Bandai Entertainment vs Bandai Visual USA
Categorized Under: Commentary, General
Dated: 15 Mar 2008
Okay, I know a lot of you are aware that Bandai Entertainment and Bandai Visual USA are two different, only distantly related companies that release anime in the US, but I keep coming across people who refer to “Bandai” as the hideous monster that charges $16 an episode.
So, here we go, kids: Bandai Entertainment vs Bandai Visual USA, the short version.
| Bandai Entertainment | Bandai Visual USA | |
| Founded: | 1998 | January 2005 |
| Recent licenses: | Code Geass, Lucky Star, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time | Shigofumi, True Tears, sola, HaruToki |
| ‘07 DVD output*: | 74 | 22 |
| Background: | Bandai Entertainment Inc. started putting out DVDs under Bandai’s AnimeVillage.com label before being established as its own label in 1999. Like most anime companies in the US, BEI licenses series from a variety of companies throughout Japan, including ones that are not related to its parent company, Bandai Visual Japan. They also sometimes arrange to distribute titles for other companies in the US; for example, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya is actually licensed by Kadokawa Pictures USA, owner Kadokawa Shoten’s US arm. They outsourced the production and distribution to BEI. | Bandai Visual USA is Bandai Visual Japan’s direct arm in the US, and as such the titles they release are all produced by Bandai Visual in Japan. Its output is much smaller than BEI’s, and all of its releases are sub-only. BVU has hit a lot of difficulty amongst anime fans because although they take on such fan-fave titles as Gunbuster and Super Robot Wars, their DVDs are very expensive– often on par with the prices in Japan. BVU seems to be broadening its offerings to include more moe series as well as their more typical sci-fi and adventure series. |
* Total number of DVDs released in 2007.
Tags: Bandai-Entertainment, bandai-visual-usa
March 15th, 2008 at 10:17 am
That helps clear some things up. I guess some would say that BVU is the bad guy not BEI. Personally, I don’t think either one is evil just that they are different companies that just do things differently.
March 15th, 2008 at 11:31 am
You already know my thoughts, but BVU is pretty much satan in my eyes.