Forum - View topicNozomi Entertainment's Space Adventure Cobra TV Anime License Expires
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Cardcaptor Takato
 Posts: 4817 |
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Why does Right Stuf keep losing licenses lately?
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Lord Geo
Posts: 2544 Location: North Brunswick, New Jersey |
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They're not "losing" licenses, but rather the terms are expiring & they are simply choosing to not renew. It's been stated that your standard anime/manga license lasts about 5 years or so, which would match perfectly with Cobra, which was announced in 2013. Rose of Versailles & Maria Watches Over Us were both slightly longer, both being announced in 2012 & both expiring this year. Right Stuf probably just feels that these titles have done about as well as they could, and there wouldn't be much of a point in renewing the licenses just for the hell of it. It's not different with how FUNimation announced that Shiki's license was expiring.
Obviously, another company can feel differently, as indicated with Maiden Japan rescuing Maria, so there could always be a chance that Cobra & maybe even Versailles might one day get rescued by another company & given new releases. |
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Beatdigga
 Posts: 4366 Location: New York |
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Well crap. That was a fun show.
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Cardcaptor Takato
Posts: 4817 |
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It's just concerning when we have three Right Stuf titles expiring in one summer and they don't have as large of a library of tles like Funimation does. Hopefully either Discotek or Sentai license rescues this.
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Lord Geo
Posts: 2544 Location: North Brunswick, New Jersey |
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It's a bit silly to compare Right Stuf to FUNimation, especially in terms of the kinds of titles they both offer. Also, Right Stuf/Nozomi hasn't really focused much on doing its own releases in a couple of years, as the last release from them that wasn't either a license rescue or a re-release on Blu-Ray was Big Windup! 2, which was back in 2016. Gundam has been the primary focus for Right Stuf for a good while, with I think the only "new" license they've acquired since has been Galaxy Angel, which is a license rescue, not a first-time release, ala Cobra, Maria, or Versailles.
Trust me, I'd love to see Right Stuf do more non-Gundam "new" releases, and I'm sure than once they start running out of Gundam they will, but I wouldn't look at the company not renewing old licenses are anything to worry about. It's a business, and this was just the best thing to do in the long-term/ |
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chronoclast
Posts: 97 |
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I'm speculating but it could be that Rightstuf couldn't come to an agreement with the licensors on BD rights for Cobra along with Maria-sama and Versailles and since they don't do DVDs anymore, they felt it wasn't worth renewing them.
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Greed1914
 Posts: 4421 |
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Right Stuf tends to be pretty aware of what it is doing when it comes to older titles. I've been to their convention panels multiple times, and older titles and license rescues are usually discussed as something where they know there is a market, but they also know it isn't going to be huge. If nothing else, being a major anime retailer probably gives them a solid idea of sales trends.
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trunkschan90
 Posts: 592 Location: California |
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Oh snap, I still need to get part 2 of that boxset
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VampireNaomi
 Posts: 146 |
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Dang, I rushed to order it immediately after reading this, and not soon after it got heavily discounted.
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GeorgeC
Posts: 795 |
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Well,
I placed my order RIGHT AFTER the huge Birthday Celebration was done. I didn't get THAT MANY titles this past month. There was some good stuff on sale but then a lot of crap they wanted to clear from inventory, too. Amazing how many of the chipboard boxes just don't sell. Gives support to the reality that most anime fans are on a very tight budget! To be honest, I don't think most of the LE starter boxes are worth it, either... Most of the premium boxes aren't that good, too. There was just a lot and the Criterion sale is still going on (and I still want to get 1 or 2 titles before that ends -- I DO buy more than anime!). Too bad Criterion isn't doing anime now... They know how to do extras and the artwork on their titles is generally excellent and they usually go with release posters for their films as the slip art. They had Akira a LONG time ago and they're licensing stuff like Watership Down and The Fantastic Adventures of Mr. Fox and some other esoteric animation (including MAYBE one or two Japanese titles that I saw clips for but passed on; I don't do NC-17 and ultra-limited animation). I really think something like Perfect Blue would be up their alley (they have a LOT of film noir titles) but Criterion apparently only licenses Western animation that's even more obscure than most anime features! (Correction: Watership Down IS a good feature but it's not for children. There's some very violent scenes in that film that would be even more traumatic for small children than Bambi's mother being shot.) Cobra I got right away when the license expiration was announced. This is NOT Rose of Versailles or other titles I could pass on. Most of the Nozomi titles are in slice of life/girls' titles that just don't appeal to me. There's not a lot of pre-1980s anime I care to own. (One exception being Gatchaman,,,) And I DID watch the entire Cobra series off Nozomi's YT channel. Very faithful about that... Pretty sure I cleared through it in less than 2 weeks. It was a VERY difficult series to put down and there aren't a lot of those, especially GOOD action/adventure shows that have an actual storyline along with memorable characters. And he was one of the more memorable anime characters of the 1980s -- they did a lot of cosplay of him and the character was by one of the leader characters in the Otaku No Video OVA series. Excellent show -- arguably better production values than at least 85% of the anime being produced today and it's difficult to believe this series was made in the early 1980s! I have seen the Cobra movie which has even better production values BUT the TV show tells the storyline better, it just has a lot more time to do that! Haven't seen the reimagining/remake of Cobra (Sentai has it; the entire run of the TV remake plus the OVAs) even though I bought those Blu rays AFTER the movie and BEFORE the DVDs I just ordered today. I knew there was a reason I didn't order more from TRSI this past weekend! I listen to my gut more often than not and that's when these sales pop up...! |
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DopeyDragon
Posts: 42 |
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Someone get Discotek on the horn.
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Zalis116
Moderator
 Posts: 6867 Location: Kazune City |
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azabaro
 SubscriberPosts: 251 |
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On Facebook, Shawne stated that they couldn't cost-justify the materials access fee needed to release Cobra on Blu-ray. I wouldn't be surprised if that was the same for Rose of Versailles, but the Maria-sama loss followed by a quick license rescue makes me wonder if that isn't something different. |
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Shar Aznabull
 Posts: 236 |
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Dang I was holding out for a Blu-ray release. Guess I'll pick up the DVDs for now while they're cheap and cross my fingers for a license rescue.
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GeorgeC
Posts: 795 |
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The Cobra DVDs are just fine.
The DVDs produced today scale up MUCH better in general than the discs produced 10 and 20 years ago did. The "soft-color" and ultra-light issues that plagued earlier DVD releases just aren't there unless the shows were poorly remastered or duped from unrestored master tapes. The TRSI Cobra DVDs were produced from copies of masters made for the restored series Japanese Blu ray release. They're using the same tapes for Blu rays and DVDs in most cases today unless a movie or TV series HASN'T been remastered for hi-def already. I watched the online stream and you could tell the show had been restored. It certainly did not look worn and the color was vibrant. Yes, it would have been nice to get the show on Blu ray but TRSI probably would have had to charge at least $40 more for the Blu rays ($20 per set more) to make money off it and probably didn't think the sales were there. I don't like to have to buy DVDs IF Blu rays are available -- BD is STILL better than a scaled-up DVD -- BUT if nothing but the DVDs are available with the English subtitles, I'll certainly get the DVDs if nothing else is available with English! I get it why they have to charge more for the Blu ray's... It has NOTHING to do with actual disc manufacturing -- at this point, there's hardly more than a few cents difference between manufacturing a DVD versus Blu ray. The issue is paying the additional license fee to do the Blu ray release. TRSI is NOT going to jeopardize its relationship with its Japanese partner and do BD releases they haven't paid the license fee for! It's the same thing with Discotek (whom people have mentioned). They could have done BD releases of the Lupin III TV series but they're not going to because there aren't enough Lupin fans to justify those. They have a hard enough time selling the two shows out on DVD now! Besides, most people would rather buy the newer TV shows (Part 4, Fujiko Mine, Part 5) and the TV specials and movies on Blu ray. The second Lupin TV series is over 140 episodes long (which is an investment) and Lupin III Part 3 is one of the ugliest-looking anime series in existence. That's a hard sell. You can't blame Discotek for not pursuing the higher-cost Blu ray license! |
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