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I'd be very upset to see Geneon go under, as they generally tend to license the bulk of the stuff I like. I'm sure they'll figure this out, though.

Geneon has a licencing deal with many future animes that could come out. Some of my favorites is "Sky Girls", which just started playing three months ago in Japan, and the second season of "Shakugan no Shana" which will come out later this year or early the next. And without a distribution deal it could mean a lot longer for these shows to come out Confused

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I'm sure that in time things will work out, it's just irritating in the mean time cause we don't have any answers. So like many of us, I'll just wait and see what happens. Business is business, things will work themselves out Wink

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Porcupine wrote:

I'm gonna support Kokuwa on this one. IF Geneon simply bails on all their current releases, especially things such as the final volume of Fate/Stay Night set to release in about a week, their company deserves to go under. Lower-level employees who don't have any control over this I could feel sorry for, but anyone in a position of authority or reasonable authority in that company would be partially responsible for the worst anime disaster of ALL TIME. Such people deserve to lose their jobs. They deserve worse, actually.

But my comments only hold IF a disaster is unfolding. We don't know that yet. Hopefully that's not the case.

But whose fault is the disaster?

It's us. Fans. People who have made the market so unprofitable, that Geneon had to outsource dubs to Odex, and eventually had the problems leak into the japanese side of things with Dentsu pulling out so it can just become a licensing entity. Which means FAR, FAR, FAR less anime for us all.

People who chose to watch illegal, downloaded versions of anime rather the supporting the legitimate release. If people supported Geneon's releases more, mabye they'd still be having issues due to whatever Dentsu's problems are, or mabye they'd still be around, and releasing even more titles then they are currently.

I'm hoping this is all just a bit of mild turbulence, and that Geneon dumped ADV for a better deal, or that they were somehow able to reestablish themselves, and that it's all a bad dream.

Geneon made the most goregeous dvd's out there- beautiful packaging, superior translation, and all the trinkets and shiny artboxes fans could ever whinge for. I hope the people in their marketing division get jobs within the anime/manga industry, because their talent would be a severe loss.

They released big hits like Hellsing and Black Lagoon, but they also supported fan-aimed shows, shojo shows, and lots of wierd/obscure anime over the years. This is a company that's been giving us good anime for almost 15 years now, that were responsible for bringing Sailor Moon back from the dead. They got a whack of shows onto Cartoon Network, Razor, G4TechTV, and all kinds of cable channels. They're good to us.

Why can't we be good to them?

It's a real disservice for people to dump on them for having financial problems now, when it's probably fandom's fault their in this situation.

We don't know what's happening, and I hope all this is just a bad dream, but I can't take anyone saying "They deserve this", and "we still have fansubs"

Stuff like that means the death of anime.

Citan wrote:

I'm pretty sure the previous articles stated that its just the sales/distribution that ADV was taking over. Not production. I think Geneon will still continue to produce products, they just need to find a way to distribute them now. Shows in the works are still in the works, we just might see release delays until they get it all solved. Definitely not good news, but I woudln't have a heart attack just yet.

You're right, the previous articles only mentioned sales & marketing. Production was a detail that hadn't leaked to the public yet. While we know that Geneon wants to end their production, we didn't know how they were going to handle it in the future and were trying to get that information before publicizing it. But given these new developments, we decided to include that information in this article.

Dentsu plans on laying off all of Geneon's production staff before the end of the year.

These plans may however need to change now, I don't know.

-t

Paploo wrote:

I hope Geneon USA [and their shows] can find a way to survive all this.... this is a real shame, and a very disturbing sign of the market if they're just going to exit altogether. Let's hope for the best.......

yeah i hope your right I just got volume 1 of The Story of Saiunkoku, and thats a 9 volume series, i just hope it will get released I hate not getting a whole series.

Mary

Tempest, thank you for giving us all the info.

I think people should step back, take a look at what this means about fandom, and the industry, and do their best from now on to make sure this doesn't happen to anymore companies. After CPM going into hibernation and letting so many of their titles licenses expire, it'd be horrible to lose another producer of anime like this.

People don't understand the repercussions this sort of thing'll have on the japanese industry- Geneon has released a ton of shows over the years, and with one less company releasing stuff here [Geneon did more then just Geneon/Pioneer shows.... they've released productions from many companies over the years], especially a bigger one, it means a lot less anime for us. Which means a lot less anime'll get produced in Japan, as now resources from US producers will be spread out even further. With less new titles getting licensed, you have to wonder how it'll affect the japanese side of things [didn't an article go up recently revealing a large drop of fall anime TV productions?]

I for one, am going to do my best to support Geneon, and the titles they produce, and continue to buy them whenever possible [already have Hellsing Ultimate 3 on order in fact]

---Geneon is also a major sponsor of lots of Anime Conventions. This isn't something that'll just affect DVD buyers- it affects EVERYTHING. Anime Clubs, Conventions, anime on cable television, anime at libraries, magazines like Newtype, Protoculture, and AnimeInsider that Geneon advertises in, websites they advertise one- a lot of people will be losing out.

Paploo, sorry if you did not see my previous post's edited version in time. Although I hadn't read your latest post at the time, I think I already addressed the things you asked me about in it. I totally agree with you that fansubs are hurting the anime industry badly. And I totally agree that this could in turn hurt Geneon USA and cause it to go out of business.

The only thing though is that I do not think this excuses Geneon USA for "suddenly" going under and abandoning all its paying customers. It doesn't even come close to excusing that behavior. I could understand and accept a graceful and gradual exit from the business. That's what I would expect from such a major licensing company (easily responsible for 33% to 40% of all currently releasing anime titles) that is going out of business. I would accept if Geneon USA slowly licensed less and less then finally went out of business. I could also accept it if they went out of business suddenly but made professional preparations to finish series that they have currently licensed and are releasing. But suddenly ceasing operations and leaving all its titles half-released is not acceptable, no matter the state of the anime industry, and no matter the reason.

Again though this is all speculation, hopefully the disaster won't come true.

SpikesGrrl wrote:

Paploo wrote:

I hope Geneon USA [and their shows] can find a way to survive all this.... this is a real shame, and a very disturbing sign of the market if they're just going to exit altogether. Let's hope for the best.......

yeah i hope your right I just got volume 1 of The Story of Saiunkoku, and thats a 9 volume series, i just hope it will get released I hate not getting a whole series.

Mary

I really do hope that Geneon USA's staff'll do their best to find a way to ensure their current releases get finished, especially considering it's possible many of these series have already completed dubs [and corresponding subtitle scripts] given the long period of time involved in production....

Last edited by Paploo on Thu Sep 20, 2007 7:24 pm; edited 1 time in total

Porcupine wrote:

The only thing though is that I do not think this excuses Geneon USA for "suddenly" going under and abandoning all its paying customers. It doesn't even come close to excusing that behavior. I could understand and accept a graceful and gradual exit from the business. That's what I would expect from such a major licensing company (easily responsible for 33% to 40% of all currently releasing anime titles) that is going out of business.
I would accept if Geneon USA slowly licensed less and less then finally went out of business. I could also accept it if they went out of business suddenly but made professional preparations to finish series that they have currently licensed and are releasing. But suddenly ceasing operations and leaving all its titles half-released is not acceptable, no matter the state of the anime industry, and no matter the reason.

Again though this is all speculation, hopefully the disaster won't come true.

The fact is though, is that when companies close, it's often unexpected, and often unplanned. It's be nice and fluffu if they could make a graceful exit, but I'm not going to hold a grudge against them and their staff if they don't.

If it really is Dentsu behind all this, and a sudden change of plans, it's not Geneon's fault, and I imagine they're doing whatever they can to make things as graceful as possible. But sometimes that's not possible..... and seeing as fandom is in some ways responsible for the gaping wound that's causing their closure, I think fandom as a whole should take a good look at themselves.

I'm just looking at it realistically. This really is a rude awakening for fandom, but one had to come someday. Let's hope Geneon won't end up being the one taking the bullet, and it's all a close shave

[mind you- as work on dubs for many shows might already be done, and agreements with distributors for already scheduled titles months in advance already locked in place, it's entirely possible a graceful exit might occur with only a handful of titles left blowing in the wind.

But I'm not going to blame Geneon for this. Dentsu, mabye a little, but there's so many sketchy things out there beyond the control of both, I can't help but cast a shadow over some of the choices fandom makes......]

Anime isn't all sunshine and kittens and glomping fans stumbling about on sugar highs- it's a business, and sometimes, horrible, horrible things happen that are beyond the control of those with good intentions delivering us anime. Anime Fandom has been making bad decisions, letting far too many things pass, and I think it's time we looked at it all seriously.

Geneon USA has an excellent record. I don't know what it is Dentsu's thinking- mabye they're evil, hate US anime fans, shove puppies in ovens, and are to blame for everything.

Mabye they have jobs, productions and businesses to think of that all mean they can't keep Geneon USA afloat while still making the anime we all love.

Mabye we're the ones shoving puppies in ovens everytime a fansub gets downloaded.

This is all just sad, depressing stuff. Sorry to be so negative, but GAH, fandome needs to wake up and smell the Pocky.

I really hope Geneon doesn't go under they brought alot of good anime back in the day and now as well

This seriously scares me. I have about 5 or 6 ongong series with Geneon that won't be finished by year's end. Not to mention they licensed a few shows I wanted to check out, and now they may not even be releasing them. I really hope they find another deal, because if they don't I will be highly upset (not that it matters).

I'm beginning to wonder if Hellsing Ultimate Vol. 4 will even get a release? People have been anticipating the Millennium war in animated format for a long time now. The first two episodes were more of a rehash to those who saw the TV series with the third being the official transition into manga story mode.

If Geneon is planning to go under and leave the Hellsing Ultimate releases at 3/10, I'll seriously be devastated. Even more so than the time FUNimation chose to cancel the single releases of the first season of Dragonball Z but that's another story altogether.

paploo wrote:

People don't understand the repercussions this sort of thing'll have on the japanese industry- Geneon has released a ton of shows over the years, and with one less company releasing stuff here [Geneon did more then just Geneon/Pioneer shows.... they've released productions from many companies over the years], especially a bigger one, it means a lot less anime for us. Which means a lot less anime'll get produced in Japan, as now resources from US producers will be spread out even further. With less new titles getting licensed, you have to wonder how it'll affect the japanese side of things [didn't an article go up recently revealing a large drop of fall anime TV productions?

Actually, there is the possibility of FUNimation picking up the pieces. FUNimation seems to have great luck with anime and have repeatedly boasted about being the leader in distribution. I think more companies would be eager to go to FUNimation considering their excellent distribution methods (aside from Dragonball Z).

xstylus wrote:

kokuryu wrote:

All the more reason for fansubs to exist when stupid stuff like this happens...

Im glad I didn't buy When They Cry - or I would be crying right now

It's you and attitudes like that which are the reason why Geneon is in the situation they're in, sir. I hope you're proud.

The situation involves a lot more then that actually. And you're general uninformed rude judgment is no better then his comments either.

tempest wrote:

Citan wrote:

I'm pretty sure the previous articles stated that its just the sales/distribution that ADV was taking over. Not production. I think Geneon will still continue to produce products, they just need to find a way to distribute them now. Shows in the works are still in the works, we just might see release delays until they get it all solved. Definitely not good news, but I woudln't have a heart attack just yet.

You're right, the previous articles only mentioned sales & marketing. Production was a detail that hadn't leaked to the public yet. While we know that Geneon wants to end their production, we didn't know how they were going to handle it in the future and were trying to get that information before publicizing it. But given these new developments, we decided to include that information in this article.

Dentsu plans on laying off all of Geneon's production staff before the end of the year.

These plans may however need to change now, I don't know.

-t

I know you don't know anything Tempest but maybe you can answer some hypothetical questions. Let's assume for a moment that Geneon just bows out. No one takes over their stuff. They just fade away into the sunset. What would happen to their titles they have acquired so far? Would they be up for grabs? Would they simply be stopped and started over somewhere new?Or is the company under contract to finish products they's started already? Though I suppose if they simply shut the doors that wouldn't matter much. Now regardless if they find a new partner to take over for them or if they bite the dust what's the likelihood the shows if continued would retain the cast they have now? I would assume also that new shows that have yet to start production would go back up for sale to speak correct?

DemonEyesLeo wrote:

I want to know what this means for Geneon's future releases. I need my Hellsing Ultimate and When They Cry.

Edit: Can't forget Black Lagoon

Yeah, I've been buying Hellsing Ultimate! What's up with this?!!

Last edited by Porcupine on Thu Sep 20, 2007 8:22 pm; edited 2 times in total

Paploo wrote:

The fact is though, is that when companies close, it's often unexpected, and often unplanned. It's be nice and fluffu if they could make a graceful exit, but I'm not going to hold a grudge against them and their staff if they don't.

This is true, but I am still going to hold a HUGE grudge against them, if they end up making a disastrously ungraceful exit. Besides, if they were having problems why did Geneon suddenly go berserk with licensing ridiculous numbers of anime titles in the last year? As I said, right now it feels as if they are responsible for 33% to 40% of all currently-releasing new titles (these numbers are not official, just from observation, but people have agreed with me that as of late Geneon USA had been going crazy with the amount of titles they license). Licensing so many titles puts a huge burden of responsibility upon them. It is their own fault if they go under now and I will have no sympathy for their company.

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If it really is Dentsu behind all this, and a sudden change of plans, it's not Geneon's fault

I'm certainly no expert on the details of Geneon and Densetsu's infrastructure. But in the business world, everyone involved can and should be held responsible when something goes wrong. I'm not gonna buy into any of the finger-pointing nonsense. I can have sympathy for the people at Geneon USA who really are just low-level employees with no say in the matter. But Geneon USA the company will get no sympathy from me, just hatred if they abandon their customers and responsibilities. The same goes for anyone who works at Geneon USA who has power within their company.

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I think fandom as a whole should take a good look at themselves.

Certainly no arguments from me, here.

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Geneon USA has an excellent record.

In the last year prior to this latest news, Geneon had been botching up many of my most favorite anime titles and I'd already begun to hate them and hope they go out of business. That may or may not have anything to do with their current situation. But I won't agree that Geneon USA has an excellent record in the last year. I will agree that they had an excellent record prior to then. They used to be my favorite licensing company.

Piracy is a huge problem with the anime industry and I'll never disagree. But there are one or two other huge problems as well. In my opinion, one of them has always been the licensors (such as Geneon USA). In many ways they have performed inefficiently and made poor business decisions in the past. They need to author their DVDs to better video quality. They need to package their discs better (I don't want scratched-up discs with fingerprints all over, which has happened in the past from time to time with certain titles). They need to market their titles better. They need to understand the domestic market better and handle the fansub situation better (the rampant state of piracy in the USA is partially the fault of the licensors and anime studios as well, for failure to adequately pursue those involved). You can't blame everything on the piracy, is what I'm saying. The anime companies should not be held blameless, and should be held accountable also.

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