Forum - View topicNEWS: Bandai Entertainment to Stop Releasing New DVDs, BDs, Manga
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sepherest
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Oh jeez, and I was so excited to be able to buy Turn A.
But, I always had a slight feeling that the title might've been doomed. From the way employees discussed it with Gundam fans at conventions and such it seemed like Turn A was in trouble from the get-go. |
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CG-LOVER
 Posts: 355 Location: East Lansing, MI |
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This. |
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Mr. sickVisionz
 Posts: 2162 |
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Because it effects every anime licensing company operating in the US, I don't think it can be pointed to as something that specifically hurt Bandai any more than any other company. If the price difference between US and Japan and and delays between US and Japanese releases were a major issue, Funimation would be against the ropes right now. Last edited by Mr. sickVisionz on Mon Jan 02, 2012 4:38 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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CG-LOVER
Posts: 355 Location: East Lansing, MI |
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Yeah I really didn't believe him when he said that either. I just knew he was not that well informed about BANDAI's current status. Of course when I brought that up in the forum for that ANNCast no one seemed willing to listen. Well I guess you guys know what the truth is now dontcha? |
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BigOnAnime
Encyclopedia Editor
 Posts: 1158 Location: Minnesota, USA |
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animenewsnetwork.com/news/2011-04-15/america-2009-anime-market-pegged-at-us$2.741-billion |
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Sorrior
Posts: 79 |
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More like we're paying closer to the japanese price. And man this sucks. I mean i kinda thought this might happen but still. Oh well MAYBE JUST MAYBE this mean companies like Funi will give us Gundam Dubs again and others will print some other series in nice quality versions. STill sucks though my first anime on DVD was either Outlaw Star gold box version or the Gundam Wing Boxset BOTH bandai titles. Bandai to me has released some of the better series out there and will ALWAYS be a major part of my childhood. I mean they almost single handedly provided anime for Toonami if you think about it as well as the early more anime friendly adult swim. So yes i will miss bandai dearly in fact i need to calla friend and write a euology somewhere. In fact i'm off to do so now. |
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CG-LOVER
Posts: 355 Location: East Lansing, MI |
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I've read through all of the comments now...
I am INCREDIBLY disappointed (but not surprised) at those of you who state that this news is actually a good thing for the industry. Losing a company merely means that we are only losing potential anime releases over here in North America; there is absolutely no gain in this. As I said before, you just cannot expect a company like FUNimation to rescue all of the titles that BANDAI had or would have had if they'd stayed in business. I mean sure, maybe they'll pick up a couple, but as we have all seen as of late, FUNi already has way too much on their plate as it is. And as of now they still have not managed to get all of Geneon's old titles out the door, so do you really think that they'll be willing to commit to even more license rescues that may only bog them down even further? And besides FUNimation, I doubt that we can expect much from other distributors like Viz and Sentai. Sentai is still getting started here, so I doubt that they could handle many more titles than they already have. And Viz is....well, they're Viz, so yeah. I hate to say this, but as a result of this news, the anime industry here in North America is only going to shrink that much more than it already has. Edit: I've just had another thought in regards to Gundam Unicorn as well. I am really not so sure if this title is safe from being cancelled. And as evidence I cite the Gundam Unicorn Blu-ray listings at RightStuf. Recently, all 4 of the volumes released so far have gone OOP and have had counters put on them, and one of the volumes has already sold out. If Gundam Unicorn vol. 4 has gone OOP so soon after its release, how can we be so sure about the likelihood of future volumes being release over here at all? Last edited by CG-LOVER on Mon Jan 02, 2012 5:12 pm; edited 3 times in total |
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Dumnerd
Posts: 152 |
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Shay Guy
 Posts: 1665 |
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Why? No, seriously. Why the big difference? Is it demographics? Percentage of population living with parental units? There's this big divergence in how fandom's evolved in the US and Japan -- what's behind it? (And are the results in either nation sustainable?) Maybe it has to do with competition from other "geek" stuff in American fandom. Amazon's selling the complete Blu-ray collection of Battlestar Galactica, 75 44-minute episodes, for $160. $0.048/minute. Even Avatar Book 1 only comes out to $0.065/minute. Sekirei 2, inexplicably topping the anime charts, is going for $40 for 350 minutes. $0.114/minute. (Dragon Ball Z Season 6 goes as low as $0.036, but that's DBZ.) Aniplex USA's Durarara!! Part 1 release, looking at Right Stuf, goes as high as $0.188/minute. This, of course, is much less than Japan's prices -- the first Madoka Blu-ray is going for 97.1 yen/minute on Amazon.co.jp, or about $1.261 at today's rate. (That's another thing to wonder about -- the dollar topped 120 yen for a while in 2007, and now it's around 78 yen. How's that affected things?) Fate/Zero BD box set? 81.4 yen/minute. No wonder Aniplex USA sells at the prices they do -- from Japan, $0.40/minute for Madoka must look like a bargain. So anime in the US goes way below its Japanese prices just to come close to competing with the enormous domestic media market. It also seems to go in reverse. Supernatural season 6 is going for 16.3 yen/minute (DVD) on Amazon.co.jp vs. $0.035/minute in the States, and Supernatural's pretty popular in Japan. Glee season 2? 13.7 y/m vs. $0.033/m. ...Yeah, I don't have much to contribute but brute-force data collection. Sorry. |
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Sailor S
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I'd have to say I'm more disappointed in this than surprised. It sucks that Gosick and Nichijou aren't going to be released here, at least I have to assume that unless someone else picks them up, but at least they hadn't started releasing them only to cancel them midway through. What I am more disappointed in is the Kannagi manga being canceled. I already have a bunch of titles via Tokyopop that will never see completion, I didn't want to add another.
I suppose if I had really stopped and looked, I'd have seen the writing on the wall. I just checked my wish list over on DVDAF and I noticed that I don't have a single Bandai title on it. Well, over the years I did my part to support them with a lot of stuff from them not named Gundam, so I guess all I can do is shrug, say it sucks, and go about my business as usual until the day when I can no longer purchase DVD/BDs here in the US. |
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Eivion
Posts: 569 |
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This is disappointing news though not entirely surprising. Hopefully the canclelled releases will be picked up sooner than later.
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Cecilthedarkknight_234
 Posts: 3804 Location: Louisville, KY |
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sorry if i offended you or anyone else, I don't want bandai to go out of business or fall to the wayside they just need to re-structre like sentai/section23 did. |
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Tenchi
 Posts: 4426 Location: Ottawa... now I'm an ex-Anglo Montrealer. |
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You got that right. I wish Bandai Entertainment well on their future endeavors but those future endeavors had better include sublicensing their new licenses to physical media distributors because I have zero interest in digital distribution. |
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samuelp
Industry Insider
Posts: 2201 Location: San Antonio, USA |
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From my experience licensing contracts usually have MG paid in 3 parts: 1/3 up front, 1/3 on receipt of masters, and 1/3 when the DVDs go on sale. Chances are bandai's already paid 1/3-2/3 of the MG. Then, depending on the contract, Bandai usually has a certain time frame to put out DVDs or they have to pay the last 1/3 anyway. In any case, bandai has probably already paid for the license for whatever timeframe (usually 5-7 years), and they aren't going to give that up unless they are paid for it. Furthermore, I do not think that Gundam (any gundam) will be easily sublicensed to anyone because of sunrise's tight control over the property. Nichijou and Gosick are both B level titles and not worth paying extra for: the rights are still held with bandai in all probability, so any 3rd party would have to work out a deal between bandai and kadokawa both, making the licensing more complicated than usual (and therefore, more expensive). So yeah, I think it's quite possible that both titles are in limbo for 5-7 years, unless kadokawa decides to give bandai back its money in exchange for the rights back to the shows (which is incredibly unlikely). |
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shiroihikari
Posts: 4 |
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I am so disappointed right now. I was going to buy Turn A Gundam! :<
I still can't figure out why Japan's DVD prices are so ridiculous, though. I mean, I like the idea of simultaneous releases and all, but do you want to know why I haven't bought Gundam Unicorn yet? Because I don't want to pay $50 for each episode! I love Unicorn but that pricing is just not realistic for the US market. Personally, I'm holding out for a boxset or something. I hope they don't leave me hanging. Also, digital distribution has its advantages but I don't think it should be the sole means of obtaining something. What if something happens to your hard drive? Bye bye media collection! Forget that crap. I want physical copies. :I |
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