work as well as weeks where the OSTs were released for Macross versus other anime series, to see how the Weekly charts rank things.

16. Haesslich Says:
    December 4th, 2008 at 5:16 pm

    And that “#2 spot in the Oricon Daily” should’ve been #1. It’s a late, late night/early morning right now.

17. FH Says:
    December 5th, 2008 at 1:19 am

    Haesslich, I agree with you about the “Macross” franchise part, a popular tie-in is a best promotion for the music. I don’t say there aren’t people buy Macross F CD because of the music or Yoko Kanno. In 2003-2005, when Gundam SEED is very popular, it help Nami Tamaki, HIGH and MIGHTY COLOR and Hitomi Takahashi made a very high debut, every CD tied with SEED did well on the Oricon charts and some of them even reached number 1. And now, Gundam 00 helped Stephanie to get 40,000 copies of “Friends” while her other singles only sold around 5,000 copies. And there are drama or TV program tie-in too, like Utada Hikaru did with “Flavor Of Life” or those Shuchishin guys.

    May’n never is popular when she’s with Universal, I have to say that I can’t eat her J-Urban music. Like Haesslich said, only Fallin’ in or Not charted because it featured SEAMO, but the single only charted for 1 week with around 500 copies sold. That why HoriPro dropped her J-Urban career with Universal and find a new way to promote her. Now May’n re-debuted with Victor Entertainment and now, I have to say that her fate is tied for anime song forever and it’s really a double edge knife. May’n may never be a mainstream J-Pop singer, look how Macross music is doing well in the charts, she or Megumi never got a Music Station or Kouhaku performance.

    But I think May’n isn’t the main star that Macross F is promoting, the beloved girl is Megumi Nakajima. They give her so much song and even cover Lynn Minmay legendary songs. I think they are promoting her like Mari Iijima with Lynn Minmay. Mari Iijima is forever tied with the legendary Minmay and no one see her as herself even she is talented in both singing and composing. I wonder who will follow her if Megumi isn’t Ranka Lee.

18. Haesslich Says:
    December 5th, 2008 at 11:10 am

    FH: The main point I was trying to make there is that anison is really… not that big a deal when it comes to promotion and sales, just because of the stigma attached to anime being a thing kids or teenagers are involved in, or geeks… sorta like how sci-fi is scene in North America. They don’t play the songs on the radio, you don’t see big promotions in normal record stores for these things, and they aren’t usually featured anywhere except in the anime that a few people watch out of love for the artist or for the show/franchise. The main benefit of the franchise’s name is that it CAN get people who would otherwise never listen to an anime OST or watch the show interested in sampling the product BECAUSE it’s a big name, or because they remembered watching it (for a bit) as a kid, or else they’d heard good things about the franchise and its use of music… which is more of a factor in Macross than Gundam.

    Basically, if you’ve got some money and are faced with two CD’s you could buy, since you’re already out at the store and have a bit extra to pick up one more disc including the selections you already know you want… well, if one of them’s some artist you’ve never heard of while the other’s got that franchise name on it you may have heard of at one point… you’re more likely to buy the franchise than the no-name artist, especially in a place like Japan where idols are manufactured by the dozen, pumped out there to become one-hit wonders (if that), and then vanish into the mire as the next idol shows up to take her place before her name even got all that big.

    As for Nakajima, she may be the one they’re trying to groom to be the next Sakamoto, but her usage in Macross Frontier wasn’t the best for it, IMO – she didn’t get to show off any range she might have, and the way they composed Diamond Crevasse 50/50 was atrocious, in my opinion – if they’d kept it in the same sort of style as the acapella version they could’ve had a winner on their hands… but instead someone decided to “Ranka” the song up, which took away any emotional impact it had, and made a mockery of it (especially given how it was used in the show from when we first heard it – she was singing it while watching fighters charging off into batle.. and we saw it mostly in similar situations in the series as things went on).

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