The News Thread (for news that does not need a thread)

ayase said:
Yeah. I've heard people defend Harmony Gold before on the grounds that they aren't actually stopping anyone from licensing Macross. This is true. However, for anyone who isn't aware, they did opportunistically copyright "Macross" in the parts of the world they realised Japan hadn't, meaning anyone who ever wants to licence a Macross property would have to pay them for doing absolutely nothing other than owning the copyright to a franchise they had no hand in creating. Understandably, this means we don't get any Macross. Because why would anyone want to incur the extra cost of paying Harmony Gold money for nothing?

"At Harmony Gold, we're huge fans of Macross, as our company has been able to successfully uphold our right to leech off the brand since the 1980s"

If Harmony Gold was a gattai mech, it would form entirely out of lawyers. They're interested in money, and little else.
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Macek did a lot of good for anime but good lord did he leave a hell of a bloody mess behind him.
 
Good news, Funimation have allowed an option to get the Attack on Titan Part 2 Limited Edition set with the artbox. Bad news, I get the feeling it's going to be a Funimation Shop Exclusive (doesn't state it, hopefully UP1 and Rightstuf can get it).

UPDATE - Rightstuf haven't got a notice yet. (UPDATE #2 - Twitter link fixed)

https://twitter.com/animetoday/status/4 ... 7234970625
- @funimation If I order from @animetoday Right Stuf! would I get the box or is this a FUNimation exclusive?

- We haven't received any information about the box yet. When we find out one way or the other, we'll definitely announce it.
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UPDATE #3 - Looks like it's not an exclusive
FUNimation You can purchase it now from FUNimation’s Shop, or check for availability from other retailers.
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Meanwhile, looks like HG won't achieve their target based on the wild predictions.
 
So it seems that in Q4, Pony Canyon are going to be re-issuing Clannad, Clannad After Story, Air and Kanon in "Compact Collections" on BD in Japan.
For whatever reason each set will be 2 discs (1 in the case of Air), without any audio commentaries/subs/extras. I must ask the question, Why? Who on earth thought this is a good idea?
 
Mangaranga said:
So it seems that in Q4, Pony Canyon are going to be re-issuing Clannad, Clannad After Story, Air and Kanon in "Compact Collections" on BD in Japan.
For whatever reason each set will be 2 discs (1 in the case of Air), without any audio commentaries/subs/extras. I must ask the question, Why? Who on earth thought this is a good idea?
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If you wanted more you would go out and buy the already existing boxset. They're basically opening up the series to the 'want the series to own, as cheap as possible' crowd. In other words, the same market as all the companies over here cater towards, and which some members of this site were arguing not all that long ago to be a better model to the current Japanese one.
 
Don't know if anyone saw but Guillermo del Toro (Pacific Rim, Pans Labyrinth, The Orphanage, etc) did a Reddit AMA yesterday, he was asked about Anime/Manga.

Question:
Hello Mr. Del Toro, I'm a big anime fan and I was impressed with your Pacific Rim movie, which shows some influence from japanese mecha series like Evangelion. I could say it was a first time when I saw well done mecha live-action movie. I'm sure upcoming sequel will be top notch too. I wonder if that franchise success, and also good reception of recently released Edge of Tomorrow movie, will push forward some anime/manga live-action adaptations.

I'm both excited and frightened by such perspective, since japanese culture that influenced those series is nothing like what Hollywood is used to. I'm quite excited through about possible Monster adaptation, that I heard you was collaborating with. So now some questions:

are there any news about Monster that you could share with us?

is there any manga or anime series that you are familiar with, that you would be interested in adapting into movie if given a chance?


ANSWER:

Well, I am a huge anime and manga fan, as is my daughter. In fact, I have an entire cabin in my office in the garden dedicated just to manga and anime, where I keep my books and my movies. I have never seen Evangelion, I love the designs and am very familiar with the designs of the EVA robots and Angels, but I have never actually sat down to see the series. Some people pointed out - I don't know if Travis who wrote Pacific Rim saw Evangelion - they saw the gel that connects the people to the robots, I came up with that myself, without seeing Evangelion. I however fully acknowledge the influence of Patlabor, Ghost in the Shell, Tetsujin 28-go, Space Giants, Mazinger Z, and many many other anime that I have watched and enjoy. I love very much the work of Osamu Tezuka, whose work influenced me growing up as a child, and I love quite a bit of the work of Mamoru Oshii, Katsuhiro Otomo, Satoshi Kon (big big time, whom I think was the finest narrator in anime other than Miyazaki and Takahata).

I also love the work Jiro Taniguchi, which I find incredibly contemplative and meditative,highly influential for me are the sculptures of Mirasawa, and the horror stories of Junji Ito, whom I met on my last trip to Japan. He was very very shy, and I kept slapping him on the back, which was not very Japanese. Junji Ito is the only author of comics that has scared the **** out of me. When the shark takes the stairs in GYO, grows the mechanical crab legs chasing them up the stairs, I literally threw away the comic and yelled "NO!" i was so absolutely scared.

I also think that I am very influenced by Japanese game designers. I am friends and a big friend of Hideo Kojima, and I have been lucky enough to be friends with Otomo-San. But the series I think would be FANTASTIC to adapt, but I would love to adapt live-action GANTZ. I love the books, I love the book i don't know if you're familiar with it, called BLAME - it's a really surreal, beautiful book, but I don't know if you know it. But it's written by Tsutomu Nihei. And I love the work of Katsuya Terada. But I tried my best as an anime fan to try to do the first live action anime movie with Pacific Rim. And that was one of the reasons why I wanted to achieve an almost superpure color palette of super-saturated colors. I was hoping to make the movie feel as dynamic and as vibrant as anime.


---

Here: http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2 ... _producer/
 
Manga UK responds to people's question on Facebook! Here's what they said:

Will we see releases of some of the classics, like Cardcaptor Sakura, The original Haruhi Suzumiya series, Neon Genesis Evangelion and Lucky Star. And also some of the newer releases like Phi Brain, Free and suchlike?

Cardcaptor pops back up on my acquisitions list every couple of months and then disappears again. I do not believe the Licensor has much interest in concluding a UK licensing deal I'm afraid. They have my offer. Ditto on Haruhi Season 1. Neon Genesis is a lost cause and generally the whole Eva franchise is cursed. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. Lucky Star. Don't even go there. > Jerome

Will we ever see a localized release of the hentai prince and the stony cat?

Not from us I'm afraid. >JM

Without the passive medium of TV (If it's on, people will watch, or not), all that's left are active mediums, legal streaming and download sites and of course DVDs and Blu-rays, which require a user to know of its existence and seek it out, ie existing fans; how do anime distributors get new fans interested in the medium, and grow the fanbase?

Great question.

Why do you release boxsets in such big cases? This isn't directed at you guys in particular cause MVM do it, but I've seen 3/4 discs in fat DVD cases and yet Kenichi and One Piece you can easily fit 20+ episode discs into smaller cases, why don't you do this all the time instead of putting less discs in bigger cases?

As a follow up question, Why does MangaUK release there BD's in the standard 14mm cases? I'm of the opinion that the slimmer cases as used by Black Lagoon set's would be more appealing for sets including 1-2 disks. Just wondering if there is a reason behind the choice.

We will try to cover this in the podcast. Thanks.

Now that Bandai has stopped licensing in UK and America (hence FUNimation picked up Code Geass) do you think you should start licensing the Gundam franchise that was formerly distributed by Bandai?

Hi, Gundam is not a good proposition for Manga. Too many episodes to release and not enough interest from fans in general to make it worthwhile. Also! It is one of Bandai's biggest brands, so far more restrictions on licensing. Put it this way. They have not come knocking on Manga's door to pick it up for the UK! >Jerome

Why is it that the UK don't get the cool limited edition extras like the US and Australia do? For instance I opted to spend £42 on the Madman Australian release of Attack on Titan purely because of the fab extras in the limited edition pack, I received it a couple weeks ago and love it. I would have waited and supported the UK release had it been the same. Same goes for Psycho Pass, the US premium edition version was great.

You've made me sad. The main reason we don't bung all those extra goodies and packaging into our box sets is because those extra bits and bobs cost a fortune to buy and eat into our margins. Maybe we have not realized how big the potential audience is for a the higher priced deluxe box sets in the UK? We, as a business, always worry that the higher packaging costs cannot be absorbed by you guys, the consumers. For example, if it costs Manga £7-£10 per unit to make a deluxe edition (That would include the discs, Digipak case, rigid outer box, booklet, key ring etc) we would have to reflect that in the wholesale price, which means you are essentially paying for all those extra goodies. This could mean that instead of offering the Part 1 Titan Blu-ray set at between £29.99-39.99 on shelf you would be paying between £39.99-£49.99. We have not done a good job establishing how many units of a deluxe edition we could sell at this price and maybe that has been a strategic error on our part. I personally like to price things as low as possible and shift more units because that builds more awareness for the show and we end up selling even more copies via word of mouth. It's complex and maybe I need to grow some balls and take on the risk of more expensive inventory and higher prices and just trust you super-fans will turn up and buy it. I hope this is an honest enough answer. - Kind regards, Jerome Mazandarani, Director of marketing and acquisitions.
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Manga also confirmed that the podcast is done and should be expected sometime on Monday:
Podcast has been recorded! All going well should be available on Monday. ^JG
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Without the passive medium of TV (If it's on, people will watch, or not), all that's left are active mediums, legal streaming and download sites and of course DVDs and Blu-rays, which require a user to know of its existence and seek it out, ie existing fans; how do anime distributors get new fans interested in the medium, and grow the fanbase?

Great question.
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I think perhaps the difference between now and Manga's '90s glory days when they used to be able to rope the kids in with their magazine adverts is that they've lost touch with what appeals to the British youth market. Which is the same as it always was, violence and nudity.

Licence more objectionable content, record profanity laden dubs to make sure everything gets an 18 certificate and create controversy by employing violent and sexual imagery in your advertising. The kids will all want it because it seems adult and forbidden and you'll be back on top in no time. This time I'm not being sarcastic. I prefer subs so a hilarious Angel Cop style dub would be like bonus content to me and upsetting easily offended people into the bargain is always a bonus.
 
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I want to see ayase getting the rights to some hard-to-sell niche show and carrying out this plan to see what happens. I would buy it.

R
 
Wait, the price difference between what MangaUK are planning for Attack On Titan and the Australian release would only be a tenner? I'd happily pay that difference.

@Ayase - To top it off, throw in an insult to Margaret Thatcher in the dub and post a review copy to The Daily Mail.
 
Joshawott said:
To top it off, throw in an insult to Margaret Thatcher in the dub and post a review copy to The Daily Mail.
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You're hired Josh! And we already have one sale lined up. What should be Wanga Video's first acquisition? Throw me some ideas. Must include at least boobs and blood (full frontal nudity and limb loss / decapitation preferred).
 
devilrules666 said:
Elfen Lied would be the best choice for you to launch on them!
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No, we need bigger boobs and less moe.

...

Actually I think that sentence sums up why anime has lost some of its appeal to teenage boys in the UK in the last decade or so.
 
Much as I would wholeheartedly endorse a move back to Manga Video's traditional values, I think the sort of anime that brought them to power just isn't being made at a sustainable rate anymore.

Clearly, the only way forward is to crowdfund a new version of The Guyver.
 
Edit: In hindsight, probably best not to put that clip up so close to the top of the forum. Suffice to say, the level of bad language in the Violence Jack English dub is quite comical.
 
ayase said:
I think perhaps the difference between now and Manga's '90s glory days when they used to be able to rope the kids in with their magazine adverts is that they've lost touch with what appeals to the British youth market. Which is the same as it always was, violence and nudity.
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And that's why I wasn't into anime back then
 
Looking at some of Manga UK's biggest sellers over the past two years - ie. High School of the Dead and High School DxD, I get the impression 'tit' shows are very popular at the moment. Do they attract an audience beyond the usual anime buyers - ie. casual buyers curious for a flash of flesh? Like you say - what drove purchases back in the 90s - nudity and racy language.

Otherwise, you've just got the regulars buying Naruto - or the mega-franchises that come along every so often like SAO or AoT that will always sell reliably. I get the impression even Bleach doesn't sell as well as it used to.
 
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