×
  • remind me tomorrow
  • remind me next week
  • never remind me
Subscribe to the ANN Newsletter • Wake up every Sunday to a curated list of ANN's most interesting posts of the week. read more

Forum - View topic
NEWS: ADV Layoffs Confirmed


Goto page 1, 2, 3  Next

Note: this is the discussion thread for this article

Anime News Network Forum Index -> Site-related -> Talkback
View previous topic :: View next topic  
Author Message
hkrok76



Joined: 09 Jun 2003
Posts: 118
PostPosted: Wed Mar 16, 2005 5:27 pm Reply with quote
I guess fans of Gunslinger Girl will have to wait an even longer eternity...hhahahaha. ::runs off to laugh at his friend::
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
slickwataris



Joined: 21 Dec 2004
Posts: 1334
Location: Carol Stream, Illinois
PostPosted: Wed Mar 16, 2005 5:41 pm Reply with quote
I was wondering why is was taking forever for them to release new things. I was hoping Chrono Crusade would be a bi-monthly release but I guess it will only come out 2-3 times a year now. That makes me sad Crying or Very sad .




Edit: Although this is my 300th post Very Happy .


Last edited by slickwataris on Wed Mar 16, 2005 5:42 pm; edited 1 time in total
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail Visit poster's website My Anime My Manga
Fatal



Joined: 24 Feb 2003
Posts: 33
PostPosted: Wed Mar 16, 2005 5:41 pm Reply with quote
Layoffs are always sad, but this was expected due to ADV's policy of quantity over quality Confused

I wouldn't be surprised if more people get laid off in the anime division. ADV, for the past couple of years, have been releasing anime like hotdogs and oversaturated the market (most titles, for me at least, are "don't buy, just rent" titles). Which probably explains the decrease in sales in the anime industry.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message AIM Address
Tenchi



Joined: 03 Jan 2002
Posts: 4462
Location: Ottawa... now I'm an ex-Anglo Montrealer.
PostPosted: Wed Mar 16, 2005 6:15 pm Reply with quote
Also, I suspect that they're bleeding money out of their wahoos with The Anime Network, an anime cable channel not being the license to print money they thought it was.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail Visit poster's website My Anime My Manga
biliano



Joined: 24 Jan 2005
Posts: 956
Location: Cleveland, OH
PostPosted: Wed Mar 16, 2005 7:36 pm Reply with quote
Fatal wrote:
Layoffs are always sad, but this was expected due to ADV's policy of quantity over quality Confused

I wouldn't be surprised if more people get laid off in the anime division. ADV, for the past couple of years, have been releasing anime like hotdogs and oversaturated the market (most titles, for me at least, are "don't buy, just rent" titles). Which probably explains the decrease in sales in the anime industry.


I agree with both points, Fatal.

While I hate to see people lose their jobs, this is what happens when you try to expand too quickly. Look what's happening in the sports world; there are so many franchises that the quality of talent is saturated to the point that there are only a few good teams out there (Case in point: last season's NFL playoffs had two teams with 8-8 records.) The same is happening in the anime market: There are too many titles that are licensed every day that the market is too saturated for any of these companies to make a decent profit. FUNimation's merger with Navarre was made to ensure the long-term stability of FUNi; I won't be surprised if ADV does the same thing and merge with another company to ensure financial stability.


Last edited by biliano on Wed Mar 16, 2005 8:45 pm; edited 1 time in total
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Hi no Neko



Joined: 17 Sep 2004
Posts: 204
Location: Austin, TX
PostPosted: Wed Mar 16, 2005 7:50 pm Reply with quote
They stopped using the studio in Austin to record dubs, too. (The same place where they did Eden's Bowy, Get Backers, and Petite Princess Yucie, among others.)

Sad as I am to say this, I saw it coming. I think ADVs' strategy is a little buggy, especially with manga. They license an awful lot of mediocre and little-known titles. Not to mention they release all their old titles on DVD, even the bad ones with hardly any fan base.

And do we really need 5 different editions of Evangelion?
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail
midori kou



Joined: 22 Oct 2004
Posts: 469
PostPosted: Wed Mar 16, 2005 8:02 pm Reply with quote
I think that made ADV beginning to crumble isn't due to unknown titles. I personally appreciate those a lot more and actually buy them. What affected them the most is probably the duration of one volume to the next. I like the quality of ADV versus some mediocre companies like Manga Entertainment and Media Blasters. Unfortunately, the price doesn't help it as well as how slow each each is released. Eventually, some series do lose their popularity but the time ADV finally releases them and that's what kills them the most.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Strategos



Joined: 25 Sep 2004
Posts: 91
Location: Ohio
PostPosted: Wed Mar 16, 2005 8:40 pm Reply with quote
Since ADV is the one responsible for the market saturation they really have no one to blame but themselves. Although it will hurt some hardcore anime fans to hear it, some anime just can't be liscensed and distributed in America because it won't sell well at all. Companies need to license less titles and concentrate on high-mid to excellent anime and manga in order to make a good profit. Anime isn't popular enough to support anything less than above-average (unlike Hollywood which produces only below-average except for half-dozen movies a year).
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Stueypark



Joined: 10 Aug 2002
Posts: 116
PostPosted: Wed Mar 16, 2005 9:29 pm Reply with quote
Many people either have short memories or haven't been anime fans long enough. But in the mid 90s, most anime companies made their fortunes on mediocre crud, they couldn't afford the big name titles.

I don't think the issue is how the companies are treating the market, they just wrongly estimated it. After continuous growth the market has peaked, at least for now.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
AstroNerdBoy



Joined: 03 Feb 2004
Posts: 413
Location: Denver, CO
PostPosted: Wed Mar 16, 2005 9:32 pm Reply with quote
ADV does bear a lot of responsibility for the anime market saturation. They have licensed a ton of titles. However, I'm sure they paid an arm and a leg for those titles, even the sub-par ones. Anime is way to expensive for us fans to buy everything that comes down the pipe. I reserve my anime cash (and I do spend a ton on anime and manga titles over the course of a year) for the good stuff. FUNimation titles get priority because they are going to give me MY subtitles -- full use of Japanese honorifics and in some cases (like Yu Yu Hakusho), fun Japanese terms...like youkai. ADV might use the occassional "-chan" in an Azumanga Daioh, but I cringed everytime I was forced to read "Miss" in the subtitles.

Oh well. The only ADV title on my list is Full Metal Panic ~Fumoffu~.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website AIM Address
Steventheeunuch





PostPosted: Wed Mar 16, 2005 10:15 pm Reply with quote
AstroNerdBoy wrote:
FUNimation titles get priority because they are going to give me MY subtitles -- full use of Japanese honorifics and in some cases (like Yu Yu Hakusho), fun Japanese terms...like youkai. ADV might use the occassional "-chan" in an Azumanga Daioh, but I cringed everytime I was forced to read "Miss" in the subtitles.


Now while I understand it's the preference of some people, I really don't see the point in leaving in things such as -sensei, -sama and -san, considering they're all translatable into English. Leaving suffixes and words that are translateable in an English translation track just seems lazy, and to me, irritating. (Then again I've never really watched any funimation shows in japanaese, so I guess I'm safe)

Quote:
I guess fans of Gunslinger Girl will have to wait an even longer eternity...hhahahaha. ::runs off to laugh at his friend::


Gunslinger Girl has been licensed and is being distributed by FUNimation, not ADV. ADV have Madlax which is supposedly a similar title.
Back to top
Winter



Joined: 20 Jan 2005
Posts: 13
PostPosted: Wed Mar 16, 2005 10:50 pm Reply with quote
Steventheeunuch wrote:
Gunslinger Girl has been licensed and is being distributed by FUNimation, not ADV. ADV have Madlax which is supposedly a similar title.


He's talking about the manga, which is an ADV property.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
RabbitRevolution



Joined: 24 Apr 2004
Posts: 218
PostPosted: Wed Mar 16, 2005 11:57 pm Reply with quote
AstroNerdBoy wrote:
FUNimation titles get priority because they are going to give me MY subtitles -- full use of Japanese honorifics and in some cases (like Yu Yu Hakusho), fun Japanese terms...like youkai. ADV might use the occassional "-chan" in an Azumanga Daioh, but I cringed everytime I was forced to read "Miss" in the subtitles.


I honestly don't think including every Japanese honorific is necessary when subbing anime. You can hear how the characters are addressing each other, right? Anime smile Putting these into the subs seems a little extraneous to me. On the other hand, I definitely think that manga should be translated with honorifics intact, since in this case the written word is the only way you can get a sense of characters' relationships with one another.

The news about the ADV manga cut-backs is depressing Crying or Very sad . I just know that they're going to stop publishing Sweet and Sensitive and Saint Marie now. These titles may be obscure, but they're still pretty good! I don't know of any Korean manwha being scanalated, so relying on scanalations of these titles as a last resort isn't going to work.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Isaaru



Joined: 03 Feb 2004
Posts: 375
Location: the oppressed colonies in outer space
PostPosted: Thu Mar 17, 2005 12:00 am Reply with quote
Hi no Neko wrote:
They stopped using the studio in Austin to record dubs, too. (The same place where they did Eden's Bowy, Get Backers, and Petite Princess Yucie, among others.)

Sad as I am to say this, I saw it coming. I think ADVs' strategy is a little buggy, especially with manga. They license an awful lot of mediocre and little-known titles. Not to mention they release all their old titles on DVD, even the bad ones with hardly any fan base.

And do we really need 5 different editions of Evangelion?


Hey there's nothing wrong with rereleasing some of that old stuff! And the Cutey Honey Essential Anime release DVD is the best deal anime DVD deal ever for 19.99. You get all 8 episodes and a ton of reall wierd and funny extras!

And those EVANGELION DVDs remastered (not sure what they other 3 are) are selling like hot cakes from what i hear. I am happy with my original set.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Kazuki-san



Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 2251
Location: Houston, TX
PostPosted: Thu Mar 17, 2005 1:25 am Reply with quote
Tenchi wrote:
Also, I suspect that they're bleeding money out of their wahoos with The Anime Network, an anime cable channel not being the license to print money they thought it was.


If that was the primary reason for the layoffs, I would expect that they would have been from TAN. It doesn't make much sense to leave them untouched, if it is not performing as expected.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message AIM Address MSN Messenger My Anime
Display posts from previous:   
Reply to topic    Anime News Network Forum Index -> Site-related -> Talkback All times are GMT - 5 Hours
Goto page 1, 2, 3  Next
Page 1 of 3

 


Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group