Forum - View topicNEWS: Sentai Filmworks Relinquishes Ro-Kyu-Bu! Home Video Rights
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configspace
Posts: 3717 |
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Again...
if it's the subject matter, why then allow Sentai and everyone else to still stream and broadcast? The video version has no nudity, and is only a bit less censored e.g. steam if it's with America, why not just America, but all the other non-Asian countries? if it's with perceptions outside Japan, why then allow it for all Asian countries? |
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dandelion_rose
 Posts: 657 Location: Kuala Lumpur |
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Asian markets are overrun by pirates. It's extremely pirate-y, your licensed purchase may have been legally acquired from a company that got it through illegal means. The few legal options are simply uninterested in something as niche as Ro-Kyu-Bu. (also, when the pirates are the Triads, complaining about cartoon lolis is laughable; the Triads do worse RL.) I think they've pulled it from places that matter: places where a fuss is more likely to happen. |
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TitanXL
 Posts: 4036 |
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Well, there was that Rapelay incident. Game came out in 2006 in Japan. Three years later some rights group in America saw it and lobbyied to start a Holy War with Japan to 'educate' them on sexual perception and pull the game off the Japanese market and censor them. To reiterate, American groups were trying to attack the Japanese market by attacking Japanese retailers. The game was never released in America yet these groups still felt they had a right to invade Japan and tell them how to handle their market. So then Japanese eroge sites started banned all non-Japanese IPs and didn't want none of the west's drama about the subject any more. Also lead to a lot of hentai artists not wanting to sell stuff to America, or if they did, it was a watered down heavily censored version. Basically because America will make a big enough stink about it and Japan would rather not bother. The licensesor here probably had a change of heart and wanted to nip any drama in the butt before it happened. Sort of like Kodomo no Jikan being cancelled in the US at the last minute. Remember, you can still get arrested for having loli manga in the state. Best not poke the big American bear with a stick too much.
TVTropes is an awful site, but I do love these videos admittedly. Shows you how deranged a lot of people are. (Speaking of TVTropes, they went on a mass murder spree of deleting any trope that deals with rape. Yeah, they're getting much more conservative every day now) |
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potatochobit
 Posts: 1373 Location: TEXAS |
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I used to have an anime network subscrption to watch mariaholic alive and this aired shortly after so I watched it
now, it was entertaining, sure but this is just a terrible show to market... this is one of those really niche shows finding someone who likes slam dunk and lolis, then smashing them together is just going to come out gooey... in the end it had almost nothing to do with basketball... lol... I guess people who would buy komono no jikan would buy this, but I can't see anyone else |
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configspace
Posts: 3717 |
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Taiwan is a huge legal market for anime and manga. Singapore is also another.
Except they haven't pulled it. They've only rescinded the home video rights, for now. Sentai and whoever wants in the west can still stream and broadcast it. And as was mentioned, there isn't much difference at all with the video version. If it's the fuss about the subject matter, why wouldn't they target streaming and broadcasting instead when that's more available and cheaper or free, thus higher exposure? |
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dandelion_rose
Posts: 657 Location: Kuala Lumpur |
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I live in Malaysia and have actively tried to seek out legal sources of anime and manga. To my knowledge, there is only one company that distributes anime legally from and in Singapore, and that is Odex. You can take a look at their catalogue; I think it is extremely unlikely for them to be very keen on Ro-Kyu-Bu. (Note: I'm separating legal anime distribution from other markets, like manga. Legal manga, for some reason, is quite affordable and thus more easily available. Legal anime is not. Hence -- legal anime is much harder to find.) Generally hardcore Malaysian anime fans would rather jump through all the hoops necessary to mail order R1 or R2 anime (warning: link to whole forum discussion, long thread) and totally ignore Hong Kong or Taiwan distributors. Even though it's possible to get legal anime distributors in Asia, the waters are so pirate and shark-infested that there's sometimes no telling the difference between the pirates and the legits. (Edit: If you follow my link there is a post someone made mentioning legal Taiwanese anime distributors, but it probably says something when that's the only mention I could find anywhere. You've also got dodgy situations like this company that acquired the license to distribute the first season of Naruto but not the others, but continued selling bootlegs of later seasons that they hadn't acquired the license for, for a while. Can't find the story now. ) I figure this factors into business decisions as well -- if, assuming that a Japanese company is pulling back a title because of concern for its content, they might probably decide that the prevalence of piracy is too high for it to be worth the effort of buying back licenses.
If the cause is concern about reverse-importation and not content, then I stand corrected. |
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mgosdin
 Posts: 1302 Location: Kissimmee, Florida, USA |
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I had watched several episodes online and was looking forward to having Ro-Kyu-Bu on physical media, so this isn't what I had expected.
If Warner is part of the production committee then I suppose it could be that they were nervous about being associated with the title, and it's mildly risque content, once it was released in hard copy form. Warning, big blathery soap box speech ahead. The U.S.A.'s free speech rights have been traditionally interpreted to be based on a Community level when it comes to controversial subjects, i.e. pornography. What was acceptable in New York City might not be seen as such in Binghamton, let alone cities or neighborhoods in other parts of the US. What I think is happening here is the very definiton of a "Community" is evolving under influence of the Internet / Modern Society. I suspect that the eventual outcome of this will be a re-evaluation of what is permissible under the US's free speech guarantee and likely it will be reread to permit a much wider variety of protected speech. The process will not be smooth or quiet. Mark Gosdin |
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enurtsol
 Posts: 14796 |
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Oh, this is too bad. We were thinking of showing it for the Catholic middle school girls basketball team and cheerleaders where we help out.
It was definitely on international news channels. Such salacious stories involving a man in authority, an acclaimed university community, a legendary coach, and many young kids. |
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aereus
Posts: 574 |
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The one thing I can guess, is that as people have been saying, since this is one of two titles for Warner Bros Japan, that they were told to pull it over the Sandusky stuff.
The only other thing I could see is if they wanted to do their own direct release, or get someone like Aniplex USA to do a "premium" release since it is such a niche title. I'm not a fan of the pedo shows like KnJ, and even Lotte does cross the line IMHO. But RKB I was okay with. Yeah at their age 3.5 years is a decent amount, but lets say he officially "dates" her in 12th grade ... she would be 9th grade. There were a few couples in my HS that were Freshman (9th) and Senior that weren't too out of place. (Granted the Freshman were tall for their ages etc) The fanservice is pretty much just cheesecake stuff, along with the typical bathroom conversations. (Nothing is shown) And just because the MC and Tomoka have a repoire with each other, doesn't mean they're going to be jumping to banging like rabbits in a month. |
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Mr. sickVisionz
 Posts: 2173 |
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I'm surprised to hear people thinking that Sentai didn't want this so they made the JP owners buy it back. I doubt they have that kinda of power to force buybacks of anything they don't want as well as forcing the JP rights owners to buy back the series from every non-Asian country as well.
It's probably something freaky. Maybe they plan on releasing it themselves or are trying some new business plan. |
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Mesonoxian Eve
Posts: 1858 |
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I don't believe the relinquished license is related to the content. I wouldn't be a least bit surprised if the production committee is pulling out because of the legal issues Sentai has found itself in.
The license to DVDs is huge in Japan. If this should get mired down in a legal lawsuit, that means Japanese licensors can do nothing about it. Streaming and OTA licenses aren't as profitable, but DVD licenses can generate a significant revenue for years. Just look at the Yu-Gi-Oh situation with 4Kids. This is a production committee protecting its assets, in my opinion. |
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dragonrider_cody
Posts: 2541 |
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This is extremely unlikely. First of all, this title is a very niche title and wouldn't have been a source of large profits anyway. Secondly, the company on its production committee have been on other committees for many other shows Sentai has licensed, including many that have not been released yet. If this was the case, you would have seen more than one license pulled, and not just for home video. Also, while streaming may not be as profitable as home video in many cases, if they were concerned about the lawsuits between Funi and Sentai, this would do nothing to keep their properties uninvolved as a contract is still in place. Also, it's very unlikely that either Funi or Sentai will go after the Japanese companies that have licensed shows to the other company should either of their cases succeed. |
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HeeroTX
Posts: 2046 Location: Austin, TX |
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One thought re: content. It's possible this is being pulled right now so as to avoid any scrutiny right on top of the Olympics in London (that'd also explain having it pulled from all "non-Asian" markets). It also makes sense with this being nominally a "sports" anime.
re: Reverse Importation, I could totally believe that's a factor though, considering I can show you a discussion thread right now about Japanese comparing the prices of Princess Tutu DVDs in Japan and America. (especially since if you buy the Tutu AMERICAN RELEASE DVDs on Amazon Japan, they're at like 3 times the price of the disc on Amazon US, just to reiterate, this isn't "US Release v. Japanese Release", this is the ADV DVD pack in both US and Japan selling for 3x as much on the Japanese version of Amazon v. the American version, before factoring shipping) |
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zensunni
 Posts: 1294 |
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It isn't a big city thing, that's for sure! I was talking with a coach of a robotics team that told me they had to institute a parent observer at practices in their small town (only one elementary school in the district) because of an incident with a sports team coach and a 15 year old. They decided that they had to protect themselves in case somebody was disgruntled and wanted to cause trouble... It is everywhere. However, I still doubt that this has anything to do with why the production committee pulled the license... 
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EmperorBrandon
Encyclopedia Editor
 Posts: 2210 Location: Springfield, MO |
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Got a link to it? Not that I don't believe you: I'm just really curious to see it. |
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