NYCC08: Bandai Entertainment and their Sneaky Website
Con Reports, Features April 18th, 2008Tags: Add new tag, Bandai-Entertainment, code-geass, eureka seven, Gurren-Lagann, liveblogging, Lucky-Star, nycc08
Tags: Add new tag, Bandai-Entertainment, code-geass, eureka seven, Gurren-Lagann, liveblogging, Lucky-Star, nycc08
Bandai Entertainment’s sneaky marketing people are at it again– check out the Bandai Entertainment website, which promises a giant announcement in about 20 minutes and also has a little history of BE. The announcement is also being made at Kawaii-Con in Hawaii by BE president Ken Iyadomi. What will it be?
Actually I’ve already heard along the grapevine, and people, this is big. Keep reloading and I will let you know as soon as I can. Did I mention this is BIG? Yeah.
Meanwhile we’re doing a bit of a Q&A while waiting for technical difficulties to be resolved– the Geass manga is probably going to be released in August, around when they start releasing the DVDs of the anime. He doesn’t know what kind of editing Geass will get on Adult Swim, but probably nothing too dramatic. (Probably just the table-humping…)
Just asked about the Eureka Seven movie, which they actually co-produced, so while they haven’t set anything official they would most likely be involved in the movie’s release in North America.
Someone just asked if Bandai Visual USA’s bad rep with fans in the US causes any trouble for Bandai Entertainment, which Rob Napton (who’s hosting the panel, did I mention?) says isn’t really the case– though both companies get questions for the other.
We has Geass DVD specs! There will be limited edition version of each disc, the first of which includes a box, the soundtrack, and the first manga, plus a sound episode CD and the first two discs for $74.98 There is also a bundle pack which will come with the first two discs (9 episodes) and a box for $39.99, and the regular edition will also be $24.98 per five-ep disc. The rest of the first season will come out in two-disc, 9-episode chunks.
And we finally have sound, huzzah! Which means we move into trailers, eh. Geass first, then Lucky Star. You know how Lucky Star comes with a t-shirt with the uniforms? Yeah, the rest include the cheerleader outfit, male and female uniforms, school swimsuit, etc.
Moving on…Ghost Slayers Ayashi, which premiered at Sakura Con. It’s being released with a really fancy collector box, and they also have the manga of the series (new announcement!) starting September 2nd. The collector box will come with the manga and a 16-page guidebook and the first ten episodes. Similarly, there will be a bundle box release for $39.98 with the first ten, and then you can also buy the DVDs individually for $24.98 for five eps.
In the meantime, one of the announcements has already been leaked: it’s Gundam 00, which isn’t terribly surprising, but still spiffy to hear. They’re also working on a TV broadcast.
And the next big announcement is…Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. Sorry ADV! Yes, I’m serious, Bandai Entertainment has snatched away the Gurren Lagann license. They’ll start releasing it in July, August, and September, three months in a row. It will also be sub-only for that release; a dub version will be released in 2009. Here is a teaser site for TTGL, btw. And the actual, official site too. Don’t worry; I’ll get to questions about whether they’ll use the same cast/dub and what kind of release they’ll be doing.
Three 9-episode chunks for Gurren Lagann; no license for the movie just yet. For the dub they’re starting completely over, so you can scrap those ADV dub cast lists entirely. The sub version will probably be fairly bare-bones, with more special features and stuff available for the dub version. Nothing concrete for possible digital distro for the series.
Yarrrr! That’s pretty much it. I kinda spaced on most of the Q&A because it’s mostly not very new.
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April 18th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
Well, well, well.
April 18th, 2008 at 1:53 pm
“Well, well, well” indeed.
April 18th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
Totally not expecting GL. Wonder the reason they aren’t contracting ADV to finish the dub? Obviously money, just wondering if there were any other reasons.
April 18th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
@super rats: not sure. I’d *speculate* that ADV’s license for the series was completely dissolved, which means that Gainax’s side doesn’t exist anymore either, which would mean they don’t have access to ADV’s dub.
…But again, that’s speculation. I don’t know.
April 18th, 2008 at 2:29 pm
I actually feel quite bad for ADV. It wasn’t that long ago when they had the trailer for Lagann. That means they had to be through a good chunk of the dub production. And now all that money goes down the drain. ADV wouldn’t let a series like this go easily so I’m guessing that the license holder withdrew their license at ADV’s expense.
April 18th, 2008 at 3:03 pm
[...] NYCC08: Bandai <b>Entertainment</b> and their Sneaky Website [...]
April 18th, 2008 at 4:14 pm
I agree with koneko-chan I feel sorry for ADV and I am seriously considering BOYCOTTING the bandai releases until we get the answers of why adv was striped of the GL license.
As a fan this Royally pisses me off to no end I want a reasonable explaination on what the hell happened with ADV now. If its on Gainax that they saw what bandai was doing and liked it better, I’ll be mad, did ADV let their payment go and gainax chose to go to someone else!?
April 18th, 2008 at 5:23 pm
@yue: Then be ready to wait for a good, loooong time– the odds that ADV, Bandai Entertainment, Gainax, or Aniplex will actually divulge the details are *small*. At *best*.
April 18th, 2008 at 6:07 pm
I don’t like the idea of ADV whos a company that seems to need a little help to get screw out of GL. This is not going to help ADV gets its financials back in order, I’m sure the wasted dub time, will not be recovered, I just feel horrible about the whole thing. I like Bandai Entertainment but this whole license just feels dirty. I am a very big fan of ADV releases and this just seemed to feel personal to me, as mentioned other places Bandai enterainmentdubs are hit and miss.
April 18th, 2008 at 6:24 pm
@yue: You seem to be making a LOT of assumptions about what’s going on here– if ADV failed to pay what they said they’d pay, why shouldn’t Aniplex/Gainax take the license back? Not to mention that their delay of the release also cost Aniplex/Gainax a lot, because the buzz surrounding the show had been so high and it’s only decreasing now that the show’s over in Japan.
And even if Aniplex and Gainax are being a bit sneaky, why blame Bandai Entertainment? Why shouldn’t BE take on an awesome license like that?
I can’t say anything about BE’s dubs, not being a dub-watcher myself, of course.
April 19th, 2008 at 2:50 am
The failure to pay thing would be gbetter on gainaxs part its just sucks for me, I mean I feel abit cheated, i’m sorry if sub only DVDs are not enough for me, whiles its not priced like Bandai Visual I feel like I’m being forced to wait a year for something I should have already in my opinion,(the dub discs) if we get a full treatment the cast could be good, I just don’t like the way it sounds the whole thing just comes to my mind as an underhanded thing, I mean there was plans to release it, besides theres about a billion shows that need to be saved like say geneon series. I guess mostly I’m letting out steam, I’ll eventually watch the dub disks, I just have no desire for sub only discs. as much i’m a sub watcher the main purpose of my DVDs are so I can share with both sub and dub watcher alike.I guess I’m just a whiny fanboy.
April 19th, 2008 at 5:06 am
Gia, any news on what this means for the UK/German releases? (nothing in the press release)
April 19th, 2008 at 5:09 am
@yue: But…it was ADV who failed to release it, not Gainax or Aniplex or Bandai Entertainment. ^^;
April 19th, 2008 at 5:23 am
@kikimaru: No idea. Did ADV have the license to release it in the UK and Germany?
April 19th, 2008 at 6:20 am
[...] I was waiting around for Bandai Entertainment’s big news, MangaBlog’s Brigid was chatting up VIZ folks– and learned that VIZ is going to be [...]
April 20th, 2008 at 3:08 pm
[...] Bandai’s panel was plagued by technical difficulties, but we finally got release information for Code Geass and a pair of new license announcements: Gundam 00 and Gurren Lagann. I’m not all that interested in either new license, but I am intrigued about what the news means about ADV’s situation in the marketplace. [...]