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SON OF A BITCH!! What the hell will happen to Gundam Unicorn?! This is terrible!

The irony here is that I was just complaining that we wouldn't have any big anime news to talk about for the next month or two until convention season starts up again.

Well, I've been to a few recent Bandai panels at New York Comic Con....and I really, really got a distinct "circling the drain" vibe. Even ADV/Section 23 during their darker days in 2009-2010 still sounded like they had some long-shot plan up their sleeve, which might not work but they were at least doing *something*, still maintaining an..."ability to maneuver", operational capability to try different plans. Nickel-and-diming on niche titles.

But Bandai felt like it was just sitting around waiting for someone to pull the plug....even when it controlled more of the market than Section 23 due to legacy titles like Gundam and Haruhi.

Do you think this is the conclusion of that earlier prediction that if Haruhi season 2 failed, they were finished? Damned Endless Eight.

Last edited by DangerMouse on Mon Jan 02, 2012 6:36 pm; edited 8 times in total

Sorrior wrote:

GracieLizzy wrote:

tempest wrote:

penguintruth wrote:

What will happen to Gundam Unicorn?

Gundam Unicorn isn't handled by Bandai Entertainment. That's Bandai Visual Japan that is releasing that.

Ah, so no 'possible sensible pricing' silver lining to come of this then (I was writing my previous post when yours appeared).

...boo.

More like we're paying closer to the japanese price.

And man this sucks. I mean i kinda thought this might happen but still. Oh well MAYBE JUST MAYBE this mean companies like Funi will give us Gundam Dubs again and others will print some other series in nice quality versions.

STill sucks though my first anime on DVD was either Outlaw Star gold box version or the Gundam Wing Boxset BOTH bandai titles. Bandai to me has released some of the better series out there and will ALWAYS be a major part of my childhood. I mean they almost single handedly provided anime for Toonami if you think about it as well as the early more anime friendly adult swim. So yes i will miss bandai dearly in fact i need to calla friend and write a euology somewhere.

In fact i'm off to do so now.

I hope so cause this freaking sucks, I've bought tons of things from bandai over the years so I have tons of their shows and their Gundam discs have ofcourse always been some of my most anticipated (most recently all of their Gundam 00 sets and movie), not to mention many of their other big shows over the years, what a sad start to the year, hopefully Funi, Section 23 etc. have interest in "Bandai's" future shows so that most of them will still find their way over in real US release fashion.

It looks like we really are going to end up with just 2-3 companies in order for them to be profitable enough to have a large enough number of well selling shows.

Starting with the most obvious, hopefully Gundam's size will enable it not to be in limbo for long (at least aside from Age which I definitely think is now basically dead for a US release since it really kinda straddles markets here I think) so that we can continue to get dual-audio Gundam for future shows and OVAs/Movies and upcoming stuff like the Seed Remaster BDs (until today didn't really think these had any chance of not coming over) and the rest of Unicorn (and whatever series comes after Age that hopefully is also an easier sell back in the more teen-young adult content range like the majority of Gundam).

And I was all set to buy the BDs for Gosick and looking forward to seeing it dubbed...

And so close to Turn A finally getting out too... Gaahh it's like being caught between frustrated and sad we were so close and yet sad to see Bandai go knowing that at least certain shows were a total shoe in to be brought over even if they weren't picking up as much as they used to. Sad

So much for finally getting Turn A, and Gundam X someday, I'm not sure any of the other companies would be all that interested to release such old installments, hopefully the future ones still make it over via Funi, Section 23, etc. if one of them takes up the Gundam mantle.

CG-LOVER wrote:

Yeah I really didn't believe him when he said that either. I just knew he was not that well informed about BANDAI's current status. Of course when I brought that up in the forum for that ANNCast no one seemed willing to listen. Well I guess you guys know what the truth is now dontcha?

Agreed. Even given Mr. Chu's readily apparent lack of knowledge about the current industry, I myself was particularly perplexed at his claim that Bandai were now safely in the black. This, despite the near-constant delays on their releases, which could really point to only one ultimate problem: cash flow issues.

In any case, sorry to see them go, and very sorry that people have lost jobs in the current economic climate, but it's a hard fact that it's an uphill struggle for anyone trying to monetize something that is literally freely available at the click of a mouse.

RyanSaotome wrote:

If people here were a little more lenient in regards to what they'd pay, these companies wouldn't die. 100 dollars for a 1 cour show would probably be the sweet spot for most series
.

because I have bills and a mortgage; while I am willing to pay $20-$30 for an hour show (presume thats what you meant); no way could I justify $100 as worth it.

evil_kenshin wrote:

RyanSaotome wrote:

If people here were a little more lenient in regards to what they'd pay, these companies wouldn't die. 100 dollars for a 1 cour show would probably be the sweet spot for most series
.

because I have bills and a mortgage; while I am willing to pay $20-$30 for an hour show (presume thats what you meant); no way could I justify $100 as worth it.

Cour, as in a 12-13 episode show.

...and nothing of value was lost.

But srlsy, the very first (non-adultswim) anime I saw was a bandai release (sola. I saw it fansubbed first, and then had to wait a crazy amount of time for the release, but they did make good on it). My shelves include Bandai releases Haruhi, Lucky Star, Scrapped Princess, Galaxy Angel to Galaxy X (I refuse to admit Rune exists), Hayate in singles (paid way to much for a subpar release), sola, Ghost Slayers Ayashi (an extremly underrated show, I highly recommed it to anyone tired of seeing high schoolers save the world), and of course, Kazemakase Tsukikage Ran, which has been long OOP. Bandai was always my least favorite licensor, but it's a pretty dick move to not finish those manga releases. Incomplete manga is the bane of the industry.

RyanSaotome wrote:

Cour, as in a 12-13 episode show.

Listen, if I wanted to speak French, I'd move to Quebec, which I don't because it's cold there.

ZeetherKID77 wrote:

So this basically means we won't ever see season 2 of K-ON or the movie in the US. Brilliant.

Ha-HA! The people who collect fansubs win again!

Melanchthon wrote:

Listen, if I wanted to speak French, I'd move to Quebec, which I don't because it's cold there.

It's also a Japanese term クール (borrowed from the French) that is commonly used with anime. Still not English, but it's not surprising that English anime fans use it like other Japanese terms related to anime.

Melanchthon wrote:

RyanSaotome wrote:

Cour, as in a 12-13 episode show.

Listen, if I wanted to speak French, I'd move to Quebec, which I don't because it's cold there.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cours_(disambiguation)

"Cours is a French word that can refer to:
Cours (TV production), a unit of production in Japanese TV programs equivalent to 13 episodes"

You probably don't keep up with the anime industry much these days, since its what people call those shortened seasons these day. Even ANN uses it.

I would hope they could form a new company, one where they are not under the the foot of a Japanese parent company.

I always felt Bandia Entertainment could have been more successful if there parent company would just allow it. No more you can have DVD but not bluRay even though it's available in Japan, no more you can have a dub but not the Japanese audio, no more you can have an inferior TV master but not the superior home release master.

I hope something better can grow out of the ashes. Sadly I don't see any other company taking a chance on titles like Gundam.

samuelp wrote:

So yeah, I think it's quite possible that both titles are in limbo for 5-7 years, unless kadokawa decides to give bandai back its money in exchange for the rights back to the shows (which is incredibly unlikely).

Ah well. I guess I will just have to get to it on Crunchyroll when I want to rewatch. I wonder if the planned Australian release for these two series will go anywhere now that Bandai isn't doing anything with them? Even if that does happen, not certain if I want to try importing DVD's I likely won't be able to play.

I was hoping sales of the original Gundam would encourage them to fully back Turn A and Double Zeta, but

V: I personally attribute it to Gurren Lagaan, which was obviously too geeky to justify whatever ransom Bandai paid for it, and Lucky Star, which no one wanted or needed. Notice they stopped announcing real new non-Haruhi licenses after those series?

I wonder how long until the K-ON! license with Bandai ends? Should I get it now while it still exists for sure?

NOOOO!!! KANNAGI!!!
I guess we'll still get vol. 3, but 4-6? Sad

And, no K-ON!!? And, no K-ON! movie?
I one that actually bought the Blu-Ray singles of K-ON! because I love that show...

This really sucks, I will miss Bandai Ent., yes they've made some pretty stupid decisions over the years, but they've all come with some great titles.

Now I'm gonna have to shift all of my budget to picking up the Bandai catalog titles I've been meaning to get.
i.e. My-Hime, etc., Code Geass, Gurren Lagann, etc. etc.

Bad news for Jan 2!

T___T

RyanSaotome wrote:

Melanchthon wrote:

RyanSaotome wrote:

Cour, as in a 12-13 episode show.

Listen, if I wanted to speak French, I'd move to Quebec, which I don't because it's cold there.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cours_(disambiguation)

"Cours is a French word that can refer to:
Cours (TV production), a unit of production in Japanese TV programs equivalent to 13 episodes"

You probably don't keep up with the anime industry much these days, since its what people call those shortened seasons these day. Even ANN uses it.

It's an online thing. I think "cours" was said at a convention a year or so back and all of a sudden started popping up online as the cool guys decided to adopt it.
People rarely use it in casual conversation because it comes off a little pompous.

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