Posts Tagged “adv”

Earlier this week, both Hulu and Joost announced the launch of anime channels on their respective sites. While some people joked about the sliver of revenue publishers get from Hulu or complained about watermarking (get over it, it’s FREE content), I think these efforts as well as any similar future ones are beneficial for the licensing companies in terms of increasing reach and awareness.

The shows Funimation, Viz and others are providing to streaming sites have very likely already made most of the gross revenue they will ever produce. I doubt Slayers, Blue Dragon, and Astro Boy are generating any significant scratch for their rights holders compared to the bigger franchises (e.g. Bleach, Naruto) so why not let online users see half or all of a series they may not have known existed and might never buy on DVD. The more recent fare like the entire Death Note series, uncut and subtitled, has the potential of cannibalizing Viz’s sales of digital downloads through Direct2Drive, Xbox/Zune Marketplace, and the iTunes store along with physical DVD sales.
Read the rest of this entry »

As you may have heard, ADV announced on Thursday a deal with CrunchyRoll to stream dubbed episodes of the Gonzo comedy anime Welcome to the NHK! in a promotional partnership. I didn’t have any particular response to the news at first because ADV has traditionally tried to get their dubs as much exposure as possible and because it was an official partnership between the companies, with Best Buy running a short sale ad at the beginning of the first one.

However, while checking out the partnership on CR, I saw High School Girls under the “Others Also Liked…” sidebar and recognized it as the same series that Media Blasters was releasing as Girl’s High. Episode 2’s list of three pseudo-recommendations contained Hand Maid May, a Geneon title that is barely available to buy but is still, I believe, under license by the company. A perusal of CR’s anime index revealed more than twenty other anime available for streaming that are still being sold on region 1 DVD and many of them are Geneon and Media Blasters titles.
Read the rest of this entry »

The news this week that Newtype USA was ceasing publication with February’s issue took me by surprise but the follow-up announcement of its replacement, PiQ, was more so. Supposedly the new magazine will put out its first issue in mid-March and ADV is giving subscribers a two-for-one exchange rate on their remaining issues which makes me think that it’s going to be priced on the same level as Anime Insider. That also means that since my 6-month stint was supposed to end in April, I’m due to receive the first four issues of this new endeavor for free. I’m still going to miss the preview discs and postcard contests but hopefully PiQ (”peek”? “pique”?) will be worth reading.

AnimeOnDVD posted some months-ahead solicitations from RightStuf Wednesday, this time from AD Vision. Included on that list was Five Centimeters Per Second carrying a date of March 4th, an age rating of 13+, and the standard $29.98 MSRP. The funny thing is that I submitted a question a couple days ago through ADV’s online contact form wondering if a DVD release was imminent considering they stated in their late June license announcement that they were planning for a December DVD release at the time and a press release on the Anime Network’s website stating Five Centimeters would premiere on its VOD service on January 17th.

I have a problem with the price, though. Yes, I know it’s a high-production “feature” with Shinkai’s great attention to detail and trademark lighting effects but it’s sixty-five minutes total, shorter than the 91-minute Place Promised in Our Early Days. Maybe I’ll pick it up during the next studio sale if the extras to be announced later seem worth it. By comparison, ADV first released the 30-minute Voices of a Distant Star on June 2003 at a MSRP of $19.99 before packaging it and Place Promised into the Shinkai Collection (priced at $39.98) in December 2005.