Breaking Up is Hard to Do: Geneon & ADV Edition
So Dentsu has posted a press release announcing that Geneon has withdrawn their “appointment” of ADV as their sales/distro manager. It reads like the reason is because a bunch of Japanese companies (Sojitz Corporation, Development Bank of Japan, and KlockWorx) are investing in ADV, which apparently lead to some conflict between ADV and Geneon USA that couldn’t be resolved.
I’m going to guess that one of these companies has an issue with Geneon Japan; presumably from Klockworx, who does anime production. While Klockworx-related series seem to have been licensed all over the board in Japan, it definitely looks like ADV has most of them– Maburaho, Full Metal Panic, etc. The Sojitz Corporation is one of those companies whose business is other businesses, and ditto for the Development Bank of Japan, so I’m going to stick with the Klockworx theory.
The press release also notes that Geneon is going to “focus mainly on management of its works portfolio” starting October 1st, which to me reads “anime broker” (a la Kadokawa Pictures– they license stuff and then hire other companies to do production, distro, etc).
Tags: ADV, deals, geneon-usa, industry, klockworx
September 21st, 2007 at 9:38 am
Could you perhaps comment on what this means for their existing series? I really don’t know what to make of this announcement, so I’m hoping someone more experienced in the anime industry (i.e., you :D), could explain?
The way people were talking about it on the Anime News Network forums you’d think the company was disappearing off the face of the earth…
The reason I’m interested is that I’ve just bought the first volume of Ergo Proxy; the final volume in this series isn’t even released until this coming Tuesday. Presumably the final volume is still coming out, that would’ve all been arranged before this went down, but should I go and buy all the other volumes of Ergo Proxy right away in case they’re no longer available in the coming months? Or will they still be on the shelves (or, more accurately, on Amazon) for a while yet?
Thanks for any advice :)
September 21st, 2007 at 11:06 am
@Visitor: Until they make announcements there’s no way of knowing for sure what’s going to happen to Geneon’s series. However, if the company continues to exist as a “broker” like I mentioned, they will probably continue to release series, but outsource the production and distribution.
This could mean changes in quality or even voice acting, though I doubt either would change significantly. But I expect that they will (through other companies) continue to release their licensed materials.
As for volumes that were released previously, that’s a bit harder to say. I’m not a business person, so I don’t know if Geneon would simply hire someone to reprint and sell the DVDs (which would be easy since Geneon already has all of the materials), or if they would simply cease printing them altogether.
I would *guess* that it will vary on a per-series basis– I imagine a series like Hellsing TV still sells pretty well, so they could simply outsource reproduction/distribution of it to another company. For series that sell less well, they could choose not to bother.
Of course, this is all my own speculation and I could be way off. But if you’re worried about it, you should probably go ahead and get the rest of the Ergo Proxy discs fairly soon. (I don’t think you need to rush out and order the whole stack right this second, though.)
September 21st, 2007 at 11:11 am
Thanks for the reply :)
I’m not in America, so importing the discs gets a little expensive (they’re not released at all in my country, yet at any rate), which is why it’s a bit of a dilemma for me. Sounds like I should be thinking about doing it sooner rather than later anyway.
I really feel for other people though if the less well known series aren’t finished.. I read about one series (Kyo Kara Maoh, I think?) that’s 17 volumes long, with only 16 released so far, and if something happens and they don’t release the last one… it really sucks all around. I hope Geneon can pull through this anyway, for the sake of their staff if nothing else, and all I can do to show my support is to buy their DVDs, which is all anyone can do I suppose.
September 21st, 2007 at 11:31 am
Kyo Kara Maoh has a pretty solid fanbase and only one disc left, so I think that’s probably going to turn out okay. I’d be more worried about stuff licensed relatively recently and/or longer series that still have a lot of discs to go.
September 22nd, 2007 at 10:21 am
So what do you think this means for series that were licensed by Geneon but not released any volumes yet? You know, like the Nanoha series?
September 22nd, 2007 at 10:26 am
I’m guessing they may reprioritize a bit, but Nanoha has a pretty solid fanbase, so it’ll probably still come out– but they’ll be outsourcing the production and distribution to other companies, so anyone from FUNimation to ADV to Bandai could do the dub, packaging, etc.
Or at least, so I expect.
September 26th, 2007 at 2:21 pm
[...] Pictures U.S.A in that they’ll license series and outsource the rest (a comparison I made last week, I might [...]