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Hey, Answerman! - Color Me Surprised

Fist of the North Star DID get another chance, you can buy all 4 boxsets containing the whole series for a very reasonable price.

Also, Brian's right, FUNimation gave a VERY GENEROUS chance with Case Closed. Releasing Seasons 4 and 5 in 26-episode sets for $50 MSRP right off the bat is the best episode/price ratio an initial release (key word is "initial", before someone gets confused) has gotten from FUNimation, or heck probably any anime company for that matter. Add 6 movies, and any griping is just ridiculous. Not to mention FUNimation has hinted more of the movies (not TV series, that's over) might be licensed as movies 1-6 sold fairly well.

Well. Osaka, Canada, what's the difference? I, for one, can't tell them apart. They're both famous for their comedy and their funny way of talking.

As I mentioned the US first editions do have them. Not sure about Viz, none of the manga I have from them had colour pages originaly.

Well. Osaka, Canada, what's the difference? I, for one, can't tell them apart. They're both famous for their comedy and their funny way of talking.

Fist of the North Star DID get another chance, you can buy all 4 boxsets containing the whole series for a very reasonable price.

Also, Brian's right, FUNimation gave a VERY GENEROUS chance with Case Closed. Releasing Seasons 4 and 5 in 26-episode sets for $50 MSRP right off the bat is the best episode/price ratio an initial release (key word is "initial", before someone gets confused) has gotten from FUNimation, or heck probably any anime company for that matter. Add 6 movies, and any griping is just ridiculous. Not to mention FUNimation has hinted more of the movies (not TV series, that's over) might be licensed as movies 1-6 sold fairly well.

Originally Posted by matthewlow
As to do all of you guys a favor who told me to ask, while I was volunteering at the Funimation booth at San Diego Comic-Con, I asked Adam Sheehan what the "real story behind the status of Case Closed" is. Oh, and Sheehan gave me his blessing to post this.

First off, Sheehan mentioned that this has been told many times before, from the ANN Cast to AnimeExpo (though probably not as extensive as he told me). He said he's answered this question over and over, but people are just not facing reality. FACE IT. Funimation is done with Conan as a TV series. There are no plans whatsoever to license more of the Conan TV series. It just isn't going to happen with Funimation.

Conan has been given THREE lives, and has failed them all miserably.
Life ONE: Cartoon Network and Adult Swim, and single DVDs. Single DVDs (3 episodes) with Conan were a miserable failure, and in hindsight that's completely obvious for a series that had around 500 episodes (at the time). Coupled with it being a kids show on Adult Swim at 5:30 am (at some times), it was just not a good fit. (Though I did meet a kid whose mom told me at the Funi booth that her son would wake up at 5:30 just to watch Conan. You rock!)
Life ONE and a half: Case 1 and 2/3 were released with 6 episodes each (outside of 1.1). This didn't work either.
Life TWO: Season sets with 25-27 episodes. This also failed.
Life THREE: Viridian season sets. This also failed.

Failed as in meet expectations. The licensing fees and marketing money put into Conan were a lot, and the sales in return didn't come close to meeting expectations (and likely recur costs). Sheehan could not give me numbers, but let's just say they were bad. Conan has a TON of rabid fans, but there aren't enough casual fans (e.g. Kenichi) that push sales along. And you have to consider that many of the "fans" don't even buy the DVDs.

So how about the movies? Life FOUR? The movies sold well, according to Sheehan. Funimation may go after movies, for the sheer reason that the story is in the box and there's not as much backstory you NEED to keep going. Movies overall sell better than a series, especially a long running one.

So how about a simulcast? Not going to happen. Funimation wants to simulcast series that start at the beginning. Getting series in the middle are not likely, and One Piece only happened because it was actually Toei's idea.

So how about the Lupin vs Conan special? Specials are an option, notably this one since it has two fan bases to fuel sales.

Sheehan ranked it in terms of importance: Movies on top, right below are specials, and all the way on the bottom is the TV series.

I asked, "If the movies sell well, could that give birth to the series continuing?" Never say never in that case, but there would need to be a 10 TIMES sales increase (i.e. yeah right) for that to happen.

Sheehan summed it up with saying that the best hope for Conan is for the license to run out (and he could not tell me when that would be), and a smaller company with less overhead to pick it up (likely for subbed release). Section 23, NIS, and Nozomi were mentioned. He also mentioned that just like the Lupin license where ADV got the series and Funi had the movies that they could do the movies and have another company continue the series.

Thus, the case is closed on the Case Closed TV series. Stop this nonsense. It isn't going to happen.

Oh, and to top it off, I even asked Gen Fukunaga (as a joke, saying it half laughing). He, along with the entire Funi crew he was with (Adam Zaner, et. al.), laughed with me. "We wish."

There are a few family-friendly shows that draw huge audiences that air in prime time (Detective Conan, Doraemon, Pokemon), kids shows that air in the mornings over the weekend (One Piece), and a whole mess of shows that air late at night for the austere, "mature" individual (everything else). To the vast majority of the Japanese populace, "anime" is basically for kids and teenagers and otherwise socially maladjusted, lonely shut-ins. Huh. That sounds familiar.

penguintruth wrote:

For several seasons, the dub implied the show took place in the Western United States and referred to Osaka as Canada.

Well. Osaka, Canada, what's the difference? I, for one, can't tell them apart. They're both famous for their comedy and their funny way of talking.

If the Higurashi thing was any indication, expect T-minus 5 minutes before some lunkhead calls Sheehan's response "rude and unprofessional"....or a liar.

Is no one not looking at the fact that in the beginning FUNimation was releasing Case Closed in DVD singles during the time? How can a company suspect a long running series to sell well by releasing it through singles. I heard FUNimation started skipping episodes on the single DVDs also. After releasing a certain amount of episodes on the singles, they went onto releasing single DVDs that contained the episodes that weren't shown on TV. Anyways, it's great that it actually had a chance to be aired on TV, but I'm also sure that a bad time slot didn't help the series at all. FUNimation overall just did a decent job with this series. Not outstanding. Not terrible. Just decent.

Reaper gI wrote:

As I mentioned the US first editions do have them. Not sure about Viz, none of the manga I have from them had colour pages originaly.

Actually, I just went and checked my copy of Tegami Bachi (the manga that started all of this, which is published by Viz) and the first three volumes I have also have color pages so I guess Viz is printing some color pages now too.