Nozomi Sings an Aria While Central Park Media Is Playing Adagio
Posted by: CalAggie in Commentary, tags: central park media, licensing, nozomi
I’m sure you’ve heard by now that Nozomi Entertainment, the licensing arm of TRSI, announced it will release the first season of ARIA the Animation (or as I like to call it, “that laid-back gondola anime”) subbed on September 30th. But while they continue to attract attention for bringing cult favorites like Victorian Romance Emma and Maria Watches Over Us to the states in season box sets, another independent licensor seems to be remaining stagnant and it’s not entirely clear how they will rise out of it.
Josh wrote in his blog yesterday about Central Park Media, calling it “the OTHER Geneon” and how the company’s only future releases - graphic novels such as Angel Shop and Dystopia - have no solid dates attached to them. The past couple years have not been kind to the operator of U.S. Manga Corps.
During CPM’s panel at last December’s NYAF/ICv2 Conference on Anime and Manga, President John O’Donnell said that one major cause of their troubles was the collapse of retailers Musicland and Tower Records and that he’s never tried to engage in a “heavy bidding war over popular titles in a volatile market”. (Those are the words of Evan Miller from ANN, not a quote from O’Donnell. At least I don’t believe it is.) Their Yaoi manga imprint Be Beautiful has been in flux since its problems with Biblos/Libre in 2006-07 and O’Donnell mentioned that a lawsuit against Libre might be in the works.
I think that CPM can still make strides by trying to remind people about their brand and back catalog with anime like Black Jack, World of Narue, Cat Soup, and Kakurenbo. Unfortunately, many of their offerings are short films and OVAs as well as out of print - in the cases of Slayers and Agent Aika, the formerly OOP titles were picked up by other companies through “rescue” licensing, which was good for consumers but took business away from CPM. Jump-starting their stagnant manga line with some manhwa may not be a bad move, either.
It seems that the company is at least trying to accomplish the goal of increasing their name recognition - they have paid $3,200 to sponsor four events during Anime Expo 2008 including the Otaku Parliamentary Debate ($1,000) and the two-evening Karaoke Contest ($950), warranting them Patron status. They have been stewards in a way of older titles and still feature “World Peace Through Shared Popular Culture” as their slogan.
I bought the whole set of DNA^2 during TRSI’s Christmas sale based on online critic reviews and the tagline “A Romantic Sci-Fi Comedy for All Times!”, but I sadly haven’t gotten around to watching it yet. Looks like I have something to distract me this weekend.
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