Spice and Wolf coming to the UK, courtesy of Manga?

[alexrose1uk]

Cheers
What can I say, with this property, if Manga's release has anything the Funi release didn't (apart from bugs ), I'll be all over it.

 

[devilrules666]

And just like with Angel Beats Manga have taken too long to annouce this show and as a result I already have this show! Note to Manga annouce things before the american release and I will most probably buy the uk versoin instead!

 

[MikeP]

If I could have bought a UK copy previously I would, as then I don't have to worry about whether the player I'm using is multi-region, and if they can come up with some bonuses that Funimation didn't cough up (like 5.1 JP Audio - bit of a dissapointment with the BDs!) then I may still pickup the UK release of the series, but who knows; it's very late (the series is almost 4 years late compared to the air date after all).

Very few Japanese releases actually get a 5.1 mix at all. Spice & Wolf is not one of the exceptions.

 

[robot monkey]

And just like with Angel Beats Manga have taken too long to annouce this show and as a result I already have this show! Note to Manga annouce things before the american release and I will most probably buy the uk versoin instead!

Why not be patient & just wait for the R2 release, most of the time you can make a fairly good estimation that shows this big will appear over here. Instead you cut another sale from supporting the UK industry, when there is no UK industry you know who to blame!

 

[ilmaestro]

when there is no UK industry you know who to blame!

Some combination of Japan, Funimation, and the BBFC? ^^;

 

[ayase]

Why not be patient & just wait for the R2 release, most of the time you can make a fairly good estimation that shows this big will appear over here. Instead you cut another sale from supporting the UK industry, when there is no UK industry you know who to blame!

Perhaps the more pressing question (when people can get the same product cheaper and earlier by importing) is: if there were no UK industry, would anyone actually care?

Not that I dislike the UK industry in any way, I just feel they're in a position where they can't possibly win. They need to offer something over their international competitors in order to well... compete. Beez tried those premium releases simultaneous with Japan and the US a while back (which is *exactly* the kind of thing which encourages me to support the local release) but it seemed to fail spectacularly. Sorry as I am to say it, the UK just doesn't seem particularly conductive to having an industry.

 

[ilmaestro]

Why did it seem to fail? The only things I can think of are Gundam Unicorn (which was handled terribly), and Durarara!!, which was deliberately not a premium release. I was kind of hoping the only reason there hadn't been more DRRR!!-style releases was because Andrew had moved on to Kaze, and it was going to start up again at some point.

Objectively I agree with you overall, though, the UK would be far better served by being part of either the US industry or the European one, with the local companies just performing largely administerial functions. I would feel sorry for the guys like Andrew and Jerome who do seem to be putting effort into helping the industry, though.

Subjectively, **** EUROPE, AND **** FUNIMATION. ^^;

 

[butch-cassidy]

If they announced things before people bought them, it might be more productive than criticising them after the fact...

This, a million billion times this. I am astounded that Manga seem to keep acting like the traditional customer - salesman relationship is the opposite way round for them than it is every other company.

They need us, the consumer, to buy their products. We can go elsewhere to buy them if need be, as they surely know. So for f*cks sake why don't they sell us their products and give us a reason to choose them over the competition? The minute Manga got the S&W licence they should have been shouting it from the rooftops, not vaguely half-announcing it in the most obscure (and not only that, but also mildly condescending) way possible.

They likely only secured it as part of a deal with series 2 tied into the re-releases (Perhaps Blu rays too?) .Looking at the format of the original release I don't think Funi expected it to be a big hit which is why we likely didn't see an early UK release. The series boxset didn't even hit the US until Dec 2010.

As for the announcement, as said above Manga need to tread carefully to avoid causing disappointment. How many release dates have been missed due to information being released too early or set too soon? Better to be silent until everything is finalised before announcing and giving a good surprise rather than doing a song and dance and fall flat on your face.

 

[Rui]

Beez is still doing its interesting releases, though. Tatami Galaxy and House of Five Leaves haven't been solicited at all in the US, yet we're getting them in the next few weeks. That's why I preordered immediately - they were adding value I couldn't easily get elsewhere, and deserved my custom. I strongly urge other people to grab them too to support decent releases for the UK if you have any interest at all in the titles

I also liked the leather-bound Wolfs Rain set they did very much (and it sold out, so must have done well!) and of course, Durarara (delays and sub issues aside). That's the kind of thing I like seeing the UK companies do, and the kind of thing that gets me opening my wallet with no reservations.

Manga's just set up as a cheap outlet for PAL conversions of existing Funimation material, so I don't see the point in buying from them as an older collector. The price is irrelevant, and supporting the Funimation version is important to get second seasons brought over. Ultimately, I don't feel there is any point at all to supporting UK releases done in this way, so I leave that to the younger market and students they are aimed at. Especially as Manga are always slagging my kind off in social media remarks!

I will be buying one Manga release coming up though, and that's Welcome to the Space Show, since they're being proactive with that title (it has a decent overseas version too, but I never got around to picking it up). Oh, and I'm buying Vampire Knight Guilty here because the US version comes on flipper discs. If the UK version is better than the US one in some way, that's great!

R

 

[Ghostlight_Ross]

I realise we've a smaller market, but Manga really need to 'do a Funimation' and do a better job of announcing titles they've acquired or are at least trying to secure, otherwise people are going to go elsewhere if they care about a series because they think it's just not going to be available on home purchase.

While I've no idea what it's like for Manga I know from my experiences at Ghostlight announcing something before you've actually signed it is something you really can't do. In fact I remember with one game we were really trying had to get not only were not allowed to say we were trying to get it when we failed to aquire the licence we weren't allowed to say that we wouldn't be doing it when people asked us. Someone else has announced the game now for Europe but I still suspect I'm not allowed to say which game it is.

 

[alexrose1uk]

5.1

That is true, still the mixing was a little lazy full stop on the BD's, but hey, I can always dream can't I? haha

While I've no idea what it's like for Manga I know from my experiences at Ghostlight announcing something before you've actually signed it is something you really can't do.

I'll bow to your knowledge on the licensing process, but still they need to do a better job on series they HAVE licensed. 2 years is a long time as even they admit, you can't blame people for picking up something overseas if it takes that long as they're probably going to think it's just not coming

I guess it'll depend on the licensor too, I know Carpe Fulgur (the guys behind Recettear etc) have mentioned a few titles they were trying to license before hand.

The series boxset didn't even hit the US until Dec 2010

Unless, I've misunderstood your post, that was the R1 re-release.

The original, complete series boxset release was a year earlier in Dec 2009. The only thing that differs between the two releases as far as I've noticed is the cover art which conforms to the style they used for the box set of the second season (even the disc artwork is identical between both releases). I actually prefer the artwork of the second set as I feel it suits the nature of the series and the origin medium of the series better

The first release also explicitly mentioned on the box that it is the first season, which could imply they were well aware of the second season and the potential of picking it up if the first season did well. I seem to remember Funi mentioned they'd licensed S2 fairly quickly in the overall scheme of things, which means it is unlikely S1 was doing badly, Yen Press mentioned the novels had also done better than expected.

Funi then had some issues with the 2nd season which delayed the release, I'm pretty sure the original intention was probably for the S1 re-release to only come out a few months before S2 to help keep the series in profile and raise interest in the second season, which was originally due the early side of this year.

 

[Ghostlight_Ross]

5.1

That is true, still the mixing was a little lazy full stop on the BD's, but hey, I can always dream can't I? haha

While I've no idea what it's like for Manga I know from my experiences at Ghostlight announcing something before you've actually signed it is something you really can't do.

I'll bow to your knowledge on the licensing process, but still they need to do a better job on series they HAVE licensed. 2 years is a long time as even they admit, you can't blame people for picking up something overseas if it takes that long as they're probably going to think it's just not coming

I guess it'll depend on the licensor too, I know Carpe Fulgur (the guys behind Recettear etc) have mentioned a few titles they were trying to license before hand.

Carpe Fulgor are awesome and yes it does vary from depending on who we're dealing with.

I also definitely agree that 2 years is a long time to wait. As far as I'm concerned you can never really blame anyone for importing. It does get very frustrating though seeing people talking about importing a game and wishing you could tell them that you're trying to pick it up. Went through that a bit with Trails in the Sky

 

[devilrules666]

It is up to Manga to tell the pubic as soon as possible. The amount of times that I have put off buying a R1 dvd because Manga were bringing it out over here is quite high. But with Angel Beats and Spice and Wolf they took too long so tough ****. I do support both regions so for someone to say that I don't is ********

 

[Rui]

I find it a confusing situation when the US performance might dictate whether something will even come to the UK in the first place (since if it sells horribly there, there'd be no incentive to pick it up for us here, and no incentive for the US company to dub and localise any sequels). I have a choice of being forced to feel guilty for not supporting the UK version, or forced to feel bad for sabotaging the UK version before it's even been pursued.

In the end, I pay for all my anime and put my money wherever I think it has the best chance of supporting a legal, English-subtitled version of any follow up shows. Or on quality releases which give me something unique to enjoy.

I wish they'd direct their annoyance towards people who don't buy at all, not to people who buy the product which appeals to them most (which might be a US version), or at least, if they're going to moan at importers, I wish they would start treating the importers as a valid customer base that needs catering for differently.

I love Beez though, and anything Andrew seems to dabble in.

R

 

[Just Passing Through]

Jerome has posted a Facebook response to this thread...

Hello everyone! For the record, my Facebook post was a tease, but I didn't realise that it would actually anger some of you! Spice & Wolf was not on our radar for acquisition last year, partly because we had already acquired a lot of content and partly because the agents in Japan don't generally flag up new shows for me to buy for the UK until they know there is a US distributor and an English dub available. Manga's chain also requires an Australian distributor to pick up the same series too so we have someone to split the PAL DVD and sometimes BD authoring with. So, I am sorry it's been 2 years since S&W's US release and I am sorry some of you feel let down by us. It is my hope that if we do acquire S&W we will still be able to market it to a wide audience here and make it a success.

Thanks,
Jerome Manga UK

 

[Arbalest]

You actually just beat me to posting that buy a few seconds, hah. Caught me by surprise that they actually responded to the topic in particular(as to why i don't know).

It's good that they did respond though, if they can acquire it, they did say they would get both seasons, i just hope they do the release right. I'd love to own both seasons as blu-ray, but we'd have to wait and see. My only concern would be sales of it though, but i'm not exactly in the know with how the sales are for full series BD releases with them, so someone would have to fire some stats at me for that.

 

[ilmaestro]

I will give them some credit for there not being any real malicious intent behind the original comment, it is nice to see them actually respond to something calmly.

Beez is still doing its interesting releases, though. Tatami Galaxy and House of Five Leaves haven't been solicited at all in the US, yet we're getting them in the next few weeks.

Aha, of course, I keep on forgetting about them. I must remember to order them somewhere.

 

[ConanThe3rd]

[stock post powers activate!]

Oh Manga, everything you touch you destroy

Go and find yourself another crappy lolicon show and go and pap that out because apparently you can do that in absolute tons whilst any show that might actauly interest me (that isn't getting released by Kaze) is not getting released by you any-time soon

 

[Rui]

To be fair to Manga, they pick shows which actually sell. And for whatever reason, your favoured shows apparently don't sell as well as fanservice shows about girls in their underwear (mine don't either).

R

 

[Joshawott]

Am I the only person who hasn't imported Spice and Wolf yet? (Well, if I had more money I would have ages ago xD)