Has Black Lagoon Fallen Off?

Ollie_Hearton said:
What I'm wondering is has the inconsistent production/release schedule kneecapped the series' popularity.

Ollie_Hearton said:
We haven't had a new anime season or OVA since Roberta's Blood Trail ended in 2011. And for the longest time there hasn't been enough volumes of material to adapt into a full anime season. (That could've changed by now, but who knows?)

Ollie_Hearton said:
From what I can tell Black Lagoon was probably at the peak of its popularity while the manga was on a consistent schedule with the anime airing alongside it. [...] I'm just curious as to how the lack of new material has effected the popularity of the franchise overall.

Alexioos95 said:


Obviously, yeah. An irregular schedule will always makes people either forget about it or frustrate them, on top of just having less visibility for new readers.



The Manga was in Hiatus for over 2 years around the production of the OVAs, so there was only 5 chapters left at that time. Right now, we have 45 Chapters available, so that's around 24 Episodes, but with the irregular schedule it's not worth for the publisher to invest in a continuation, and with the long gap, the production committee already moved on and probably won't find it interesting to invest in it again. At best, maybe we'll an OVA or two for the last few Volumes of the series, if it ever finish.



The Anime gave it a good boost, and the sales of Volume 10 (even when released after the 2+ years Hiatus) got even better numbers. Volume 11 took a hit tho (around -15% of sales) because of another Hiatus of over 3 years, and Volume 12 and 13 did a lot worse (around -50% and another -20%). The Manga still has a steady fanbase, but the global popularity was severely eroded and seems close to what it was before the Animes were made.