After the overwhelmingly negative fan response to Endless Eight, many Haruhiists were worried that the exorbitantly-priced DVD releases would sell dismally, resulting in a financial disaster for Kadokawa and KyoAni. Those fears were partially averted in late September, when the first volume of E8 posted first-week sales of 14,104, taking third place on the DVD sales chart. By anime DVD standards, that's fairly good, although not on par with the first season Haruhi releases, which sold between 28,000 and 38,000 copies apiece. Now it seems as if the sales for volumes three and four of Endless Eight have maintained this trend, selling 12,708 copies in their first week. Once again, this places Haruhi at number three on the charts, behind Gintama (13,533) and Bakemonogatari (18,731).

So, what do all these boring numbers mean? Basically it means that, despite the total clusterf*ck that was Endless Eight, the Haruhi franchise is still making money, albeit at a much lower rate than in 2006. Some are speculating this is an indication that otaku are willing to buy just about anything, while others say it proves Endless Eight wasn't as bad as everybody claimed it was. Personally, I think it's all due to Kadokawa's swimsuit-oriented marketing, a few examples of which I've included in the gallery.

[Via CartoonLeap, pics via Akibaos (NSFW) and 3dbooru]