Why Do Manga UK Still Work With Kaze?

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Invisible Crane

Straw Hat Pirate
After hearing about the faults on the Kaze release of Nisekoi, I'm wondering (with the exception of Bleach since no one complains about that) why Manga UK continues to work with Kaze despite the fact every release they've put out is f......messed up in some way. You'd think after all this time Manga UK would have had enough of Kaze messing up every release they put out in the UK
 
The question Manga UK ask is not "Are Kaze releases of adequate quality for us to support"

It is "Do Kaze releases make us £££". It's a business. They make business decisions. Quality of a release probably doesn't factor into it much (if at all).
 
Manga hasn't got many recent licenses of their own, if it wasn't for their deals with Animatsu, FUNi and Kaze, they'd probably have gone under already. Can they afford to be picky? Probably not.


I've heard rumours that they're planning to subsume Manga into Animatsu, but as far as I can tell the two companies are entirely separate (except for the distribution arrangement) and unlikely to merge any time soon.
 
Note that Kaze releases haven't had the Manga logo on for ages.

Buzz201 said:
I've heard rumours that they're planning to subsume Manga into Animatsu, but as far as I can tell the two companies are entirely separate (except for the distribution arrangement) and unlikely to merge any time soon.
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If it was that simple, there wouldn't have been a need for Animatsu in the first place (since two of the things Manga were unable to do for corporate reasons was NTSC discs and Geneon licenses, and straight away were are seeing NTSC discs and Geneon licenses from Animatsu)
 
Subsuming Manga into Animatsu would feel kind of weird to me - I mean, from a business point of view it makes sense, Manga as a separate company is kind of a non-entity at the moment now they're no longer owned by Starz. But equally, to me at least, it feels like the 'Manga' brand still has some lasting residual value as the brand that brought the likes of GITs, Akira etc. to many Western fans all that time ago. But perhaps that's no longer really relevant to current fandom?
 
Well, I looked up their information as it was apparently submitted to Companies House a few years ago. As far as I could tell besides the two former employees and distribution agreement they are entirely separately owned.

(It's a free site, so I can't be certain it's accurate, but there wasn't anything obviously wrong with the information.)
 
In regards to Animatsu and Manga Entertainment, I think the only thing that's really needed is for the two companies to separate their social media identities a bit - the sheer amount of Animatsu release advertisements coming from Manga UK's social media accounts will undoubtedly cause some brand confusion.

In regards to Kazé and Manga Entertainment, I imagine that a lot of the releases Manga UK distribute for them are pretty profitable - with Bleach in particularly being a likely high earner. I expect that Nisekoi will do very well for them too.
 
Indeed, and no doubt many of Manga's older titles keep them in business. The likes of Akira and GITS continue to sell thousands of copies every year. Would those licenses suddenly roll under the Animatsu banner?
 
Lutga said:
Indeed, and no doubt many of Manga's older titles keep them in business. The likes of Akira and GITS continue to sell thousands of copies every year. Would those licenses suddenly roll under the Animatsu banner?
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Ghost in the Shell is too tied into Manga Entertainment for it to be anything but tbh.
 
I imagine there are potentially clauses in the various show contracts that prevent a transfer of the licenses in this manner too - ie. A show suddenly being owned by a brand that no longer 'is' Manga entertainment. Even if they became part of the Animatsu stable, I can't imagine them doing away with the Manga name/logo completely.
 
It is an interesting question as to who actually owns GitS now. It was half paid for with British money back when Manga was based here, but since then they moved operations to the US and have been bought and sold a few times. Manga in the US is pretty much non-existent but is still owned by Starz while the Manga UK essentially owns itself now...
 
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