Forum - View topicAnswerman - Why Does Anime Go Unlicensed?
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CandisWhite
Posts: 282 |
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Japanese is not French or Spanish, a language that is regularly taught in schools and is spoken quite frequently in North America; Finding professionals who can speak fluent Japanese is harder and they would probably demand a lot more money. Most anime licensors in English North America are not Disney; They have shallow pockets: Plain logistics probably make having great numbers of educated, bilingual, staff on board a no-go. |
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Razor/Edge
Posts: 607 |
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I always figured Hyouka never got licensed because it aired right when Bandai went out of business. Bandai had been licensing every KyoAni show for years before that point. And then Sentai has mostly taken over since then. But Hyouka feel into the crack between when the US companies got switched. Hopefully someone will license it some day, as it is a KyoAni show after all, and it seems to be quite popular anime fans over here. I can't even begin to tell you the dozens upon dozens of posts i've read lamenting why Hyouka hasn't been released in the US yet.
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BadNewsBlues
Posts: 6206 |
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Z & Ball were considerably dated when they wound up on Toonami especially since both were 80's animation.
She must've thought she was Hayao Miyazaki despite having none of the notoriety or established history. |
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explosionforgov
Posts: 80 Location: United States of America |
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I know JoJo's initially didn't make it over here (the U.S.) due to a mixture of copyright issues (so many characters named after either songs, musicians, or fashion designers) and Araki being ashamed of his art in "Phantom Blood" and "Battle Tendency," the first two Parts. I don't mind his old art, honestly. The anatomy is definitely janky, but other than that, the style is pretty great. And it's impressive to see his artwork progress.
Saint Young Men never made it into the States, for fear of offending religious groups. I'm neither Christian or Buddhist, but I thought the OVA was really cute and inoffensive. I know a heavy reliance on puns has kept some series from being translated into any other language. If it's a comedy show, and a lot of the jokes only work in its native language, I can understand not wanting to bother with it. |
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relyat08
Posts: 4125 Location: Northern Virginia |
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Right. Which is why it falls into the 6th category: "Probably Not popular enough". Just because the digital rights were available and picked up doesn't necessarily mean that the home video rights were also available, but it does seem more likely. Which makes me think that the fact that Funimation hasn't gotten the physical rights means it has not performed well enough to justify the cost. |
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BakuformerAnime
Posts: 28 |
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What, no Aikatsu?
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Zin5ki
Posts: 6680 Location: London, UK |
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A wise stratagem. Australia is quite a bountiful place for niche series that North America has overlooked, much like how the UK always keeps a small number of theatrical releases to itself. Mixing-and-matching is a rewarding enterprise for the most ardent of fans, import taxes permitting. |
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ZakuAce
Posts: 525 Location: SE Wisconsin |
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Chalk me up as another "but why didn't chihayafuru get licensed?!" Person. I assume it falls under the "too obscure to license" catagory, which can go on a pedastal with tatami galaxy as "popular with critics and a select group of fans but that's not enough." I do wonder if, with the current licensing blitz, whether either or both those shows would find their way to home video if they came out today. But unfortunately they were both released during a time when the US Industry was struggling and US companies had to be careful with what they spent money on.
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peno
Posts: 349 |
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I personally would like to know why the original Yu-Gi-Oh series and its accompanying movie weren't licensed. I keep hearing it was too dark and violent, but after seeing what 4Kids did with One Piece, I doubt that was the reason. And I also doubt Toei wouldn't want this to be licensed, so I keep thinking there must be another reason. Correct me if I am wrong, but I've heard even in Japan, this series only got home video release in VHS shorly after its premier and that's it, it never was released anywhere after that. That made me think, though I may be wrong, that this probably fall under number 1, Kazuki Takahashi probably doesn't want this to ever be seen again, which is shame IMO.
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AtoMan
Posts: 161 |
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Pretty sure it was entangled in some licensing issues - Toei lists it up for licensing, but if it was available, SOMEONE would grab it already considering the moderate length.
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wonderwomanhero
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I seem to recall hearing that Riyoko Ikeda demanded that her work not be released stateside. I do not know the reason why. Did she ever explain why she declined on the offer for so long?
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leafy sea dragon
Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
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Depends. Peer pressure can be a pretty powerful thing, and businesspeople can get quite good at appealing via the bandwagon approach. Also depends on the culture. Most notably, Confucianism frowns upon creativity and innovation (that is, Confucius had a dim view of progress), and prefers imitation as it is a sign of respect for your predecessors. Confucianism also frowns upon doing things for money too though.
That's interesting, that when a Japanese company buys another one, the company that's been bought retains the rights to the stuff it made prior. I'm used to seeing American buyouts, which happen because they want the other company's legacy material. That's the bread and butter of a mergers-and-acquisitions company, like Johnson & Johnson or Tencent: Almost everything these companies produce is something previously made by a smaller company. Are there any mergers-and-acquisitions companies in Japan, or is NTV buying Madhouse more an exception? I noticed when Nintendo buys other game companies, like Rareware or Monolith Soft, Nintendo's top bananas don't seem to be that interested in them making more of what they previously produced, but mainly interested in them making new IPs under the Nintendo brand.
I think nearly all of them do have at least one person fluent in Japanese. I think the problems are that some of the smaller ones might not have the resources to frequently fly that person over to Japan to make deals, and one of the between-the-lines meanings I get from that sentence in the article is that minor anime studios don't have experience in how English-language contracts work. The latter means they're afraid an overseas company might exploit them.
It could possibly also be a way of her saying "no" without outright refusing by creating an impossible request. Less likely, it is also possible she thinks anime localization companies are Hollywood or have Hollywood-like stature and that major media award shows like the Academy Awards are open to non-nominees.
I thought it was because some major movie studio sat on the rights all this time and didn't let go until recently. I know that was why it took so long for Parasyte to get an anime.
4Kids was careful in what it chose to acquire. Every license it picked up already looked like a show aimed at kids and would appeal strongly for them (One Pieceincluded). Notice that 4Kids completely ignored Fullmetal Alchemist, for instance, even though it was quite popular in Japan at the time and many anime fans I knew following the English localization business thought 4Kids would get it because they had been snatching up near everything else that's really popular. The 4Kids people probably saw that its first episode had the Elric Bros. defeat a corrupt priest, and it just became less kid-friendly from there, and decided against it. 4Kids, now known as 4Licensing, still has some control over the Yu-Gi-Oh! franchise in the Anglosphere, though I'm not certain exactly how much. But I'm guessing there's enough control that they get to decide what gets brought over and what doesn't. |
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Guile
Posts: 595 |
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That's an old wives tale spread about on the internet. Toei's Yu Gi Oh series is no more dark or violent than the various Studio Gallop series. Toei's series never even showed blood like the later ones do, so its actually the most tame. The series just wasn't popular and it was never released on DVD there. It was a complete failure, which is why Studio Gallop rebooted it to much better success. There's no reason to license it when a superior version already exists. It was also based on one of the most unpopular parts of the manga which doesnt help. |
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BadNewsBlues
Posts: 6206 |
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It's superior if you don't mind some awkwardness like powerful cards being played without tributes and Yugi and the others talking so highly about friendship when they aren't punching or collar grabbing one another for silly stuff . |
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Kadmos1
Posts: 13591 Location: In Phoenix but has an 85308 ZIP |
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If you know at least 1 title she has worked, please show the name so we can ID this woman. |
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