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ShanaFan852 wrote:

With Aniplex licenses dropping like flies lately, I decided to make a list. Note how many are still OOP and AoA has done absolutely nothing.
http://myanimelist.net/blog.php?eid=781052

It's a total shame that Aniplex of the U.S. seems so intent on hoarding so many out-of-print shows and not do anything with them. No wonder why they get so much hate, besides their exorbitant prices.

Even though we don't know of this is going back to Aniplex, well, god I hope not. They've been sitting on Samuri Flamenco for over two years now and let me tell you, I very much wanted to buy that show ridiculous pricing policies be damned. But don't get me started on backlogged "physical releases."

It's a shame something that sold so well might fades off to be resold at a higher 'value.'

Nyren wrote:

Rinkwolf wrote:

Was $50 not reasonable? Also, you are shit out of luck if things go as previously stated and it ends up in Aniplex's hands. They will give you a price that will make the idea of a making a time machine just to go back in time to purchase the Funimation release more feasible.

I didn't have any money when that Premium set was released. And now it's upwards of $100 when I checked last week. I also read some reviews that didn't really have anything good to say about the quality of said release. Other than that there was just the DVD release, and I only go Blu-Ray these days unless there isn't any other option.

If you are interested RightStuf still has it in stock and if you are a GotA member you can get it for around $67. The Premium Ed isn't what I would call Premium, but if you really like the show and want it on BD the $70-75 range isn't outrageous.

I don't really get the reason for the clawback on these titles. I can see Aniplex just hogging the streaming rights, building their streaming catalog and making good money that way. But not having a physical release seems to be leaving money on the table. They could always hang onto streaming rights and license physical release rights for old shows if they didn't want to release them themselves. Unless someone in upper management has made the decision that because of reverse importation they will only release physically once at high prices and then it goes to streaming leaving fans and future fans SOL.

Well first of all, this is horrible news! Darker Than Black is one of my favorite shows and it's a shame to see it go out of print (perhaps forever since AoA will sit on it).

Next, I got a question:

>Is this one of those rare circumstances where Funimation lost the license because they messed up or AoA took it by force? Or is this the fate of any license? Will other shows that have been licensed for a decade or so start disappearing too?

Ambimunch wrote:

>Is this one of those rare circumstances where Funimation lost the license because they messed up or AoA took it by force?

Imho there isn't any evidence that Funi screwed up at this time. When the BD PE was released they said that it would be limited to 5,000 units and once it was gone it would be gone. Its possible that they knew this was coming down the pipe. As far as "by force"? Its quite possible that the license just expired and was not offered for renewal. So its not certain that it was by force.

FMAvatard wrote:

They've been sitting on Samuri Flamenco for over two years now

Didn't they say that they weren't going to release it due to the low viewership it got while it was streaming.

I luckily saw a blurb about this on another forum and just got in my order for the second season's BluRay/DVD combo pack from Funimation for $18 in their clearance section last night. I enjoyed the first, but never got around to the second or the OVAs. It'll be fun to revisit.

I was just about to watch it too. D:

Funimation had the licence for 8 years? That's how long licences last generally.

Chances are nobody recalled the licence, nobody screwed up, nobody spent money buying it back off them, it probably just ran the scheduled length of it's contract.

It's a shame it expired, but these licences don't last forever, and I fail to see why anyone was expecting it to. Nobody needs to starts slagging Aniplex off for something they probably didn't do.

There's quite a bit of ignorance going on in this thread, which I guess is something one can expect when it comes to industry matters, but no, AoA is not "stealing" or forcibly taking any shows. AoA most likely doesn't even have anything to do with this.

Possible options for these events could be that AoJ either wants more money for renewal of license, don't want to license out the show at all, or Funimation doesn't want to renew the license themselves.

mgosdin wrote:

This may explain the presence of Funimation on a production committee. Harder for Aniplex to pull a title when you can look them in the eye and say "You can't have it either."

Mark Gosdin

Considering that Aniplex isn't on the production committee of Dimension W I don't think they care at all.

MarshalBanana wrote:

Didn't they say that they weren't going to release it due to the low viewership it got while it was streaming.

Correct. Samurai Flamenco had abysmal streaming views, and even more abysmal sales in Japan. There is no reason to put out a physical release that will sell just as abysmally.

I love that word.

SouthPacific wrote:

There's quite a bit of ignorance going on in this thread, which I guess is something one can expect when it comes to industry matters, but no, AoA is not "stealing" or forcibly taking any shows. AoA most likely doesn't even have anything to do with this.

Possible options for these events could be that AoJ either wants more money for renewal of license, don't want to license out the show at all, or Funimation doesn't want to renew the license themselves.

I think people complaining about AoA are more complaining about AoJ. AoJ could be hording these licenses because of reverse importation fears, or whatever, with the intention of offering them to AoA in the future, where they have much more control. Based on AoA's behavior over the last couple of years, I'm not a big fan of that possibility, since, given their release format, only the big shows are going to make them money, and therefore only the big shows are going to get physical releases. They've stated as much a couple of times now. The rest of their titles are probably going to legally stream, which is great, but I'm a collector, and I don't just want to watch these shows, I want to own them. Unfortunately for me, my tastes are a little more broad than what is popular, so a lot of their titles that I want, I will likely never be able to own. So F*ck them. I'm not going to make their PR rep's job very easy at Katsucon next month.

I did not like this show in 2008, but just in the last year I have felt the need to put it in the rewatch pile. I want to see it at least one more time before I can offer an unbiased opinion about this news. If rights do revert back to Aniplex, it will be up to you guys in the meantime to whether or not it will get a rerelease. Don't be fooled for a second that they do not follow the news on this site and read the forum posts concerning their products. If you want it, keep asking, and their response will depend purely upon how much money they can make doing so. I don't believe they care about anything else other than that, a more Japanese business asthetic of targeting otaku-centric physical collectors, something that is harder for casual Western fans to accept.

ShanaFan852 wrote:

CCTakato wrote:

Did Funi also confirm they don't have Air TV anymore?

No, but the show page removal confirms it. Now to hope Sentai rescues it, gets episode 13 back as well (It's only on the ADV singles), and gets Blu-ray rights. Same goes for Kanon (2006) which FUNimation will lose in the near future (Those Sojtiz titles have been going fast). That "Making of Kanon" extra missing from FUNi's release (Only on the ADV singles) being widely available again would be rather nice, especially on Blu-ray.

Percival King wrote:

Wonderful. This cockblock has been brought to you by Aniplex of America. Please look forward to our Blu-ray re-release of Darker Than Black later this year, for the low low price of $350!

More like it won't even come out at all from them. AoA has stated before catalog titles are of no concern to them. With Aniplex licenses dropping like flies lately, I decided to make a list. Note how many are still OOP and AoA has done absolutely nothing.
http://myanimelist.net/blog.php?eid=781052

Given Darker Than Black was a big title for FUNi, it seems rather strange it'd go OOP, they also lost S2. What seems most likely at this point is Aniplex is blocking companies/forcing companies to lose their Aniplex titles. At this point it's possible FUNimation may even lose Fullmetal Alchemist despite how successful that's been (Just like Darker Than Black, albeit not nearly on the same scale).

So they're even bigger cockblocks than we originally thought.

Why the f*ck are these dickstains still in business? ...Oh. Wait, I know. Cause people still keep buying crap from them blindly!

Sorry, but no. I've given this whole argument pause, but frankly, it's all bullshit. If you buy stuff from AoA, you're doing more damage than piracy ever did. It's a bloody fact. Stop denying it, stop justifying it, stop looking down on people who don't shell out five hundred f*cking dollars on a 12-episode series like you, and start doing something proactive about it. Like start to stop buying from them.

We brought this up over on the FUNimation forums, and on the subject of shows quietly being removed from the site, Sophie, one of the admins and an employee for FUNimation, had this to say:

Sophie wrote:

The process for licensing and renewing licenses for anime is elaborate.

Shows come up for renewal all the time, especially when you consider that we've been licensing more and more shows each season. We try to renew them all, and over 90% of those shows do get renewed. Unfortunately, there are a few of these shows where we cannot come to an agreement on renewal.

To improve your experience, here is what we'd like to do:

1. We will keep attempting to renew everything we can.
2. If we aren't able to come to an agreement and we know the date that the show is to come down, then we will announce this in the Site Information & News Forum. We will also cross post the thread to the relevant show forum.
3. When a licensor requests that we remove a show immediately, we will tell you that is what happened in Site Information & News Forum. We will also cross post the thread to the relevant show forum.

We will try our best to give you warning on as many shows as possible that have to come down, but there might be a small number that have to come down without warning.

We are continuing to discuss what else we can do, but we wanted to give you information quickly.

So they are aware of the issue, and they are going to be more forthcoming as to when shows will come down from now on. From the way Sophie worded things, I think it's safe to assume that in Darker Than Black's specific case, they were probably forced to remove it immediately without any warning.

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