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The Mike Toole Show - Dropping the Ball on Anime

I'm still bitter over Monster, and will probably never get over it. I've been pondering importing Siren's release, but first I need a region free player.

I have also always wonderd why a series like DR slump with his Dragonball background isn't even released or what about more of shin-chan that series is also great funi is never going to catch up with it if it isn't going to be canceled in a few years.

I mean, Viz has already done all the work, why on earth couldn't they just plop them all on a no frills budget release set and call it a day?

Sailor S wrote:

I mean, Viz has already done all the work, why on earth couldn't they just plop them all on a no frills budget release set and call it a day?

I've been looking for an answer to that question for ages, every time the topics of unfinished series or costs of production come up in articles around here, and have yet to hear a satisfactory answer. I can understand Funimation not picking up the second season of Oofuri when the first season didn't sell. But since licensing and dubbing are the two biggest expenses of any release, once they've dropped the money for those, how much more expensive could it be to release what they've already finished? How many copies would they need to sell to break even on the publishing portion of it?

Monster makes the least sense in this regard, since it was clear that many, many fans were so wary of Viz backing out that they refused to spend money on an incomplete release. But had they tossed the whole series out there in a space-conscious set, they could certainly have recouped the money spent to publish it, and most likely gained quite a bit back on their initial investment. Now they've lost the license, so any rescue will be that much more expensive and complicated for anyone who's interested.

I expect a glut of Kickstarter projects relating to these unfinished anime in the near future. I'd personally love to see a legit release of Monster and Saint Seiya.

*And damn straight I'm frustrated about Detective Conan getting the plug pulled here. I'm thankful we have such dedicated groups fansubbing the TV episodes as well as the movies and the fact we're still getting the manga (thank goodness for that), but I liked the dub voices too. I was hoping Funi would return to it, but I guess that's asking too much. It's funny you call it "action-packed" Mike when some people complained it was just a bunch of people standing around talking about the murder scene (their definition of "detective" must have been mixed up with "action cop movie" or something).

*It seriously sucks nothing's been done about Monster. I was fortunate to have seen almost the entire series on Scy-Fy when they used to air anime a couple years ago (missed a few when I was in South Korea). It's a really damn good series for what it did.

Unfinished releases really suck sometimes. You're either forced to watch subs/un-subbed raws or just give up on the series entirely.

As the only person I know who really likes Rumbling Hearts (aka Kimi ga Nozomu Eien), I'm disappointed but not really surprised that the 4-episode OVA sequel ~next season~ never got picked up here.

What annoys me is how sometimes when a show isn't finished, the company will try to act as if its otherwise. The last volume of Kodocha Funimation released is titled "That's a Wrap". When ADV gave up on Super Gals after halfway they even went so far as to remove the next-episode preview of the last episode they released. When Right Stuf made their unlikely rescue of the series, they actually included it in their second-half set.