Canned Dogs reports that a leak from Bones has let slip that a sequel season of Fullmetal Alchemist is in the works. (Would it pick up after the movie? After the first anime? Where the anime split off from the manga? No clue!)
And a Darker than Black 2. Call it rumors for now, but…damn. I’m not sure if I’m excited or terrified.
This is the closest the western anime world will ever get to 24/7, wall-to-wall coverage, btw.
AoD has now gotten a letter from Chris Oarr, who says that ADV is just selling off surplus stuff– they HAVE closed down a lot of departments in the last year or so, so it makes sense they’d have leftovers from those employees. (He even suggests that someone could by the chair used by former Newtype USA editor Chris Johnston, who broke the news about the auction on AoD’s forums.) Oarr also refers to himself as a “current ADV employee.”
Translation: “nothing to see here, folks. Move along.” (Though I quite like Oarr’s postscript: “P.S. Mention you heard about it on AoD and receive a free stapler with every purchase.”)
If no news is okay news, then is any news at all bad news? It’s certainly looking iffy for ADV: Anime on DVD reports on an auction of a bunch of office equipment from a “large video/DVD company” in Houston, ADV’s hometown.
Several of the images give it away as ADV– like the above, which features stickers and boxes from ADV series like Sorcerer Hunters and Martian Successor Nadesico. The auction title on PhotoBucket is “ADVideo” and the auction address appears to be ADV’s warehouse. (It was posted on AOd’s forums by Chris Johnston, formerly of ADV’s Newtype USA, btw.) AoD also reports that some ADV employees have dropped hints about not working there anymore– though ADV did have that booth at AnimeNext and there were certainly people acting as employees, including ADR director David Williams.
So, what does this mean? Could mean anything– layoffs, a full shut down, or maybe just “looking for change in the couch cushions” (as one AoD forum member suggested). It IS worth noting that their website seems to be evading providing info on products: wherever you try to go, all you get is the ads and website feedback form. That could be an accident or something intentional, I don’t know.
I’m going to offer one bit of wild speculation, which is why I’m prefacing it with this little cautionary statement. But FUNimation has mentioned that they have a major “acquisition announcement” to give at Expo. That could refer to a major license, of course, but it could just as easily refer to ADV and/or its catalogue. (Or, for that matter, Geneon’s.) “Consolidation opportunities” were also mentioned in the Navarre conference call earlier this month, although it’s hard to tell if that was volunteered by Navarre’s CEO or if it was in response to a question. So…is it possible that FUNimation/Navarre is planning (or has already arranged) to buy ADV? It might explain why they’d sell off the office furniture, if whatever ADV staff remains was going to be fused with the FUNimation office (or laid off).
Once again: that is entirely speculation on my part, so we’ll see what happens. I wouldn’t expect to hear anything official from ADV until Anime Expo, unless something major hits the fan.
Japanator’s returnee DickMcVengeance (wb!) has saved me an international call by chatting up Ali Kokmen from Del Rey Manga at the NYAF event yesterday and asking about those pesky Kodansha rumors.
Kokmen apparently told DMV that he had no knowledge of any new publisher in the works from Kodansha, and that Del Rey actually had people in Japan setting up contracts through 2010 at that very moment. Now, theoretically Kodansha could still be working something up without Del Rey’s knowledge, but it does throw off the original report that Kodansha is “aggressively cutting off the[ir] existing contracts,” which kind of makes the whole thing a bit suspect.
But this does leave the question: who is “Cthulhu” and why were they so convinced this is the case? Did we all just get uber-trolled, or is something going on? Tricky tricky…
Much speculation on the AnimeSuki forums about what Gainax’s new movie project may be (the one based on a shoujo manga), and several people are starting to come to the conclusion that it’s likely to be Ghost Rhapsody, Kazuma Yamashita’s shoujo horror manga.
See, Tadashi Hiramatsu– who is working on the adaptation, which was announced back in ‘05 –says on his blog that he’s currently working on it. Hiramatsu has worked on Gainax projects in the past, including the live-action Cutey Honey movie, Gunbuster 2, His and Her Circumstances, Nadia - Secret of the Blue Water, etc. And he also mentioned that he just got back from England, where Gainax co-founder Hiroyuki Yamaga recently visited with the character designer and director of a new Gainax project.
From what I can find on Ghost Rhapsody, the manga features a woman who is getting ready to do a kekkon taishoku, a marriage retirement (i.e. she gets married and quits her job), Hikaru. She experiences an interesting phenomenon: she is visited by the ghost of her favorite rock star, Ronny, who has become her guardian spirit.
So, there you go…a rock musician. Sound likely? I think so!
BL and manhwa publisher Drama Queen has been pretty quiet lately…until just recently! Their website is down and word recently surfaced on the Blu Manga forums (registration required) that they’ve issued cease and desist notices to scanlators of The Tyrant Falls In Love.
I’ve got an email out to DQ to check on their status and see if they have any comments. I’ll let you know what I hear!
So we never got any official word on MythWear after Right Stuf broke with them, but I noticed a sign at Anime Depot that said that MythWear bags were out of print and that they were only available while supplies lasted.
Meanwhile, MythWear’s website has long since been down. Does this mean that MythWear, long known for their popular anime-themed bags,
This one goes firmly in the RUMOR! category for now, but Nebs reports that Geneon may be in talks with an unnamed major US distributor to help save Geneon’s catalogue, or at least some of it. Says Nebs:
If we don’t hear anything by mid-summer we probably won’t hear anything. Even if a major deal is struck, it won’t involve Geneon’s entire catalog circa Sept 2007. The new company will cherry pick those releases like people at Ruby Tuesday pick over the salad bar. The ‘major distributor’ they are in talks with is NOT one of the existing US Anime studios.
Not entirely sure where Nebs pulled this from; the source link is Robert’s Anime Corner Store, on which I can’t find any such information (nor is it on the RACS blog). But Nebs is, well, Nebs, so I’ve got an e-mail out to get more specifics on that and in the meantime I’m giving the benefit of the doubt.
EDIT: The source is the RACS e-mail newsletter, which AnimeUK has reproduced the text of. An excerpt:
Geneon has been in serious talks with a major US home entertainment distributor for about the past three months to get their titles back on the street. I know exactly who it is, how far along they are, and the details that are going to make or break the deal. The trouble is I can’t make any of that info public without jeopardizing our relationship with the new company, but perhaps it’s helpful to let you guys know that there is something serious in the works.
The three points I attributed to Nebs above are also from Robert’s newsletter. So, there you go, and we’ll see what happens.
Edit II: I just wanted to make a note that even if this rumored deal doesn’t happen, it’s nice to think that Geneon is still fighting for their titles.
Perhaps Japan is realizing that a lot of its newer series are the same rehashed moe crap, because they’re returning to beloved and badass series like Slayers and Trigun.
Though since the Trigun movie has been blathered on about for years without actually going anywhere– I’m not going to hold my breath.
Still, the Moon Phase blog notes that the 14th volume of the Trigun Maximum manga features a dust jacket pronouncing the movie to be a Vash vs Wolfwood original story and announcing that it will come out in 2009.
…Still not holding my breath. NOT THIS TIME, MADHOUSE.
Ahh, Slayers– the series of novels by Hajime Kanzaka that follows the diminutive sorceress Lina and her companions, dumb-but-loyal Gourry, wanna-be mysterious swordsman Zelgadis, overly-enthusiastic justice fighter Amelia (to name but a few) which has been developed into a manga, three TV anime series, two OVAs, and five movies.
A Japanese blog post by kouryakukan claims that the April issue of Dragon Magazine– the same magazine that the novels were originally serialized in –will include information about a brand new Slayers TV season.
Why Slayers? Why now? Why NOT? Slayers is better than pretty much every fantasy (of the D&D type) I’ve seen in recent years, from Night Wizard to Prism Ark to Kyou Kara Maou to Seirei no Moribito to Scrapped Princess, etc.
But we won’t know for sure until the issue of Dragon hits the stands, which won’t be for another day in Japan (it’s the 28th there; the ish comes out on the 29th).
UPDATE: A friend just sent me a link to what is supposed to be an interview with Slayers creator Hajime Kanzaka in which he talks about the new series. Assuming the interview is legit (and it probably is, unless someone’s putting on a major hoax), the new anime will feature the same staff as in the past. I can’t read enough of it to tell if Megumi Hayashibara will return as Lina, but I can’t imagine that they’d do it without her.
Comments (22)