According to Japanese website Phile-web, the first volume of Bakemonogatari was a chart-topper, staying in the number 1 position for 3 weeks as the top-selling Blu-ray disc, selling around 40,000 in those three weeks alone. Though it is a far cry from 49,000 in the first week, it’s still impressive.

Bakemonogatari’s second volume upped the ante, taking the top sales position with 39,000 copies sold, pushing its way past a mainstream hit like Gundam 00. Not to be outdone, the third volume was a record breaker for the franchise, moving 41,000 copies off the shelves in its first week. Even non-anime films, such as Terminator Salvation, which debuted 5 days before, and sold for half the price at that, was out-performed by Bakemonogatari’s third volume.

To compare this to other Blu-ray anime releases, K-ON!’s debut gained the honor of best-selling TV anime Blu-ray ever when first sold in August. However, that was at a mere 33,000 copies in its first week. Of course, this was before Bakemonogatari came into the picture. With increasing sales numbers like these, it makes the mind wonder how well the next volume will sell.

Naturally, the answer is, “we don’t know”, and we won’t know for another month, due to a delay that will push volume four’s release date on December 23 to January 27.

But there is a bright side, given that production studio SHAFT has been sprucing up some episodes of the series for their home video releases. Such changes include a fight scene at the end of volume three, and it is said that they will be fixing the ending of volume four due to some production issues during its original TV broadcast.

So the real question at this point becomes, “Will the delay in the volumes boost the increasingly growing sales in anticipation, or will the wait slowly choke out the interest of fans?” Only time will tell, but emo kids piloting giant purple robots be warned, Bakemonogatari is coming.

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