Forum - View topicWhat's Happening with ADV Films
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Shale
Posts: 337 Location: The Middle of Nowhere, DE |
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Did you not read the article? From the customer's point of view, this is little more than a name change. They've already announced new licenses.
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MeggieMay
 Posts: 607 |
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Geneon didn't go Chapter 7. They closed up distribution but still exist, at least in name, for licensing purposes. At this point ADV hasn't taken Chapter 7, though if I understand the legal wrangling one of the new company probably will at some point. The only company who's had to take Chapter 7 at this point is Central Park Media, which seems to be whooshing past some readers heads IMO (plus it could be CPM took Chapter 11 - there are different types of bankruptcy/liquidation of assest that one can take)  .
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Shale
Posts: 337 Location: The Middle of Nowhere, DE |
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Chapter 7 is liquidation, and Chapter 11 is reorganization. A company that goes Chapter 11 (think General Motors) will stay around, at least assuming the reorganization works as intended. One that goes Chapter 7 (CPM, Circuit City) is done for.
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mangastudent
Posts: 10 |
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In terms of new investors it'll take longer, assuming we even learn about them (as private companies they have been and in the future are under no obligation to tell us anything). But they are not playing "shell games", which imply they are hiding something and/or (in this context) doing something with shell companies (all these are very real companies). In their press release they were quite explicit about where A.D. Vision, Inc's assets and their associated liabilities (they are the security of the senior lender) are going. If you have experience in this sort of thing you know the rest of their creditors are going to be mostly out of luck. As for "partners", the only one we know about is Sojitz and the worst of that is long over. All that's happening now, after A.D. Vision presumably does a voluntary Chapter 7 liquidation, is that Sojitz's presumably written down investment will formally become worthless. (Well, they also "partner" with the rights holders of the properties the license, but since Sentai has licensed stuff neo-ADV would seem to be in reasonably good shape there.) When they talk to potential new investors, neo-ADV will have a slew of plausible explanations for why that got ugly and why it won't happen again. E.g.: "Sojitz didn't really understand the business they were getting into." They are a trading company after all, although one of their partners in the ADV investment was KlockWorx, which has been involved in some anime production and/or distribution. "Soljitz was still working through their creation in 2004 from the merger of two companies, and their investment in ADV was a victim of that process." And for all we know, that's true! This sort of thing unfortunately happens all the time and quite a few promising companies, divisions or products get zapped in political power plays that have absolutely nothing to do with them. One company I worked for was later killed purely as a side effect of a manufactured political scandal (according to my friends still there, the people who showed up to seize it were astonished to find a real company with real people building real stuff, they had been lead to believe there would only be a shell with maybe one office worker). "Sojitz unexpectedly had irreconcilable differences with John Ledford, and John no longer has anything to do with neo-ADV (or this part of it that you are thinking of investing in), as proven by the LLC Operating Agreements". That could also be true and unexpected, after all Ledford successfully ran the company with its many relationships with Japanese rights holders for more than a decade. Perhaps A.D. Vision was sufficiently desperate that they ignored warning signs and/or hoped for the best (after all Sojitz certainly didn't seem to benefit from all this and given that ARM was eventually dissolved I would imagine that Funimation made their contracts directly with the rights holders, or in some fashion that insulated themselves from craziness...). "The form of the Sojitz investment (a straight investment plus the arm's length ARM) was dictated by A.D. Vision, Inc's C corporation nature and the inability to change to an LCC due to the tax implications. Your investment will be protected by the changes to the LLC's Operating Agreement that we will make together." "The blowup wasn't with Sojitz per se, because they didn't directly invest in us. Instead they set up a Japan Content Investments (JCI) in partnership with the Development Bank of Japan and KlockWorx and JCI quickly proved to be unworkable, to the mutual dismay of Sojitz and A.D. Vision." And maybe "All that Sojitz could salvage out of that mess was auctioning off the ARM properties and disolving ARM in late 2008." It might be that JCI was 100% owned by Sojitz and ARM had the above three masters (it's not 100% clear from my Google search, which I'll note got only 33 hits on "Japan Content Investments" (although I didn't do a search for them in Japanese)). And that might turn out to be the truth, JCI and/or ARM had three masters and those sorts of things can blow up. Etc. The feeling I got as I followed the Sojitz drama over the last few years was that Sojitz earned a full share of the blame. At best, they failed in their due dilligence before making the agreement and even if they turned out to have an irreconcilable difference with John Ledford, the Japanese are supposed to be very good at avoiding that sort of thing, right? The Japanese anime community had been doing business with A.D. Vision for decade and a half by then....
Well of course, but what they've done is actually quite impressive and somewhat uncommon. It says very good things about the principles, especially John Ledford. In my personal experience several companies that ran into these sorts of problems died hard and for good because one or more of the principles---who were responsible for the mess in the first place---played a dog in the manger role where they refused to allow a recovery unless they played a majority role in the future. If neo-ADV functions well in the next few quarters they'll probably be as attractive to investment as any other US company in the anime field is (which is unlikely to be very much, unfortunately, but that's not particularly the fault of the anime industry). |
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ryukage
Posts: 32 |
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Dubs are a waste of money for me. They've always driven up the cost of production, and while they frequently draw more sales, those Sub-only releases from Nozomi are not likely to garner more enough sales to justify the massive expense. Sub-only releases so much cheaper than other New Releases, I feel that they are a much better use of my money for more of what I enjoy. It also helps that I can buy these shows directly from RightStuf (from the owners of Nozomi) without a middleman. As for ADV, I don't feel much sympathy for their current plight. At the height of the anime industry in America, ADV was licensing a huge number of titles, apparently assuming that sales would increase linearly with catalog size. They would brag at conventions (yes, I attended panels and heard this directly from Matt Greenfield and others from ADV) that they had the largest catalog of anime for distribution in America, assuming that every show they released deserved to be a hit. Unfortunately, so much of what they released wasn't actually worth the fans' money or attention. They only managed to inflate the costs of licensing anime from Japan forcing out smaller companies like AnimeNation/A. N. Entertainment and placing A-list titles out of reach of most "American" distributors, save the juggernaut that is Funimation. After being told by Matt Greenfield (Anime Express 9) that ADV would be releasing a third Neon Genesis Evangelion boxset for >$200 with extra features as a "thank you" to fans immediately after finishing their release of the Platinum Edition, I knew they had lost their credibility, integrity, and respect for their customers. (The planned release was eventually canceled after insufficient pre-order sales.) |
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FireChick
 Subscriber Posts: 2400 Location: United States |
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This reminds me: I haven't bought all the DVDs for Air TV, Kanon, Panyo Panyo Digi Charat, and Angelic Layer!
If ADV goes into the direction it's going into now, are DVDs still going to be around in stores? I have titles (mentioned above) I need to finish up. |
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alpha_beta_angel
Posts: 29 |
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thanks for the article it all was well-needed explanation on the ADV hear-say being thrown around.
Can we please not start the whole "sub or dub" debate here again? Shouldn't discussion be only on the article? |
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dragonrider_cody
Posts: 2541 |
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Air and Kanon are now owned by Funimation. Kanon 6 can only be obtained on ebay, as Funi only gave it a limited pressing. Volumes 1-5, and I believe the art box, are still available via Right Stuf All the Air DVD's are in the bargain bin also at Right Stuf and are still available. Though since ADV no longer owns them, the singles will not be repressed, so whatever Right Stuf has is all they will get. But the discs are quite cheap, so you shouldn't have trouble getting them if you don't wait. Kanon and Air are also available in boxsets from Funimation, though those strip several of the extras from the ADV singles. The extras missing include the Air recap episode, and the Kanon behind the scenes at Kyoto Animation specials. Angelic Layer's singles are out of print and hard to find. But there are two thinpacks which are still available at reasonable prices. Same story for Panyo Panyo. And no, this won't affect availability of most of ADV's series. If any have been lost, we don't know which yet. But the majority will stay around, just with a different logo on newer re-releases. |
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Quark
 Posts: 710 Location: British Columbia, Canada |
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I just checked Rightstuf, because I didn't remember them having 1-5 of Kanon. They currently have vols. 2-4 and vol. 6. Back when I was buying all the disks of Kanon, I had a hell of a time getting my hands on vol. 5, since I believe ADV printed a very, very small run of them before putting the series on hiatus. I think I finally found a used copy on amazon.ca and had to buy vol. 4 on ebay. And honestly, ebay isn't going to be much help, because when I was looking for vol. 5 on there, people were charging stupid amounts of money for it - around $50, sometimes more. However, Air is all there, for about $7.00 a disk, which is a very nice price. Unless a person is dead-set on having the nice artbox and singles for Kanon, it's a lot easier and cheaper to just go with the Funi re-release. Edit: Scratch that. Just checked ebay, and there are a few auctions selling the complete singles set, with artbox, for a very good price. Last edited by Quark on Fri Sep 04, 2009 7:20 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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dragonrider_cody
Posts: 2541 |
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I stand corrected. Sorry, hadn't checked the listings in a while. I also forgot that Vol 5 had a very limited run and can be hard to find. You can occasionally get lucky and find it Suncoast or Borders. They also have less than 100 copies of Vol 6 left in stock. |
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Jhun Bug
Posts: 7 Location: Spring Valley. San Diego. CA. |
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I was trying to go to ADVFilms.Com to check out some of their new titles and the next thing i see was that fullpage notice from the company that "A.D.VISION, INC. CONCLUDES SERIES OF ASSET TRANSACTIONS".
i didn't know what it mean't so i looked it up to see what was going on. Until i read the article here on Anime News Network. I was shocked and still untill this very momment, i can't believe that ADV is gone. It's was a sad day for me since it's my birthday today and i get this kind of news from one of my favorite ANIME companies around. It's just so sad to see them go.... (:-< And what will happen to ANIME NETWORK. I have a subscription from my cable company a VOD (video on demand) from ANIME NETWORK. What will happen to it? That is the only available ANIME channel that i have here. From what i know, it's the only anime channel that COX Cable has in service in the area i'm in. |
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SXAniMedia
 Posts: 139 |
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Nothing is changing, Anime Network states they are not going anywhere. ADV was divided, with assets and properties sold to different companies (at least that's the short story, beyond that, the Feature on ANN pretty much explains all we know at this point). Anime Network has always been a separate from ADV. http://www.theanimenetwork.com/myblog/137-ADVision-Inc-Concludes-Series-of-Asset-Transactions
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GrilledEelHamatsu
 Posts: 703 |
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It's very unlikely. But what is possible is that AEsir holdings still owes Sojitz assets. |
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Dr.G
Posts: 27 |
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Yea Chapter 11 lets a company restructure and lets the courts help a company deal with people who they owe money to. Chapter 7 kills a company then chops it up then sells off the bits left over in order to pay off the people they owe money to. |
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Ktimene's Lover
 Posts: 2242 Location: Glendale, AZ (Proudly living in the desert) |
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You'd think after nearly 17 years of this great company, they would finally tell us what "ADV" is a an abbreviation of. Anyways, I hope the talent pool and staff can find great work soon. Incidentally, a number of them have worked with Funimation also.
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