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This has been a particularly big business news week for fanboys and girls in America. First, Disney bought Marvel, which is still making my head spin. Then Tokyopop lost the right to publish Kodansha properties, making me worry about some manga titles in particular and Tokyopop as a whole. Now, ADV split into several parts, and time will tell how this will affect their older titles, newer stuff, The Anime Network, and future liscences. It's only Wednesday!

Thanks for the editorial. I continue to hope for the health of businesses in America, especially the ones that provide us with nonmainstream entertainment options.

Now, when will we know when Tokyopop will release a Kingdom Hearts manga with the X-Men? Or will Del Rey be in charge...? Wink

Agent355 has been right this has been an interesting business news week. Hopefully, more positive news will come soon.

PetrifiedJello wrote:

A shame, really.

Quote:

For the benefit of those who may not know, part of Nozomi's business plan is to license supah-niche titles subbed, since dubbing them would virtually guarantee losing money.

I gathered that right from the outset in looking at Nozomi titles available for purchase.

In fact, I always wonder what their criteria is for selecting such titles.

I'm wondering if the owner loves the series so much, he just had to bring it over because no one else would.

Thank goodness. Otherwise, I would have never heard of Aria and that's a big kudos for distributing it on TANOD, a competitor's station.

That question actually came up in Right Stuf's AnimeIowa panel this year. Largely they look for what has a strong, but smaller following. So one example would be something that according to the ANN encyclopedia ratings people like a lot, but the numbers show that not too many have actually seen it. Obviously they have several sources too, including their own forums and such with people asking them for specific things.

As for a series being picked up because of the owner, you're actually right in at least one case. I recall that they picked up The Irresponsible Captain Tylor because it is their president's favorite and he wanted to make sure it stuck around. I don't remember where I came across that specifically.

Last edited by Tempest on Wed Sep 02, 2009 11:14 am; edited 1 time in total

mangastudent wrote:

To expand on this and correct an understandable error in the original editorial, specifically:

Christopher Macdonald wrote:

One thing that didn't change is that Sojitz continued to own 20% of A.D.Vision, Inc. This is a big problem because it's very, very hard for a corporation with a major hostile shareholder to acquire financing or investment.

A.D. Vision, Inc. was formed in 1992, and based on the "Inc" and the date was a corporation (probably an S with it having only one shareholder) and not a Limited Liability Company (LLC).

mangastudent wrote:

We're now all generally familiar with the constraints that normally come with an LLC where the various rights of the owners are defined in its Operating Agreement and can be quite restrictive. An LLC provides the limited liability of a corporation while otherwise being organized as a partnership.

You obviously know what you're talking about, but I don't see where the error in the editorial is. We both stated that A.D.Vision Inc. was a corporation, so why are you pointing out the differences between and LLC and a Corp?

-t

tempest wrote:

If your issue is with the statement that ADV's hostile shareholder made it hard for them to raise capital, I unfortunately have to stand by the statement, although I perhaps shouldn't have phrased it to infer that all corporations in the same circumstances would have the same problem.

Ahh, I think I see what you had a problem with.

You were concerned that I was inferring that lenders would shy away from lending such a company because they'd be worried about security. Whereas being fully secured, and having a certain priority at liquidation would protect them.

That is indeed true.

However lenders will shy away from lending money to any company that appears to be crippled, regardless of security. As you said, they don't want to end up in a position where they are trying to auction off seized assets. Whatsmore, I wasn't referring only to fully secured creditors. Non-secured creditors really don't want to lend money to a crippled company for obvious reasons.

Finally, I was also referring to investors. Who's going to invest in a crippled corporation ?

-Chris

tempest wrote:

mangastudent wrote:

To expand on this and correct an understandable error in the original editorial, specifically:

Christopher Macdonald wrote:

One thing that didn't change is that Sojitz continued to own 20% of A.D.Vision, Inc. This is a big problem because it's very, very hard for a corporation with a major hostile shareholder to acquire financing or investment.

mangastudent wrote:

A.D. Vision, Inc. was formed in 1992, and based on the "Inc" and the date was a corporation (probably an S with it having only one shareholder) and not a Limited Liability Company (LLC).

We're now all generally familiar with the constraints that normally come with an LLC where the various rights of the owners are defined in its Operating Agreement and can be quite restrictive. An LLC provides the limited liability of a corporation while otherwise being organized as a partnership.

You obviously know what you're talking about

I consulted my father, who's been doing this sort of thing since the '60s, plus I learned all too much about LLCs in the mid-90s.

Christopher Macdonald wrote:

but I don't see where the error in the editorial is. We both stated that A.D.Vision Inc. was a corporation, so why are you pointing out the differences between and LLC and a Corp?

I made what appears to be an incorrect assumption that what you state below was based on normal LLC vs. corporation governance, plus I thought mentioning details about LLCs would be generally useful since the new corporate entities are LLCs.

Christopher Macdonald wrote:

If your issue is with the statement that ADV's hostile shareholder made it hard for them to raise capital, I unfortunately have to stand by the statement, although I perhaps shouldn't have phrased it to infer that all corporations in the same circumstances would have the same problem.

OK ... but can you be more specific about how a 20% shareholder of a S or C corporation can "made it hard ... to raise capital"? Am I missing something like A.D. Vision having multiple classes of stock?

"AD Vision" doesn't stand for "Animation Dubbing", that's a common myth

Greenfield directly explained in a convention video a year or two ago, that they made the name up spur of the moment, referring to just stuff lying around the office, and it is actually very much an "in joke" -- part of the reason they never told anyone what it really stood for is because they said no one would actually get it and it isn't particularly funny

now, we may never know

tempest wrote:

Who's going to invest in a crippled corporation ?

The United States government.
Wink

Okay, sorry. But I'm very curious to know how ADV became "crippled" to begin with. Was it strictly because of Sojitz? 20% isn't what I'd call a "crippling" situation, especially if such lending could remove the crutch holding Sojitz in place.

Moreso, if receiving capitalization was difficult for ADV as a corporation, just wait until they see the pitfalls of using an LLC.

Jokingly, a friend said "LLC really means Lacking Lending Capital", given banks know that risks to LLC are huge.

Your take? (I won't mind if you don't care to share).

Hello, my name is Section 23, not ADV, and I come from...a land far away...

I say we invest that money back into our new company, which just formed blocks away from the former ADV site

Smithers help me!

_V_ wrote:

"AD Vision" doesn't stand for "Animation Dubbing", that's a common myth

Greenfield directly explained in a convention video a year or two ago, that they made the name up spur of the moment, referring to just stuff lying around the office, and it is actually very much an "in joke" -- part of the reason they never told anyone what it really stood for is because they said no one would actually get it and it isn't particularly funny

now, we may never know

I'm pretty sure Mr. Greenfield said in some video commentary that AD does stand for Animation Dubbing. Though he might have been explaining that it was a myth. I'll have to check my Greenfield commented tracks. The three shows I own off the top of my head where he comments are Megazone 23 (Section 23, haha), Dragon Half and the Eva directors cuts. I think it was Megazone...

_V_ wrote:

"AD Vision" doesn't stand for "Animation Dubbing", that's a common myth

Greenfield directly explained in a convention video a year or two ago, that they made the name up spur of the moment, referring to just stuff lying around the office, and it is actually very much an "in joke" -- part of the reason they never told anyone what it really stood for is because they said no one would actually get it and it isn't particularly funny

now, we may never know

Yeah, I've heard this one too. To be honest, it's credible, but their early VHS releases do indeed state that they are released by Animation Dubbing Video in the credits.

Perhaps they came up with the words after they came up with the letters.

-t

PetrifiedJello wrote:

Okay, sorry. But I'm very curious to know how ADV became "crippled" to begin with. Was it strictly because of Sojitz? 20% isn't what I'd call a "crippling" situation, especially if such lending could remove the crutch holding Sojitz in place.

Well, the obvious answer to that is quite simply the loss of product. That's what crippled them in the first place.

And yes, the existence of a hostile 20% shareholder (who may have had various first right or shotgun options) does indeed cause serious challenges to a company's ability to raise capital.

Now, I have to admit...I didn't speculate on everything. Some of it is based on inside information. Problem is, I know some of the problems that ADV faced without knowing the exact cause.

I, obviously, am not privy to ADVision Inc's shareholder agreement. But I know that the Sojitz issue did present a significant barrier to their ability to bring in new funds. I'm not saying that Sojitz made it impossible (I don't know that), but perhaps the options that were available to ADV just weren't options they were willing to undertake. Anyways, now we're in serious speculation territory, much farther than I wanted to go...

-t

tempest wrote:

Anyways, now we're in serious speculation territory, much farther than I wanted to go...

Sorry about that. Didn't mean to pressure you like that.

I'm pretty much content at this point. Seeing how "ADV" is still chugging along, I guess it's now up to me to just sit back and wait until they can regain their "glory" days, if possible.

It's going to be an interesting next two years.

tempest wrote:

_V_ wrote:

"AD Vision" doesn't stand for "Animation Dubbing", that's a common myth

Greenfield directly explained in a convention video a year or two ago, that they made the name up spur of the moment, referring to just stuff lying around the office, and it is actually very much an "in joke" -- part of the reason they never told anyone what it really stood for is because they said no one would actually get it and it isn't particularly funny

now, we may never know

Yeah, I've heard this one too. To be honest, it's credible, but their early VHS releases do indeed state that they are released by Animation Dubbing Video in the credits.

Perhaps they came up with the words after they came up with the letters.

Well, they could have meant dubbing in the old sense of duplication, such as the "High-speed Dubbing" feature on some two-tape boomboxes and such in the 80s and early 90s.

And possibly both are true... perhaps Ledford came up with the name on the fly during the Yohko negotiations, and then later came up with the backronym for it involving the word dubbing in the duplication sense.

Blood- wrote:

For the benefit of those who may not know, part of Nozomi's business plan is to license supah-niche titles subbed, since dubbing them would virtually guarantee losing money. I'm a dub-lubber myself, but my philosophy is always: better a sub than nothing at all.

Unless you live in Spain or France, since you will be forced by law to include a dub, regardless you lose money or not. Rolling Eyes

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