fathomlessblue
Student Council President
Ohh, I was gonna ask what that meant. Cheers for saving me the trouble..I went into panic stations there..
It does make me wonder if there's something around Shirobako that's causing this lack of UK license, the show itself not being marketable? High asking price? Poor sales elsewhere? I only say as when the title pops up we've pestered each UK company & you'd (well..I!) think they would be jumping on it ..
I'll continue to hold out hope, along with Mushi Shi.
EDIT: I know I could import but I'm holding out for a UK version.
I know that despite Shirobako's popularity in Japan, it didn't generate huge interest over here, outside of the anitwitter & sakuga communities. I remember it being pretty low on Crunchroll's simulcast via popularity meter - usually on page 2. Hardly amazing metrics.
I do think there is a small, but dedicated element of the fandom that would pay good money to see it released, but it does seem the kind of show that would normally only be financially viable from a sub-licence deal with a US company, in which the assets are shared. The problem with that is Sentai was the company who picked it up, seemingly having no idea what they had or who it appealed to. Rather than gauging the community and realising that it was aimed squarely at people on the collectable & academic side of the anime community, they appear to have crunched the numbers and decided to spit out a super budget release with all 12 episodes of the first cour crammed onto a single disk, like they do with mediocre-ecchi shows aimed at people purely interested in trope/fanservice rather than any aesthetic quality. A lot of fans were pretty annoyed with that; I absolutely love the show but I couldn't justify buying a release that was outclassed by the streaming service. Even Justin Sevakis gave a gentle plea for them to reconsider. The second set was at least split across 2 disks, but the general lack of effort probably makes it a difficult prospect for AL to use if the assets/rights became available (I'm not sure if AL has worked with Sentai before or if the latter's licencing agreement of Shirobako would allow them to). I mean imagine if AL announced they were planning a collector's set with a 12 ep/1 disk release? It would defeat the purpose. They'd have to author their own disks to avoid the inevitable backlash. I'd love it if they could, but I understand that it probably wouldn't make financial sense. Hopefully further down the line that might change if the licence cost shrinks.
