Groundbreaking stories in literature, video games, and TV (Remembering Akira Toriyama.)

[SailusGebel]

For Harry Potter its harder to gauge what was movie hype and what was genuine sales growth, but i did find a first week/first year sales graph that shows a rapid growth for each new book even before the movie was announced.

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You may notice from that graph that the first book isn't even on there (released '97) that's because the first printing of the book was so tiny it was hardly worth mentioning. They printed 500 copies in the UK in '97 and a following 50k in the US in '98.

I was not asking for numbers for Harry Potter. I used HP as an example. I could've used a Song of Ice and Fire or Witcher. But I felt like it would be easier to find info on HP. Anyway, Order of the Phoenix came out after the first two movies. You can see how much it bolstered the popularity. Goblet of Fire sold like 250k in the first week, while Order sold 2.5 mills. Personally, I doubt Goblet could've breached 1 mill in the first week without the movies, much less 2.5 mills.

The Hobbit (and LoTR by extension) were extremely big in the 60's & 70's with American hippy culture (or counterculture as some call it). Some of the biggest bands at the time even made songs references about it, Misty Mountain Hop, Battle of Evermore, and Ramble On by Led Zeppelin, The Wizard by Black Sabbath ect. Getting accurate data for that time and before isn't going to happen, and even if we did have sales data it wouldn't include all the bootleg copies that were floating around amongst that group.

Sadly, you were not able, or didn't want to(understandable, I didn't do it myself) to find the thing that I actually wanted to see. References are not what I'm looking for. While bootleg copies is an excuse(in my opinon). This leads me to one conclusion. For now, I will not change my opinion.

 

[Sleds]

Fun fact: RoyalRoad started out as a translation site for The Legendary Moonlight Sculptor.

I know about that, was reading it there years ago.

 

[CarburetorThompson]

First of all, I included numbers from wiki. Not the best source, but I'm not willing to spend more time on this. HP books were not AS popular. Maybe I have an unreasonable standard for books, but it is what it is. Roughly 15 mills after an unbelievably successful and popular movie came out. Now, if we were talking 15 mills before the movie, I would concede on this one, and say it was immensely popular.

Second. I used this as an example of how a movie can bolster the sales. It was 15 mills after the movie that just came out, and now it's 100+ mills of sold copies. That's why I asked for the same numbers for LoTR. How much was sold before the movie, and after. I made a quick google search, and looked through wiki briefly, but either I missed it, or there was no info like this.

Third. LoTR was a niche thing, since fantasy was a niche thing. I'm not as old, so I can't give my take on this. I can only repeat after each and every older person I've listened to. All of them say that fantasy has been a niche thing. Sure, Tolkien revolutionized or created a new genre, and inspired a plethora of creators; be it manga artists, game developers, or writers. Yet all of it was niche, nerd things that were looked down upon. I heard this take from multiple people, not personally though.

Fourth. Unless I get numbers that prove me wrong, I will think that Tolkien made a new genre, or revolutionized the old one. Yet it was Peter Jackson who made it mainstream and popular.

OP writes. There are many videos these days talking about him and the DragonBall franchise these days, and how it introduced Western audiences to anime at scale.
All of these are statements that nobody can argue with.

In my opinon, as long as I don't get numbers I ask for, it was Peter Jackson who introduced worldwide audience to fantasy at scale, not Tolkien.

I don’t know what the conversation was about but I agree with pretty much everything you wrote. I was just saying that it‘s hard to compare the popularity between books released almost half a century apart, and that I think HP was the perfect storm of release timing and genre to be one of the last popular book series before tv media and video games went To further dominate the entertainment market

 

[Jemini]

Using Reki Kawahara with Akira and Tolkien was not really a good choice there... You could have use Kentaro Miura who have revolutioned the Dark Fantasy instead.
SAO didn't revolution anything, he didn't aspire anything, he was good and was the first anime for an Vrmmorpg in the new era were anime proliferate, that all.

If you want a real influence for the Vrmmorpg genre then use Heesung Nam, the author of The Legendary Moonlight Sculptor who truly inspire a lot of authors to write Vrmmorpg. Or Butterfly Blue with The King Avatar. The only reason SAO can be somehow a reference was because it's a Jap Novel and was adapted easily, he didn't influence a shit.

Oh, believe me, I know he's a bit of an odd-man-out in the crowd. Where the rest of the greats on this list were pioneers because they were brilliant men really pushing their industries forward, Reki Kawahara was more of an accidental pioneer who was only in the right place at the right time by luck, and was only able to so boldly march into the uncharted territory because he was an idiot who didn't know better in regards to what he was getting himself into.

But, I do not regret including him one bit. In fact, it is BECAUSE he is such an odd man out that I think his inclusion here is important for proving a point. It emphasizes just how important being first can really be. It emphasizes that you don't need to be excellent, you just need to boldly march into the uncharted territories.

Being smart and knowing what you're doing can improve your chance of success, but just getting lucky works too. Others have probably also tried new and bizarre things to not much acclaim because they were equally as inept or worse than Kawahara, where as the likes of Tolkein and Toriyama were on the road to success from the beginning because they really knew what they were doing, but a little luck and the boldness to try something new are the key common denominators in the equation here. The third necessary ingredient is luck, but someone who is smart and skilled enough like Tolkein or Toriyama can off-set just HOW MUCH luck is necessary with skill, planning, and a work that is just plain indisputably good.

 

[Sleds]

Oh, believe me, I know he's a bit of an odd-man-out in the crowd. Where the rest of the greats on this list were pioneers because they were brilliant men really pushing their industries forward, Reki Kawahara was more of an accidental pioneer who was only in the right place at the right time by luck, and was only able to so boldly march into the uncharted territory because he was an idiot who didn't know better in regards to what he was getting himself into.

But, I do not regret including him one bit. In fact, it is BECAUSE he is such an odd man out that I think his inclusion here is important for proving a point. It emphasizes just how important being first can really be. It emphasizes that you don't need to be excellent, you just need to boldly march into the uncharted territories.

Being smart and knowing what you're doing can improve your chance of success, but just getting lucky works too. Others have probably also tried new and bizarre things to not much acclaim because they were equally as inept or worse than Kawahara, where as the likes of Tolkein and Toriyama were on the road to success from the beginning because they really knew what they were doing, but a little luck and the boldness to try something new are the key common denominators in the equation here. The third necessary ingredient is luck, but someone who is smart and skilled enough like Tolkein or Toriyama can off-set just HOW MUCH luck is necessary with skill, planning, and a work that is just plain indisputably good.

He was not a pioneer for his genre, SAO didn't start a wave of Vrmmorpg novel/manga/anime influenced by it.
Tolkien did it
Akira too

 

[Alski]

Sadly, you were not able, or didn't want to(understandable, I didn't do it myself) to find the thing that I actually wanted to see. References are not what I'm looking for. While bootleg copies is an excuse(in my opinon). This leads me to one conclusion. For now, I will not change my opinion.

Im not interested in digging to far so i will leave you with this. Take it for what its worth. (2007 article)

Tolkien proves he’s still the king

The arrival of a new J.R.R. Tolkien novel in bookstores this week is an occasion of no small anticipation, mixed with a measure of cautious skepticism.

www.thestar.com

Thanks partly to filmmaker Peter Jackson, the Tolkien brand has never been stronger. Fully one-third of the 150 million copies of The Lord of the Rings sold to date were purchased after the release of the first film in the series