UK Anime Distributor Anime Limited Discussion Thread

I'll just stick to the UK sets.

2XGZUH5.gif
 
Doubt we will ever reach it.
Like ooh 0080 arrived this week AL... is ????????

Like after After War and the SEEDs doesn't that mean Nozomi has released all TV Gundams (Bar the FUNi ones). Ah not SD Gundam. But still way way ahead from AL. yet weirdly AL has become Gundam Limited past few months like next to no Q4 titles confirmed bar rough gundam time frames going well.
 
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Doubt we will ever reach it.
Like ooh 0080 arrived this week AL... is ????????

Like after After War and the SEEDs doesn't that mean Nozomi has released all TV Gundams (Bar the FUNi ones). Ah not SD Gundam. But still way way ahead from AL. yet weirdly AL has become Gundam Limited past few months like next to no Q4 titles confirmed bar rough gundam time frames going well.

"They aren't releasing enough Gundam! Also, why are they releasing so much Gundam?"

YosWwYn.gif
 
And then when something goes wrong and they miss the hard dates, you crucify them. They cannot win with you.
Well that’s because they keep keep doing it.. it’s well beyond the grace period now. The music section took two years longer than they said to launch.
And I love old Gundam Q2 yet we can now see the sequel film without the recaps and I assume AL has licensed that film would love to know.
 
I hate to agree with the Doctor on this but he has a point. AL have had a pretty bad year comparitively. Although as a Gundam fan I do appreciate the summer of Gundam to catch up a bit after a very long period of silence. But there hasn't been that much in the way of big releases this year. (still waiting for Ajin 2 amongst others)*

Anyone who remembers when I signed up here knows I'm very new to collecting Anime. But even I can tell.

As for Gundam who know's how long it will be before they announce any more, for all we know we might get another long drought.

*(Also Illya 2-3 to add to my Fate collection, sorry but I'm not convinced with the excuse I get when I bring this up).
 
Well that’s because they keep keep doing it.. it’s well beyond the grace period now. The music section took two years longer than they said to launch.

We've worked on this and I'll cover it in a mo - but re music - our only crime there was being ambitious. There's a reason not everyone does vinyl and it requires a tonne more work than video including a whole new workflow for production really. So yep - hands up, shouldn't have gotten so excited and talked about it until the first product was in the production pipeline.

That point is one we took on board actually as a learning lesson though - appreciate the reminder though of it!

And I love old Gundam Q2 yet we can now see the sequel film without the recaps and I assume AL has licensed that film would love to know.

Which Gundam are you referring to here? I confess I'm not sure I follow unless you've jumped franchises here...

MVM are fine, AoA you know what you are getting and discotek 100% win in my eyes as they actually care and produce new subtitles for shows unlike AL just ripping amazons not great subs for Ballroom.

Worth pointing out here that when allowed, we actually do create our own subtitles :). A lot of the feature films out there for anime in the last few years we've released are with subtitles created by us.

AP
 
I hate to agree with the Doctor on this but he has a point. AL have had a pretty bad year comparitively. Although as a Gundam fan I do appreciate the summer of Gundam to catch up a bit after a very long period of silence. But there hasn't been that much in the way of big releases this year. (still waiting for Ajin 2 amongst others)*

Anyone who remembers when I signed up here knows I'm very new to collecting Anime. But even I can tell.

As for Gundam who know's how long it will be before they announce any more, for all we know we might get another long drought.

*(Also Illya 2-3 to add to my Fate collection, sorry but I'm not convinced with the excuse I get when I bring this up).

I hate to agree with the Doctor on this but he has a point. AL have had a pretty bad year comparatively. Although as a Gundam fan I do appreciate the summer of Gundam to catch up a bit after a very long period of silence. But there hasn't been that much in the way of big releases this year. (still waiting for Ajin 2 amongst others)*

Anyone who remembers when I signed up here knows I'm very new to collecting Anime. But even I can tell.

As for Gundam who know's how long it will be before they announce any more, for all we know we might get another long drought.

*(Also Illya 2-3 to add to my Fate collection, sorry but I'm not convinced with the excuse I get when I bring this up).

Figured it's worth me commenting on this briefly (in a rare appearance as I'm rather busy!)

In terms of home video releases - it's definitely been a year of all change for us for many different reasons. The primary one is that we're no longer a small company of 4 people and we've finally paused to take the time needed to adapt to that. We acquire a much larger volume of content now and some extremely high profile works (most recently Weathering With You but there's a chunk more to talk about upcoming for the next 12 months!)

This has meant we've been stretched in areas we've until now not been and that has had a knock-on impact to things like release schedules among other things. It's a short term trade-off for longer term success and over the next few months there's a bunch of fun stuff I'll be able to talk about - the first of which was Weathering With You.

What it's also done is given us the chance to structure ourselves to be far more effective going forwards - here's a number of the changes we've done that won't yet be obvious to you outside but will show in our work going forwards:
  • Production scheduling: Step 1 is what we've done which is loosen things up until we're ready to list now. But you'll start to see towards the end of Q4 / start of Q1 a pattern of 2 month listings much like you get in the USA. It takes time to adapt to it and we won't pull the trigger on any title in that unless we're sure it's coming now.

  • Catch-up on "forgotten" titles: Seriously, these are a weight on our shoulders and we haven't forgotten any of them (you can rest assured my trusty marketing team constantly remind me of this too!) We've a list of all the shows we're playing catch-up on internally and we're determined to get caught up. I'd love to say that will be by end of year but we have to balance up vs the big money shows - but we're aiming realistically for over the next 6-8 months reducing that list down to as near zero as we can.

  • Gundam: This one is a special one given the nature of the deal - but I'd like to reassure the old droughts are less likely to continue from here on out. It won't be TRSI speeds as it has to get in line with the rest of our schedule but we're on it.

  • Internal stuff: We continue to look at our internal processes to reflect growth. Some of these things involve beefing our production team up a bit and freeing some work off my back so I can do bigger picture stuff too. Can safely say we're in a far better position going forwards :).
It's always important to keep in mind that Anime Limited has always been an independent company. This means we're not financed by anyone externally - there's no one backing us when we have a rough month or such so we're extremely motivated to work hard! It's one of our biggest strengths as it allows me to steer us where we need to go. On the other hand it also means we are very aware of the impact of delays - so we only shake things up like this when it's going to make us work even better going forwards.

So in short - lots of work building towards even better things for us here :)! We remain dedicated to developing the anime space in the UK and have lots of exciting stuff to talk about in the rest of the year so stay tuned.

Best,

AP
---
PS: Prisma Illiya S2 onwards - there's no excuse there, the explanation I gave before was literally it sadly! It's also why nobody else has swooped in to release it in the UK by the by.
 
I think I'll toss my two penny worth in here also, Since Andrew has replied,
Any idea why we still are waiting for a reason for Twin star 3-4 taking so long? It's now nearly a year since part one, Two finally got released with an excuse as to why it took so long, but no reason for the delay to the second half, all we've had is two different release dates, one of which got changed and then nothing, no reason, no explaination nothing, so Andrew what is the problem?
 
Figured it's worth me commenting on this briefly (in a rare appearance as I'm rather busy!)

In terms of home video releases - it's definitely been a year of all change for us for many different reasons. The primary one is that we're no longer a small company of 4 people and we've finally paused to take the time needed to adapt to that. We acquire a much larger volume of content now and some extremely high profile works (most recently Weathering With You but there's a chunk more to talk about upcoming for the next 12 months!)

This has meant we've been stretched in areas we've until now not been and that has had a knock-on impact to things like release schedules among other things. It's a short term trade-off for longer term success and over the next few months there's a bunch of fun stuff I'll be able to talk about - the first of which was Weathering With You.

What it's also done is given us the chance to structure ourselves to be far more effective going forwards - here's a number of the changes we've done that won't yet be obvious to you outside but will show in our work going forwards:
  • Production scheduling: Step 1 is what we've done which is loosen things up until we're ready to list now. But you'll start to see towards the end of Q4 / start of Q1 a pattern of 2 month listings much like you get in the USA. It takes time to adapt to it and we won't pull the trigger on any title in that unless we're sure it's coming now.

  • Catch-up on "forgotten" titles: Seriously, these are a weight on our shoulders and we haven't forgotten any of them (you can rest assured my trusty marketing team constantly remind me of this too!) We've a list of all the shows we're playing catch-up on internally and we're determined to get caught up. I'd love to say that will be by end of year but we have to balance up vs the big money shows - but we're aiming realistically for over the next 6-8 months reducing that list down to as near zero as we can.

  • Gundam: This one is a special one given the nature of the deal - but I'd like to reassure the old droughts are less likely to continue from here on out. It won't be TRSI speeds as it has to get in line with the rest of our schedule but we're on it.

  • Internal stuff: We continue to look at our internal processes to reflect growth. Some of these things involve beefing our production team up a bit and freeing some work off my back so I can do bigger picture stuff too. Can safely say we're in a far better position going forwards :).
It's always important to keep in mind that Anime Limited has always been an independent company. This means we're not financed by anyone externally - there's no one backing us when we have a rough month or such so we're extremely motivated to work hard! It's one of our biggest strengths as it allows me to steer us where we need to go. On the other hand it also means we are very aware of the impact of delays - so we only shake things up like this when it's going to make us work even better going forwards.

So in short - lots of work building towards even better things for us here :)! We remain dedicated to developing the anime space in the UK and have lots of exciting stuff to talk about in the rest of the year so stay tuned.

Best,

AP
---
PS: Prisma Illiya S2 onwards - there's no excuse there, the explanation I gave before was literally it sadly! It's also why nobody else has swooped in to release it in the UK by the by.
Always exciting to see Andrew provide a massive post.

Production scheduling:

One question that I have with this is that while this past year has been slow (but I am grateful for the Gundam progress at the very least) is whether or not we'll get any major home video releases later this year, especially for those who are going to MCM in October. I know we have Attack on Titan Movie 3 (aka Season 2 recap), Gundam Wing Part 2 & Endless Waltz, Silver Spoon Season 2 and Twin Star Exorcists Parts 3 & 4, but it would be great if we could get a bit more than that before the year is over.

Catch-up on "forgotten" titles:

If you're still needing any feedback, some of your catalog titles are best suited as a standard edition Blu-ray release. King's Game I am aware did well enough for streaming to consider a collector's set (which I am happy with) but I don't see the point if it's just a rigid box and something like a poster & art-cards since they don't really make up for the price even if they did have nice artwork on them.

Titles that I am referring to that are best suited as a standard set are Anonymous Noise, Comet Lucifer, The Dragon Dentist, Gakuen Basara: Samurai High School! and maybe The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya Season 1 (this one is already Region B in the US so I don't necessarily think a CE would sell for just this season only given how long it has been since).


I actually prefer the pace of having at least some Gundam out per year but not tons because otherwise it'll be oversaturation. It would be great if you can get Turn-A Gundam back on the schedule for the first half of 2020 at the very least.
 
with the whole delayed releases and news of release dates thing we've got to remember that AL are dealing with Japanese companies who i've heard are most of the time still archaic with a lot of the contracts being signed over snailmail or fax and require every bit of the packaging to be checked before they can release the stuff

I apologize I meant Geass. I’m seeing the film in 2 weeks yet I can’t see the new retelling continuity and the first film isn’t on Zavvi anymore.
it's available on their store still btw Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion I – Initiation - Blu-ray Collector's Edition
 
with the whole delayed releases and news of release dates thing we've got to remember that AL are dealing with Japanese companies who i've heard are most of the time still archaic with a lot of the contracts being signed over snailmail or fax and require every bit of the packaging to be checked before they can release the stuff

I cant really give any input to the discussion but you can bett your butt that it is still the same. From my work life experience (I worked for Mitsubishi in Japan and Suzuki in Germany) I can tell you that especially the speed and the pedantry are straight up horrible. Our development teams went to war with our Japanese colleagues due to a never ending barrage of change requests. They also still implement the Ringi / Nemawashi system which makes decision making exceptionally long. And we wont start with video conference because after those you will loose all hope.... ;)
 
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