'Evangelion' breaks Blu-ray record in first week; 'Totoro' a million seller

Press Releases
'Evangelion' breaks Blu-ray record in first week; 'Totoro' a million seller
By The Editor
June 18, 2010 - 07:09

"Evangelion: 2.22 You Can (Not) Advance" has sold 357,000 copies in its first five days of release on Blu-ray disc (BD)--beating out "Michael Jackson's This Is It" for the most sales.

The animated feature film was released by King Record Co. on May 26. It sold 357,000 copies to top the June 7 Oricon BD weekly ranking, which is based on data collected between May 24 and May 30 and announced June 2.

It posted the highest sales on record in both Oricon's weekly ranking and BD sales. In only the first week of release, it eclipsed "Michael Jackson's This Is It," which previously marked the highest BD sales at 351,000 copies.

The DVD version of "Evangelion," released the same day, also ranked at the top of the DVD ranking with sales of 283,000 copies. The last DVD of an animated film to sell more than 200,000 discs in its first week was director Hayao Miyazaki's "Ponyo," which was released July 3, 2009.

"Evangelion: 2.22 You Can (Not) Advance" also broke records in terms of sales earnings at 2.21 billion yen ($24.2 million) for the BD and 1.72 billion yen for the DVD, for a combined total of 3.93 billion yen. This ranks with the movie's box-office revenue of 4 billion yen.

Meanwhile, in other DVD news, sales of Miyazaki's "My Neighbor Totoro," released by Walt Disney Co. (Japan), have exceeded 1 million DVDs in about nine years, or 440 weeks, since its release.

During the week ending May 30, the film sold about 1,000 copies to bring its grand total to 1.001 million copies.

The last time a DVD title topped the million mark was three years ago, when "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest--2-Disc Special Edition" achieved that level on June 11, 2007.

The last animated film to pull this off was Miyazaki's "Howl's Moving Castle," which sold 1 million copies as of Jan. 2, 2006, four years and five months ago.

"My Neighbor Totoro" is only the fourth million-selling DVD ever. The film was released in theaters in 1988, more than 20 years ago, amid the videotape era. It has been a best seller ever since.