Geneon Heads to Universal’s House For Thanksgiving
I know, I know, it takes a lot to roust me from my self-imposed exile at the moment (it’s coming soon, I promise! Sooooooon!)…but this is a lot, so lets get started:
Geneon parent Dentsu has announced (Japanese PDF) that it is selling the majority ownership of Geneon Entertainment (that would be the Japanese company, not just the US branch) to NBC’s Universal Pictures, where it will merge with Universal Pictures Japan. The transfer will officially take place at the end of November.
Now, the question is…what will this mean for anime fans? My personal speculation is that it won’t change much. Geneon has pretty well stopped operating its US branch (its website even forwards to FUNimation’s now– seriously, check it out, geneonanimation.com). I figure odds are good that the company will continue being involved with anime in Japan, however– at the moment they’re distributing the Koharu Biyori OVAs and Kamen no Maid Guy, as well as the Universal films they’ve been distroing since March.
As always, that’s my speculation, and I don’t have any insider info or anything, so I could turn out to be way off, etc.
(Via ANN.)
Edit: More at Variety, who claim that the new company will continue to develop “a slate of local pics and other content.”
Tags: geneon entertainment, JP-industry
November 12th, 2008 at 12:05 pm
I guess the question is what will happen to Rondo Robe?
November 12th, 2008 at 5:18 pm
You know what this means, right? Anything that Geneon/Universal produces in the future will immediately be pursued by armies of lawyers, and any streaming anime they allow will be region-locked the way NBC Universal already does with Hulu for their dubbed stuff.
November 12th, 2008 at 10:36 pm
This is going to be a confusing/interesting thing that will happen. It will be either for the bad, or the bad or for the good. But anime fans will see soon.