Forum - View topicANNCast - The Life and Kime of Geneon, USA
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configspace
Posts: 3717 |
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I think there are more people like you and me than you think  With that bit of news I previously mentioned about Funi, certainly the move to box sets seems to be a much more sustainable model than it was before.
And that's what I think what's important: yes, business exist to make money, but IMHO most should place a higher priority on sustainable profits as opposed to maximal profits, which is the usual (and only) mantra |
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Tyrenol
Posts: 398 Location: Northern California |
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I don't listen to "podcasts" and such. But nobody came out with the real reason why Geneon didn't do so well.
My gist of this is: The lot of titles Geneon pushed didn't do so well in terms of units. (ie., THEY SUCK.) And they were overpriced. Am I right? And if that's the case, what the hell are FUNi, ADV, and Nozomi doing now? |
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Shale
Posts: 337 Location: The Middle of Nowhere, DE |
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If you were to actually listen to the interview, you'd hear that even many of Geneon's successes, like Haibane Renmei and Paranoia Agent, still lost them money, because they bought some very overpriced licenses. Like Vandread, which would have had to sell 30,000 units just to break even. Meanwhile, some of the "overpriced" stuff, like the $200 Trigun and Fushigi Yugi boxsets, made money hand over fist. Edit: Not to say they didn't have their share of terrible licenses, like Cybuster (less than 100 sales! That cracked me up.), but that's not enough to sink a company. Everybody's got some stinkers. Last edited by Shale on Thu Dec 03, 2009 7:20 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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penguintruth
 Posts: 8459 Location: Penguinopolis |
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What does Zac consider "irresponsibly written", I wonder? I haven't checked out Baccano! yet, but I've been intending to for a while.
Love that "Heart of Sword" MIDI. I probably had that back in the day. I loved mixing MIDIs, changing around the instruments and such. I never had too many Pioneer/Geneon products. A Lupin III movie, some Tenchi stuff, the third Patlabor movie, some Trigun. But Bandai, because of the Gundam franchise, was always the most prominent, with ADV close behind. But they did have a place in my collection. I have honestly never seen an episode of Heat Guy J. It was one of those titles that sounded like it might be good, but I felt like I've seen it somewhere before. In fact, a lot of Geneon releases felt like those titles you sort of waited to get. I guess I waited too long. I suspected the sales for Lupin III weren't that great in North America. The show has a history in Japan, not here. It's a shame, too, it's such a great classic. Same with Tetsujin-28's most recent series, which was Imagawa-directed. Another great title that has a history in Japan, but is not likely to sell well in North America. I wonder if Casshern Sins will do well for Funimation. Also, LUH-PAHN, not LOOPIN. It's a nitpick, and even Funimation can't get it right, but hell, he's my favorite manga/anime character of all time, so you'd better get it right! If I want to watch sports, I'll watch sports. I'm not going to watch a cartoon about it. I feel the same way about shows about mahjong or any other maundane activity becoming an anime. Only Ashita no Joe gets a pass. Gonzo... amazing shows? Amazingly bad, I'd say. |
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Megiddo
 Posts: 8360 Location: IL |
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Why is that if you don't mind me asking? Why watch Ashita no Joe and not some boxing match on TV? |
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penguintruth
Posts: 8459 Location: Penguinopolis |
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Call it an endearing cheesiness to the story and characters. |
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Dorcas_Aurelia
 Posts: 5344 Location: Philly |
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The first episode jumps all over the place, across three plot lines in three different years and dozens of characters without explaining any of it, all being explained (but not really) by a little girl and a newspaper editor having a conversation as the girl is apparently researching the connection between the events. |
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Charred Knight
 Posts: 3085 |
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My god what an excellent podcast.
I mean I can't believe that Justin and Zac have improved the podcast so much in such a short amount of time. With the first one I couldn't last 20 minutes, but here I was riveted by the discussion. The guest was excellent, Zac, and Justin knew what they where talking about, and all around this was by far the best podcast ANN has made. |
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Gewürtztraminer
 Posts: 1028 Location: Texas - Its like whole other country. |
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Great podcast, and it confirmed what I had deduced by watching what actions ADV, Bandai, Geneon, and Funimation took.
Virtually nothing new was meeting sales expectations. Wow, 2 digit sales for the Rumiko Takahashi Anthology? It was already kinda old when I got into Anime. None of the 12 one shot episodes are horrible, and there are two gem episodes. Grab it from the bargain bin while you can, there is a ton of stuff out there that is worse. Would have loved (maybe hated) to hear the numbers on Human Crossing. |
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nightjuan
 Posts: 1473 |
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Ah, so that's what it was...can't believe it's been so long that I couldn't quite recognize one of my favorite themes from Rurouni Kenshin way back in the day.
Irony aside, I'd say genuinely good things like Gankutsuou and the like were financed by those bidding wars just as much as anything else they produced. |
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Tyrenol
Posts: 398 Location: Northern California |
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Yes, but Geneon SUNK. 
FUNi atleasts has Dragonball (Z), FMA, One Piece, D.Gray-Man, on down. (They're currently destroying the line between Dragonaut fan and heroin fiend.) Viz is attached to the hip to Shounen Jump. Media Blasters, despite some troubles, are the current underdog this time around. ADV & Nozomi have given up and are basically flinging around "glorified fansubs." (Microsoft's Halo and Critical Mass, respectively, notwithstanding.) And honestly: I'd love if there was more straight-forward info as to why Geneon SUNK and how other US anime companies should avoid "adding cement to their own shoes whilst treading the Pacific." |
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bayoab
Posts: 831 |
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Were underwater, yes. On the bottom of the sea, no.
Last edited by bayoab on Thu Dec 03, 2009 8:53 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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jsevakis
Former ANN Editor in Chief
 Posts: 1684 Location: Los Angeles, CA |
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Well, maybe you should, I don't know, LISTEN TO THE PODCAST??? |
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Charred Knight
Posts: 3085 |
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Since the podcast is long let's summarize for Tyrenol Geneon overbid on anime. Heat Guy J apparently cost as much as Fullmetal Alchemist even though FMA was a lot more popular and had huge crossover appeal. Also for Vandread to break even they needed to sell 30,000 copies. While I do consider Vandread to be one of Gonzo's best work that's insane. They lost the bids on the products that would sell well, and ended up with stuff like Zipang which didn't interest anime fans. For example Super Robot Wars isn't popular in america, so buying an anime loosely based off Super Robot Wars without what actually makes Super Robot Wars fun is a stupid idea. They made several bad deals, especially the Toei deal where Toei gave them shoddy work, and Geneon ate it on the products, or the Bandai Visual debacle, where Bandai Visual pretty much showed up insulted everyone, and then went home when they found out that basing your business plan on Japanese otakus is not a smart idea. You can pretty much see the same thing with ADV when they had made a ton of money on Evangelion than promptly spend it on crap like Sister Princess., and even made their own crap like Lady Death which had character designs that looked like action figures. |
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Kenotic
 Posts: 167 |
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Seriously, this was a fantastic show and thank you for all of your work on the Podcast. I was happy to hear that Haibane Renmei (my first Geneon product) did better than expected, and wish that it could see a license rescue for a re-release someday soon. As I was listening to the show I kept thinking of all of the series I watched over the past 5-6 years that I kept coming back to: Lain, HR, Last Exile, ROD The TV, Technolyze, Kamichu, Higurashi.....and then I get a little depressed. Big Thanks to Chad Kime for being so open and honest. |
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