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.”

Now, I know that my relative quietness of late means I haven’t covered as much, but back on the 11th ANN reported that GDH had gotten some additional capital from Iwakaze Capital, an investment firm who also made a take-over offer at the same time.

ICv2 now reports that GDH has accepted the offer, and now the company’s management will be replaced by October 1st. It’s still too early to say what, if any, effect this will have on Gonzo’s current and upcoming anime, or their US release strategy with CrunchyRoll. But it does seem to prevent the Gonzo ship from sinking, so we’ll call this a good thing for the moment.

Alright, I came across this one the day before yesterday, but I didn’t trust my ability to translate business Japanese (*shudders*), so I left it to ANN this time around. Gonzo’s parent company GDH is apparently in some trouble with investors: currently its debts surpass the value of its assets, and they have one year to turn things around or face de-listing from the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

What might this mean for western anime fans? It might not have much of an effect at all on the consumers, although one would guess that Gonzo may push harder for money from the foreign markets (could mean a set price for those download sub episodes instead of a mandatory donation of at least $0.01?). In the meantime though, if you want to be very generous with those donation downloads– it might not hurt.

Remember those pesky rumors that Kodansha had a new US manga publisher in the works– leading to the panic of fans of Del Rey Manga, whose deal with Kodansha gets them a significant chunk of their licenses?

Well, they’re back, and this time with more driving force than a mere anonymous comment: ICv2 reports that the Japanese business news outlet Nikkei had reported on a new US manga publisher from Kodansha. I tracked down the article in question, whose headline is (roughly) “Kodansha: Publishing Popular Japanese Manga in the US Starting in September.”

The article mentions that until now, Kodansha had been licensing the rights to a local publisher (Del Rey Manga), but that Kodansha wants to intensify their overseas operations. The article also notes that since selling manga and magazines in Japan is becoming such a tough game, companies are focusing more attention on the foreign market.

I’ve got an e-mail out to Kodansha International (I called them, but they’re all on lunch break atm). If I don’t hear back I’ll call the Tokyo office when it’s late enough in the day (it’s 2am there). I’ll try and track down what’s going to happen to the deal with Del Rey, as well as the plans for the new publisher (demograhpic, output, etc).

There’s also a bit more to read at the Beat.

Warning: the following Gainax panel write-up is 3,500 words long, or 8 pages single-spaced. Here are the highlights:

Read more…

While Geneon USA is closing their distribution doors, Geneon Japan is opening theirs up wide to let a juggernaut in: Geneon Japan will distribute films for Universal Pictures Japan, according to Variety, starting with The Bourne Ultimatum in March.