MVM to discontinue FUNimation anime releases in the UK

Gawyn said:
Conan-san said:
YYH has always been a whipping boy as far as over here is concerned.

And I'm not supprised if they just want to drop it, least they contract the MVM desease of trying to get it on tv only to stop production when they can't.
The YYH anime has never sold well in this country. Trying to get a TV airing for it was probably a last ditch attempt to get some public knowledge of the product and boost sales for a loss-making product. They couldn't drum up any publicity for it, it's sales didn't improve and the product was dropped/put on indefinite hiatus. All companies do this; there is no point shipping something that is ultimately going to make a loss. ADV did something similar with Get Backers, putting it on hiatus after volume 6 until the sales of the previous volumes picked up enough to make it viable.
YYH never sold because (and lets face facts here) each dvd was £20 for a 1/40th of the show.

And before you cowtout Naruto into this, (assuming we take everything before the filler) with naruto you were paying £20 for a tenth of the show (It'll probably take 10 volumes to cover everything before the time skip, not couting the fillers, Which I hope Manga have sence to skip or just have Jetix air)

£200 sounds infantely more pleaseing to the ear than £800 any day.

If anything MVM should of gone the Naruto route (and the Toonami edit would work this time wihout extra edits) and had the show air here first and then dvd it exactly like Manga is doing with 'ruto.
Course then again, there's a reason why they don't out the Funi licence any more, after wall -\(-_-)/-
 
For a start, Manga Ent. are the richest anime company in the UK. They can afford to release Naruto in these big batches despite the fact it will cost tens of thousands of pounds to submit it to the BBFC twice (twice for the Japanese and English audio) because they have the financial backing to take such a big risk. Lets not forget Naruto is the biggest anime TV series in the world right now and it will sell no matter what.

On the other hand MVM are a much smaller company run by a few anime fans often having to reach into their own pockets to survive. They are the ONE UK company to be founded and to continue to thrive without "selling out". Manga are backed by IDT, ADV have their US parent company and Beez are directly linked to Bandai in Japan. And MVM aren't releasing Naruto - they are working with Yu Yu Hakusho; an obscure Shounen action anime with dated animation and a ******* massive episode count. It's had no TV exposure. You can't compare it to Naruto.
 
Paul said:
For a start, Manga Ent. are the richest anime company in the UK. They can afford to release Naruto in these big batches despite the fact it will cost tens of thousands of pounds to submit it to the BBFC twice (twice for the Japanese and English audio) because they have the financial backing to take such a big risk. Lets not forget Naruto is the biggest anime TV series in the world right now and it will sell no matter what.

On the other hand MVM are a much smaller company run by a few anime fans often having to reach into their own pockets to survive. They are the ONE UK company to be founded and to continue to thrive without "selling out". Manga are backed by IDT, ADV have their US parent company and Beez are directly linked to Bandai in Japan. And MVM aren't releasing Naruto - they are working with Yu Yu Hakusho; an obscure Shounen action anime with dated animation and a ******* massive episode count. It's had no TV exposure. You can't compare it to Naruto.
Regardless, if mvm had the sence, they would of gotten the TV exposure.

Hence my saying "Get the tv exposure first and then sell on dvd".
 
Conan-san said:
Regardless, if mvm had the sence, they would of gotten the TV exposure.

Hence my saying "Get the tv exposure first and then sell on dvd".
You make it sound so simple. If getting anime on TV were that simple the airwaves would be full of it. Instead we get a smattering of it an a few disparate channels, cut or on little known channels.

Anime does not work like that. It has always been a risk to release any anime. One of the biggest reasons that anime has been released in small chunks is so that the distributors can test the waters with loss-making first volumes. If it fails, they can back out quickly without making too much of a loss. If everyone used your "sense" we would have practically no anime released over here at all and what would be available would be things like Cardcaptors, Yu-Gi-Oh! and Pokemon.
 
Just to echo what Gawyn has already said, it's not easy to get Yu Yu Hakusho on TV. The best time for that would have been during the mid-90s when it was actually new. Don't get me wrong - I like the show, but TV channels aren't going to bother with Yu Yu Hakusho when you have got the likes of Naruto and Bleach. Not to mention it was hardly a success when it aired on TV in the US.

Be happy that it's coming out in the UK at all - there are no DBZ TV series DVD releases in the UK and that was a much bigger franchise than YuYu ever was.
 
In sad cases like these all you can do is give up on Yu Yu Hakusho...

or IMPORT :D

Especially now it's been released in boxsets!
 
Paul said:
Just to echo what Gawyn has already said, it's not easy to get Yu Yu Hakusho on TV. The best time for that would have been during the mid-90s when it was actually new. Don't get me wrong - I like the show, but TV channels aren't going to bother with Yu Yu Hakusho when you have got the likes of Naruto and Bleach. Not to mention it was hardly a success when it aired on TV in the US.

Be happy that it's coming out in the UK at all - there are no DBZ TV series DVD releases in the UK and that was a much bigger franchise than YuYu ever was.
Well I know for a fact that Yu Yu Hakusho was looked at by a UK channel (who shall remain nameless :wink: ) but decided not to go ahead when they got the "reality TV" bug :roll:.
Naruto is taken but Bleach would be a good pick up. Maybe ITV will look at it now that Mr. Grade has taken the job of saving its bacon. Wouldn't hurt to drop a big hint at ITV's website. Problem is they will only want to put it in their CITV slot and you know it would never fit in there without heavy editing. They will never consider doing an animated series in prime time.
 
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