UK Anime Distributor Anime Limited Discussion Thread

What's this talk of a bundle? Have I lost out on money due to buying Wing via the early birds?

...Does a thread search

Oh I see, it's a thing that will be offered around the time Endless Waltz gets released, but no concrete details yet. shrugs, ah well, I've enjoyed re-watching Wing right now, if I lose out on a little money by getting it now I won't be too upset.
 
How it will be work with "Endless Waltz" if it will be released. We got CE edition for it... and that's all, or we get also box for 3 CE editions, to complete these series in one box?
 
It would be nice if we were getting something akin to the US boxsets. So much love packed into those.

Ours just feel that bit kinda rushed to tick a bunch of Gundam off the list after a delay. Not helped by things like the error on the Wing sleeve.
 
HellCat said:
It would be nice if we were getting something akin to the US boxsets. So much love packed into those.

Ours just feel that bit kinda rushed to tick a bunch of Gundam off the list after a delay. Not helped by things like the error on the Wing sleeve.
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On the plus side, we've had CEs for all our Gundam releases unlike the US.
 
Peachy said:
Maybe I was under a rock but I just noticed SLA added The Girl from the Otherside as part of their Glasgow Birthday Wonderland screening - The Girl from the Other Side | Scotland Loves Animation

Should be a total treat, the manga's wonderful.
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You were not - I only secured the UK premiere of it this week when I was in Tokyo! Super hyped to have the shot at it and huge thanks to the GFT for flexing to let us add it to the runtime of the film too, it's such a good short film!

AP
 
HellCat said:
It would be nice if we were getting something akin to the US boxsets. So much love packed into those.

Ours just feel that bit kinda rushed to tick a bunch of Gundam off the list after a delay. Not helped by things like the error on the Wing sleeve.
Click to expand...

I meant to cover this before but here we go (chalk up any waffle or nonsensical bits to letlag...)

AKIN TO THE USA: What TRSI did was amazing and absolutely gorgeous work - we're all fans of it here in the office! That said it's on the same level as our Ultimate range which costs a lot of money to do. The downside of this though is a lot of commercial decision making that goes into one:
  • Production costs: The cost to produce it is often 10x higher than an average set usually. We're well aware there were image clearance rights for the Wing book too which means you're looking at even higher. That means an ask from fans of £299.99 - £399.99 for that set which is an extremely big ask and a huge outlay to commit to on our part.

  • Same breakeven, higher risk: Even if we use the same math we do to calculate break evens for normal LE's - we end up needing a massive amount of cash in to break even - which we may reach but will we make any profit on top of that to pay the bills...? If it were just our project we could make that decision to do it regardless from passion but this is a partnership so it's not our call alone to make. That also doesn't take into account the US Wing set came out ages before we'd have been able - presenting a situation where our target audience for that set could have bought that already or prefer that design to ours (see below)...

  • Fan opinion: We love you guys, but let's face it - no Ultimate edition will be ideal for everyone be it price, design or otherwise and when you have to compare to another one released at the same time it makes it hard to guarantee people will buy it or choose to buy the competing US offer.
Here's some other factors we kept in mind:
  • Consistency: All our Gundam releases without exception have followed the same format to date. It's fine to break it if we were creating an Ultimate tier for Gundam going forward but in the UK the only show that really would be guaranteed to be viable in that line to some degree is Gundam Wing. So given the fact an Ultimate-esque edition existed we focussed our efforts on delivering a consistent release to our Gundam collectors?

  • Production pipeline: I have spent the last two years being told how slow we are to release Gundam, that we've been doubted that we'll release the titles we listed for it within this year and that goes outside of Gundam too. Ultimate's eat a lot of time and pipeline up so we're using them within reason - but if we did it with Gundam we knew there would be big delays too so we chose to meet deadlines and promises in a consistent, tested format instead that we knew we could hit deadlines on. So it wasn't a rush job to "tick titles off" but it was designed to avoid further delays or disappointment for you all. Hope that makes sense!
In the end - a portion of people were going to disapprove whether we released an Ultimate-style, the standard Gundam collection edition or anything else. So we picked the best path we could to delivery Gundam to all of you.

I'd point out so far pre-orders are good too so I appreciate everyone supporting our releases, whoever and whatever the reason you are doing it - it makes a difference :)! For anyone who it's not the edition they wanted - I understand and I can't win them all every time with everyone so as long as you're supporting Gundam in the edition that suits you, I applaud it ❤!

Here's to many more Gundam releases to come folks and thanks for the support!

Best,

AP
 
anime_andrew said:
I meant to cover this before but here we go (chalk up any waffle or nonsensical bits to letlag...)

AKIN TO THE USA: What TRSI did was amazing and absolutely gorgeous work - we're all fans of it here in the office! That said it's on the same level as our Ultimate range which costs a lot of money to do. The downside of this though is a lot of commercial decision making that goes into one:
  • Production costs: The cost to produce it is often 10x higher than an average set usually. We're well aware there were image clearance rights for the Wing book too which means you're looking at even higher. That means an ask from fans of £299.99 - £399.99 for that set which is an extremely big ask and a huge outlay to commit to on our part.

  • Same breakeven, higher risk: Even if we use the same math we do to calculate break evens for normal LE's - we end up needing a massive amount of cash in to break even - which we may reach but will we make any profit on top of that to pay the bills...? If it were just our project we could make that decision to do it regardless from passion but this is a partnership so it's not our call alone to make. That also doesn't take into account the US Wing set came out ages before we'd have been able - presenting a situation where our target audience for that set could have bought that already or prefer that design to ours (see below)...

  • Fan opinion: We love you guys, but let's face it - no Ultimate edition will be ideal for everyone be it price, design or otherwise and when you have to compare to another one released at the same time it makes it hard to guarantee people will buy it or choose to buy the competing US offer.
Here's some other factors we kept in mind:
  • Consistency: All our Gundam releases without exception have followed the same format to date. It's fine to break it if we were creating an Ultimate tier for Gundam going forward but in the UK the only show that really would be guaranteed to be viable in that line to some degree is Gundam Wing. So given the fact an Ultimate-esque edition existed we focussed our efforts on delivering a consistent release to our Gundam collectors?

  • Production pipeline: I have spent the last two years being told how slow we are to release Gundam, that we've been doubted that we'll release the titles we listed for it within this year and that goes outside of Gundam too. Ultimate's eat a lot of time and pipeline up so we're using them within reason - but if we did it with Gundam we knew there would be big delays too so we chose to meet deadlines and promises in a consistent, tested format instead that we knew we could hit deadlines on. So it wasn't a rush job to "tick titles off" but it was designed to avoid further delays or disappointment for you all. Hope that makes sense!
In the end - a portion of people were going to disapprove whether we released an Ultimate-style, the standard Gundam collection edition or anything else. So we picked the best path we could to delivery Gundam to all of you.

I'd point out so far pre-orders are good too so I appreciate everyone supporting our releases, whoever and whatever the reason you are doing it - it makes a difference :)! For anyone who it's not the edition they wanted - I understand and I can't win them all every time with everyone so as long as you're supporting Gundam in the edition that suits you, I applaud it ❤!

Here's to many more Gundam releases to come folks and thanks for the support!

Best,

AP
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This doesn’t explain why last May you said 00 would get a deluxe edition, as the facts must have not changed and wing being the best seller in early 2000s didn’t change.
 
thedoctor2016 said:
This doesn’t explain why last May you said 00 would get a deluxe edition, as the facts must have not changed and wing being the best seller in early 2000s didn’t change.
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No, but it is explained before by me insofar as there was a miscommunication between teams of what that was. We're humans as opposed to robots so we're prone to make mistakes every so often, as we're so often reminded xD. Obviously it wasn't intended to give folks the wrong idea of what was planned and people feel rubbish over it but hopefully we've clarified it since.

Wing was indeed the best seller in early 2000s too - I was there for it when I worked at Bandai then! That said when there is a high value set already out and people regularly discussing importing it / not waiting - you can understand that we will design a set that we know caters to an audience that will buy here (I really love the box art for Wing here by the by too...)

Best,

AP
 
200 page book isn’t really tat. Yes it has pins but the value is in the book. They made an interview just for that book and they changed the size of the CEs from then on they listened.
 
thedoctor2016 said:
200 page book isn’t really tat. Yes it has pins but the value is in the book. They made an interview just for that book and they changed the size of the CEs from then on they listened.
Click to expand...

Sorry for pouncing on your comments but as I'm here and killing time I figure why not as they open good chances to clarify for the broader audience :).

Value in any set is always subjective too - we get negative feedback from some about the books we do be it for ultimates or collector's editions regardless of the contents. Simultaneously we get praise for them too from people. We all try to listen and nuance our releases based on general opinion but it's an unavoidable fact whatever your ultimate or LE contents - a group of people will find it suboptimal vs what they like.

There's also a genuine audience out there who does want exactly what was described - minus too much extra in terms of size or space to fit their shelves. That's definitely another one we hear - everyone is different and we can't always suit everyone, but we try to be mindful to feedback :).

AP
 
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