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Sword Art Online Tops Both Blu-ray, DVD Charts for 1st Time
posted on by Jennifer Sherman
The limited complete pressings of both the Blu-ray Disc and DVD releases of the Sword Art Online the Movie: Ordinal Scale anime film topped Oricon's weekly animation sales charts for the week of September 25 to October 1. This is the first time that the franchise has topped both charts simultaneously.
The releases shipped on September 27, and the limited-edition Blu-ray Disc release sold 89,056 copies in its first week, while the limited-edition DVD sold 19,599 copies. The standard-edition Blu-ray Disc also sold 10,126 copies to rank at #5 on the weekly sales chart, while the standard-edition DVD sold 6,925 copies to rank at #3.
The franchise's Blu-ray Disc releases have previously topped the weekly sales charts seven times. Sword Art Online II was the franchise's most recent work to previously top the chart in February 2015. The new anime film's release marks the first time that a DVD release for the franchise has topped the weekly animation DVD sales chart.
Before the film's release, the highest-selling Blu-ray Disc release in the franchise was the limited complete pressing of the first volume of the first Sword Art Online television anime, which shipped in October 2012 and sold about 37,000 copies to rank at #2. The previous highest-selling DVD release was the DVD of the same volume, which sold about 9,000 copies to rank at #6.
Sword Art Online the Movie: Ordinal Scale has earned 4.3 billion yen (about US$38.2 million) in worldwide sales. The film has screened on over 7,500 screens in 27 countries worldwide.
The film opened in Japan on February 18, and sold about 308,376 tickets for 425,762,760 yen (about US$3.76 million) in its opening weekend. The film was the first anime film to rank #1 in both weekend attendance and weekend box office receipt totals since Makoto Shinkai's your name. The film also set the opening-weekend record among films distributed by Aniplex.
The film also surpassed US$1.35 million in ticket sales in its in North American theaters when Aniplex of America and Eleven Arts screened the film in the United States on March 9. The film had held a Hollywood premiere on March 1. The film also screened in Canada during the March 17-19 weekend. The film then returned to U.S. theaters with an English dub starting on April 22.
Original light novel author Reki Kawahara wrote the new story for the film. Tomohiko Ito returned from the two TV anime series and the anime special to direct the film at A-1 Pictures. Shingo Adachi also returned from the TV anime to design the characters based on abec's original character designs, and Yuki Kajiura returned to score the music.
Source: Animate Times
