The discussion of the industry that I've seen on blogs was hampered by lack of any numbers, and ungrounded speculation. So, it's always nice to see leaks such as seen at ANN forums recently. My attention was attracted to these postings by the same gentleman who reported live from NYCC Bandai announcement. Here's the summary:

• Afro Samurai: Above 80k (above the magical number of 75k).

• Haruhi R2: Kadokawa claimed 80k, actual about 40k.
• Haruhi R1: Kadokawa claimed 60k, actual was 15k and may be 20k by now (Tempest gave it 30k with unrepoted and a guestimate).
• Aria R2: About 10k
• Mahoraba R2: 3600, as high as 5k for v.1

No idea why Kadokawa publicised untrue numbers for Haruhi. It's weird.

I used to speculate (groundlessly) that Mahoraba may be a poor seller and perhaps that is the reason why nobody licensed it yet. So, it is the case, but only so much. It is a poor performer if measured against the champions, but plenty of utter garbage was licensed and sold worse. There must be a different set of considerations why Mahoraba is not available in America.

We didn't talk about it, but the post I linked also mentions a 30% fall in numbers of DVDs sold in 2007 (by November).