Isn’t it amazing how everyone is suddenly saying that Geneon is “exiting” the U.S. anime industry, and then saying that they’re going to be like Kadokawa Pictures U.S.A in that they’ll license series and outsource the rest (a comparison I made last week, I might add)?

Now, look at this logically. If Geneon USA is “exiting” the U.S. anime industry by taking on the role of just-licensor, then doesn’t that make Kadokawa Pictures U.S.A. not in the U.S. anime industry at all, since that’s all they’ve ever done?

Really, people. Geneon USA is scaling back their role, admittedly a LOT. They aren’t disappearing into oblivion just now, however. Calm down.

So Dentsu has posted a press release announcing that Geneon has withdrawn their “appointment” of ADV as their sales/distro manager.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).