Posts Tagged “Licenses”

I don’t like to jump to conclusions and start rumors but this just seemed strange to me to not pass along. Everyone probably knows by now that the anime being hinted at in ANN’s current Geneon license contest is Higurashi and the first five clues so far have been pretty straightforward: 26 episodes, Summer of ‘83, based on a PC game, etc. But the sixth one is more “puzzling” than its predecessors.

The words “English Title” seem to indicate Higurashi might get the same treatment that Kimi Ga Nozomu Eien got with “Rumbling Hearts”. Forumites on AoD and ANN are wondering whether the contest runners screwed up the space distribution since the most likely alternate title would be “WHEN THEY CRY”. BUT…that doesn’t fit into a 3-5-3 phrase structure. So it’s probably “THE [blank] CRY” or “WHY [blank] CRY” with the middle word being plural and mysterious. Longshots I thought of include “see lolis die” and “big psych out”. That is, if the wording is in fact 3-5-3 and not 4-4-3.

I guess we’ll all find out the North American marketing name late Monday evening. Whatever the name ends up being, it’s a good thing I finished downloading the series this weekend. Now I have to actually resume watching it - I left off at episode 3…

Yesterday I clicked on a banner ad on ANN that sent me to the “Funimation 2007 Kickoff” website. Apparently, each weekday from Jan 22nd through 26th at noon CST (10am PST/1pm EST), a special announcement will be posted. Sure, I’ll be checking the page everyday next week but that’s not my point.

Recently there has been a trend of behavior that is starting to irritate me - that is, licensors hyping announcements. While this latest thing by Funi is not as grandiose as Bandai’s ASOS Brigade or as “clever” as Geneon’s hints at Rozen Maiden during a podcast that people otherwise wouldn’t listen to (at least I wouldn’t, I don’t know about you…), it still annoys me that they are making fans do more legwork. Call me lazy but I’d rather have companies just make a press release and surprise fans the old-fashioned way because I doubt we’ll remember years from now how Keroro took over ADV’s website for a day or two.
And yes, I do realize that I am inadvertently promoting Funi’s project by linking to it.

I forgot to talk about this when it happened a couple days ago when it happened but ANN dropped the big ad on the left side of their pages and made it look more normal. I like the slightly wider and uninterrupted space for the main news listing and today their logo gained some holiday spirit.

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This morning, I checked my regular news sites as I usually do including AnimeOnDVD. There wasn’t anything particular exciting on AoD…except that Monday’s section of stories had the “s” and “o” colored red as well as the links on the main news page. Clicking on one of the letters took me to www.asosbrigade.com and I was confronted with the message “The World As You Know It Is About to End” along with the date December 22, 2006 and the Haruhiism logo. *checks calendar* That’s only FOUR DAYS from now! OK, calm down, dude. It’s only a placeholder page. The date is also the first full day of winter in North America so it could also mark the beginning of a global ice storm or something…
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ADV announced their license of Gojuko Seitokai which will be sold as Best Student Council. That name in English may seem silly but that’s actually what the original title translates to. Actually, the name Gokujo Seitokai is an abbreviation of whatever “Maximum Authority Holders Highest Level Student Council” is in Japanese (screenshot from OP below). Read the rest of this entry »

I did not go to Anime Expo this year but I did read most of the panel reports posted on AnimeOnDVD.com so I didn’t miss out on the relevant news from the show. Here are the most interesting pieces of information I could extricate from said reports. Sorry that this is such a long post; just be thankful I didn’t mention any manga news.

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At Anime Boston this weekend, it was formerly announced that Funimation has the North American license for BECK: Mongolian Chop Squad. This news made my weekend as this series is one I’ve been wanting to come to America. The question is: “Will this sell in America?” I think it will sell alright because of the rock elements but AnimeNation’s “Ask John” (4/4/05) is less optimistic.

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