The problem is the eg you gave to show why it can have higher sales can't be used for TV series .
You say movie\OADs are price realistically affordable when that far from the truth when you look at all the factors involved .
I don't think you really understand what I'm saying. When you spend 4800yen, you can get a Ghibli or Evangelion movie on DVD. That gives you 2 hours of entertainment, and you don't have to spend another cent to continue watching more. These go on to sell 800k to over a million copies. That shows that there are a million people willing to buy something to watch if they feel it is not unreasonable.
The best selling TV anime on DVD/BD can't even hit 100k per volume. There is no doubt that a major factor behind that is that you have to spend over 6800yen to get 60 minutes (3 episodes) on average. The justification just isn't there.
To bring this discussion on topic with the thread, let's look at Blue Exorcist as an example. The TV anime was extremely successful in turning the manga from a pretty low selling series into one of the best selling new shounen fighting manga series. Yet the anime itself doesn't sell anywhere close to what the manga does. This is because the business models are completely different for consumers, and buying anime is much less appealing. But the anime helping the manga take off suddenly shows that people did watch the anime, and they obviously didn't dislike it because it made them interested in buying the manga.
Before the anime was announced, the Blue Exorcist manga was selling sub-100k copies per volume. The anime aired in 2011, and in that year these are the sales for the manga:
Vol1 - 734,548
Vol2 - 707,824
Vol3 - 696,169
Vol4 - 690,065
Vol5 - 799,496
Vol6 - 800,037
Vol7 - 795,573
These are not total cumulative sales. That's just what those volumes sold in 2011. The manga has been around since 2009, but with the awareness of the anime, suddenly the readership exploded. That's because people can pick up a volume of manga for 300yen and read it on a train. Being able to jump from <100k to 800k in readership is a huge boost, and the fact that it is possible shows the health and strength of the industry. Low barrier of entry, pro-consumer.
Anime is the complete opposite. It is expensive and a high barrier of entry. It encourages people who are into the hobby to stick with it out of loyalty and rarely ever tries to attract and sustain a larger buying fanbase.
Here are the total sales of Blue Exorcist anime:
Vol01 - 23,267 (8,852 BD, 14,415 DVD)
Vol02 - 17,027 (6,901 BD, 10,126 DVD)
Vol03 - 14,151 (6,054 BD, 8,097 DVD)
Vol04 - 13,282 (5,484 BD, 7,798 DVD)
Vol05 - 11,660 (4,857 BD, 6,803 DVD)
Vol06 - 10,232 (4,386 BD, 5,846 DVD)
Vol07 - 8,666 (3,108 BD, 5,558 DVD)
Vol08 - 9,125 (3,907 BD, 5,218 DVD)
Vol09 - 8,573 (3,681 BD, 4,892 DVD)
Vol10 - 8,782 (3,807 BD, 4,975 DVD)
The series sales dropped off really quickly, when fans felt that the monthly installments of 60-70 dollars were too much to continue buying the anime volumes. This is an indication that a good number of people who bought the first few volumes were fans who are not the hardcore types used to faithfully buying overpriced anime without complains, but rather more mainstream fans. The huge increase in the manga sales also suggests there to be a large mainstream impact, just one which the anime sales themselves could not really tap into because of the nature of the business model.
When the TV anime is more effective as a glorified advertising model for a manga, than as a product which can sell a ton of copies to support itself, I think there is definitely a sign that the way anime is being made and sold is problematic. The unfortunate fact is that the business model has been in place for so long, and defines the industry so much, that it is too much of a risk for any existing company to want to take the initiative to try and change. The people who are losing out the most here are the consumers, since it limits their choices to either not supporting shows they like, or paying unreasonable prices to own home copies.
