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

Joshawott said:
In regards to Kill la Kill, I was always planning on buying Anime Limited's release (3 volumes as opposed to 5 was the big one - let's hope Aniplex don't change their minds on that). I don't get why AniplexUSA didn't include a signs track - it's not like the text is meaningless stuff like a menu in a restaurant the characters are in at one point; we're talking about their names 9.9.

With Yen Press, I think what's most interesting is their use of the word "season", as most light novel series' in the west have subsequent volumes released with a three month gap between them (for example, Sword Art Online's release schedule for 2014 is April-August-December). If the definition was simply "per year" I would have expected it to include multiple releases in the same franchise.

I wonder whether it would be more beneficial, business wise, to focus on licensing properties where other companies own the English rights to the manga (to try and cut into their sales)? Of course, it could be seen as a douchey move for Yen Press, but I wonder if it could actually force other companies into the light novel market? As others have said though, I'd also like to see them release the novels of some of their other properties - I hear that the High School DxD novels are a lot better than the anime. My ideal four would probably be:

- High School DxD
- Kokoro Connect
- Love, Chunibyo & Other Delusions
- Shakugan no Shana (come on Yen, rescue it from Viz!).
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Personally, I don't think Yen Press will license any Light Novels where someone else has the license to the manga adaptation. I could be wrong with that but I just don't see it happening. Even series they themselves release I wouldn't be confident about, although it would be rather more possible.
License rescues are even less likely than either of these things.

Chuunibyou is an interesting one. I think if they did get that it would probably be part of a batch deal, along with high speed! and Tamakoma - and possibly AmaBuri. Then again, KyoAni are very restrictive on where they actually sell these series, and I wouldn't be surprised if they were extremely reluctant to have them released abroad. None of them have been released in China, which gets far more light novels than we do.

Factoring in these things, as well as the fact that they are licensing series that are ongoing and that they probably won't get anything from Shogakukan, what's popular enough that it might justify a license?
My thoughts:
Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei (Dengeki Bunko)
Date A Live (Fantasia Bunko)
Hataraku Maou-sama (Dengeki Bunko)

I'd say those are the three most obvious choices - although of course there's any number of things that could prevent something being licensed - Log Horizon (Enterbrain Novels) would be the fourth obvious one but the author said some months ago now that a deal had failed to go through (although it's perfectly possible that this situation has since changed). There are tons of other possibilities, of course. Madan no Ou to Vanadis (MF Bunko J), Utsuro no Hako to Zero no Maria (Dengeki Bunko) and Psycome (Famitsu Bunko) are relatively popular among the western light novel fandom but relatively unknown outside of it. Infinite Stratos (now published by Overlap Bunko) has been a big hit in Japan (although there are signs of this wearing off) but less popular elsewhere. Or they could opt for a series with a recent anime adaptation like Tokyo Ravens (Fantasia Bunko), Strike the Blood (Dengeki Bunko), Black Bullet (Dengeki Bunko) or Seirei Tsukai no Blade Dance (MF Bunko J). Or they could do what they did with Kawahara and license multiple series by the same author...
 
They did license A Certain Magical Index, which is finished (excluding New Testament) and has a spin-off manga published by Seven Seas. Although, Seven Seas outright said that they couldn't license the Index manga even if they wanted to despite having Railgun, due to Yen Press having dibs on Square Enix properties.

One title I forgot that could be a good choice: Toradora. Sure, it's no longer ongoing but the recent blu-ray release has put it back on the radar and it could tie into a license for Golden Time too.
 
Toradora manga is licensed by Seven Seas as well.

And Seven Seas were talking about the Index manga there, which is published by Square Enix. The light novel is Dengeki Bunko, which is Kadokawa under ASCII Media Works. Railgun is completely separate - an unrelated series (from a licensing perspective) that happens to be set at the same timeframe and in the same world.
 
Hanabee Announcements from AVCon 2014
Video on Demand
Aldnoah.Zero: No start date has been set for streaming.
Rail Wars!: The series will start streaming from the 21st of July.
Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya 2wei!: No start date has been set for streaming.

Home Video Release
The following titles will all be released on the 1st of October 2014.
Valvrave the Liberator: DVD and Blu-ray release, English subtitles with Japanese audio.
WATAMOTE: DVD and Blu-ray release with both English audio and Japanese audio with English subtitles.
Kabukimonogatari: DVD / Blu-ray combo pack containing 5 episodes.

Additional
Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya was announced as part of Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya 2wei! but no further details are currently available.
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http://www.animenewsnetwork.com.au/news ... 014/.76834

If your desperate for Watamote on blu ray, look no further I guess
 
Joshawott said:
One title I forgot that could be a good choice: Toradora. Sure, it's no longer ongoing but the recent blu-ray release has put it back on the radar and it could tie into a license for Golden Time too.
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I reckon the popularity of Toradora would make it a good choice, and the fact it's not on going also has benefits in knowing what you are getting into.

I hope they skip Infinite Stratos though, the Anime got me interested in checking out the novels. They had quite a good setup by the end of season 1 but the author couldn't resist adding more girls, and can't resist the need to give each existing girl some time with the main character resulting in some quite boring novels. Chapter 1 is a few pages of something going on somewhere that relates to the bigger picture, then we get introduced to a new girl and there's some upcoming event. Chapters 2 & 3 are interactions with the new character and time for the older ones, Chapter 4 things kick off at the event leading to some mech action and then we hit the epilogue. If the author had left it at 5 girls and switched to novels advancing the bigger picture it'd be in a much better position.

-edit-

I guess Toradora might be off limits given Seven Seas have the Manga, though if they are not interested in releasing the novels they could let Yen have them, it'd add another product line that could lead to people buying the Manga.
 
The main reason I mentioned Infinite Stratos is that before the big sales drop which came after its shift to Overlap Bunko, it was the best selling (in Japan) actual light novel series that doesn't have any reason to exclude it from the possibilities, and even afterwards it's only really beaten by Mahouka and Date A Live.

Of course, another possibility is that it's one of those 'not-quite-a-light-novel' series like Biblia Koshodou no Jiken Techou.
 
kuuderes_shadow said:
The main reason I mentioned Infinite Stratos is that before the big sales drop which came after its shift to Overlap Bunko, it was the best selling (in Japan) actual light novel series that doesn't have any reason to exclude it from the possibilities, and even afterwards it's only really beaten by Mahouka and Date A Live.
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I understand it was quite big before it went on hiatus, and is now back. Just I was seriously underwhelmed by the later volumes.

I think it'd be a good idea for US firms to take advantage of the fact Japan is so far ahead with any given Novel series and look at the later volumes to ensure we get the solid series' rather than those that started well and are just hanging on because they started well.
 
Mahouka sells that well? ..hmmm ..maybe I should try it out, I got put off due to fans saying It contains incest and the MC comes off as some sort of amazing god like human who can do everything or something ..

Speaking of LN's, I'd LOVE to see Baccano & Durarara.
 
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Tatsuya has a mixture of very significant limitations and very strong talents, and is very aware of what he can and can't do, meaning that he generally doesn't bother trying with things he won't be able to pull off, and so what he does do tends to be done extremely well. There's no actual incest but Miyuki is definitely a little obsessive over Tatsuya, which is easy to interpret as incestuous feelings if you want to see them that way.

Bestselling light novel series with releases in the current year to date (ordered by best selling volume, series in brackets are examples of not-quite-light-novels that I mentioned before):
1. (Biblia Koshodou no Jiken Techou)
2. Kagerou Daze - licensed
3. Sword Art Online - licensed
4. (Kuroko no Basket REPLACE - based on manga, published by shueisha)
5. (Monogatari Series) - published by Kodansha, if that's an issue?
6. Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei
7. Toaru Majutsu no Index: New Testament (sequel to TMnI which is licensed)
8. No Game No Life - Seven Seas has the manga adaptation
9. Yahari Ore no Seishun Love Come wa Machigatteiru - GaGaGa Bunko series, published by Shogakukan
10. Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai - Seven Seas has the manga adaptation
11. Accel World - licensed
12. (Haikyuu!! Shousetsuban - based on manga, published by Shueisha)
13. Date A Live
14. (Shinrei Tantei Yakumo)
15. Durarara!! - Yen Press have the manga
16. Hataraku Maou-sama!
17. Infinite Stratos
18. Hidan no Aria - licensed by DMP (e-book release only)
19. (ten mei jidou arslan senki)
20. Highschool DxD - Yen Press have the manga adaptation

Would Yen Press be limited from releasing the light novels of a property that another company has the manga for?
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No way to answer that for certain, but unless we actually get an example to the contrary I would err on the side of 'yes'.
 
kuuderes_shadow said:
Would Yen Press be limited from releasing the light novels of a property that another company has the manga for?
Click to expand...

No way to answer that for certain, but unless we actually get an example to the contrary I would err on the side of 'yes'.
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Defiantly best to err on Yes I suppose.

Taking Toradora as an example, Seven Seas have pretty much ruled out any light novels due to the time taken to produce them being 3-4 times more than a Manga translation yet the market being much smaller.

Now given they aren't interested in light novels they could allow Yen to release it, probably with adverts for their Manga version in the back. They lose nothing as they weren't going to touch the title and possibly pick up sales of their Manga version.

On the flip side, if Yen do make light novels work, they'd be silly to hand over a potentially big seller early on. Better to wait and if light novels take off the profit to effort ratio of translating shifts.
 
I try to not hurt my head too much over LN and manga I want to own... I have already enough headaches due to anime I want to own. *sigh*

Lutga said:
The thing is, there's potentially a difference between whether a title did well back then and whether it'd do well now.
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Most definitely. I'm 100% certain there's value in re-releases. And I'm 100% certain titles will perform way better as a re-release...
The fact alone that if most anime were re-released on NTSC DVD or Blu-ray it'd be an upgraded format proves enough value to attempt it...
Of course I do understand Manga doesn't focus on old licenses and MVM is slowly growing back to what is once was and can't really handle classics at the moment.
Anime Ltd is our savior and I hope they step up their game with some long awaited "titles" (referring to sub-only NIS titles, DVD-only re-releases etc that haven't really happened yet (next to Outlaw Star)).

Elaniel said:
As per an update on Kickstarter: the Mai Mai Miracle release may be delayed until Q1 2015 due to the original creator wanting the dub localised more. Curious to see how-so.
Hope we're not going to see things changed too much.

I don't mind a delay as I know Anime Limited and the original creator are working closely to make this release the best they can.
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Mai Mai Miracle isn't that high priority on my radar anyway.
And I need to wait for the retail release to get it, so yeah... But that is no problem. As things stand I'm sure my priorities will be with other titles.

fabricatedlunatic said:
Oh for god's sake. The Time of Eve movie Blu-ray is already six months behind schedule, and now this. No more Kickstarters. DONE.
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The fact we are aware of these delays with KickStarters doesn't mean they aren't there for non-KickStarter releases...

SnowWolf said:
Hanabee Announcements from AVCon 2014
Home Video Release
The following titles will all be released on the 1st of October 2014.
Valvrave the Liberator: DVD and Blu-ray release, English subtitles with Japanese audio.
WATAMOTE: DVD and Blu-ray release with both English audio and Japanese audio with English subtitles.
Kabukimonogatari: DVD / Blu-ray combo pack containing 5 episodes.
Click to expand...
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com.au/news/2014-07-19/hanabee-announcements-from-avcon-2014/.76834

If your desperate for Watamote on blu ray, look no further I guess
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MVM already announced Watamote... And while formats are TBC, I believe Watamote is one of those titles that MVM would be foolish about to not release on Blu-ray.
I mean, I can see reasons for giving Kamisama Kiss and Kokoro Connect the DVD-only treatment, but would not for Watamote.

Joshawott said:
Now I really regret having to cancel my Patema pledge...unemployment suuuuuucks.
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At former, you could still pre-order it and help towards the OST as far as I understood the sitch.

At latter, yeah.. Understandable. I'm attending college for the next few years, so by the time I can apply for a job... *sigh*
 
A Blu-ray for Watamote is a no-brainer. It has the potential to probably be MVM's biggest title for years, Monogatari aside. I'm surprised Manga didn't pick the show up to be honest - considering it was one of the best regarded shows of recent seasons.

I'll be interested to see who picks Valvrave up - Manga would seem the most likely, but imagine they're waiting on a UK dub.
 
Lutga said:
Manga would seem the most likely, but imagine they're waiting on a UK dub.
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Like that's gonna happen now that Aniplex are releasing it on Blu-ray sub-only (heck even Hanabee is doing the same). Then again, people are sort of demanding for a dub so who knows.
 
GolGotha said:
If anyone gets it, I do hope it's Anime Limited. It deserves a nice release using the artwork from the Japanese covers!
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I think all Aniplex USA titles should go to Anime Limited, I would have loved to see Nisekoi received nice treatment except Kaze took it. Heck if they could risk it with Oreimo I wouldn't mind (maybe a bit too far) but R.O.D. (TV/OVA) should be free now so I hope that's an option.
 
Lutga said:
I'll be interested to see who picks Valvrave up - Manga would seem the most likely, but imagine they're waiting on a UK dub.
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Seeing as Hanabee have the license to it and they're doing sub only BDs, I'd put my money on MVM picking it up and sharing costs.
 
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