Lucky Star Vol. 1 regular edition cover (Japanese Vol. 2 LE cover)
Anime on DVD spotted new listings on Right Stuf for Lucky Star Volume 1 (episodes 1-4) with the release date currently scheduled for May 6th. It looks like Kadokawa Pictures USA is going down the same release path that they did with Haruhi by releasing a $29.98 standard edition and a $64.98 limited edition plus box. The extras in the limited edition aren’t known right now - the pics on TRSI only show the outside of the box - but I’m guessing there will probably be some pack-in items. LE pics after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »
ICv2 posted an interview with Funimation founder Gen Fukunaga where he was asked about many issues including the state of the US anime market, timing of releases and the impact and future of legal and illegal downloading. What follows are highlights from the question-and-answer session:
Mr. Fukunaga began by stated the obvious, that “illegal downloads are definitely an issue” and that “the main mode of monetization of the customer [DVD sales] is definitely suffering”. He also thinks that Japanese companies has “suddenly woken up” after seeing “the huge difficulties some of [Funimation's] competitors are having” (read: Geneon) and that they are “talking a lot about this issue”.
I read about the release date for the Evangelion 1.0: You Are [Not] Alone special edition DVD announced as April 25th on Furu Anime Panikku and thought that finally, around late April or early May, the rest of the world can see this first in the series of four films that reimagine the Evangelion plotline (through fansubs). But then, I wondered what the packaged extras would be and found this story on ANN wherein this sentence caught my eye:
The extras disc will include the Explanation of Evangelion:1.01 — an exclusive edit which superimposes Japanese commentary text over the actual film to explain each scene to fans.
Wow. I can’t believe that there will actually be an extra that will tell viewers WHAT THEY ARE WATCHING. I’m not sure whether to interpret this as the producers thinking the film is too complicated (not very likely) or as them thinking the fans are too dense to figure it out for themselves using their own eyes, ears and brains! Perhaps they believe there are a lot of first-timers who saw this film in the theater and don’t know the intricacies that a long-time fan would and I suppose I could conceive a certain portion of the audience being that way. But still, the extra comes off as patronizing to me and likely many other fans.
Oh, and there will also be a standard edition release on May 21st for 1000 yen less than the special edition mentioned above as well as a 400-page Complete Records Collection (release date unknown) and a 330-page animators’ drawing collection in April.
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.
Over the past week, there have been reports of problems with Bandai’s January 8th releases involving unreadable discs or specific episodes and extras not accessible. The affected titles (from ANN and the AOD forum thread) include Eureka Seven #11, Flag #2, My-Otome #4, and both the standard and limited editions of Gundam Seed Destiny #12. Not a good way to start 2008, for sure. If you have bought any of these and had problems, you can use Bandai’s customer service form to get in touch with them since they seem to be handling the problem directly, which RightStuf has advised its customers do in a recent news update on their site.
RACS owner Robert wrote about the problem, saying 20% of and ended his post with the following warning:
For the record, this will be the third GSD DVD of the twelve that has come from Bandai with some sort of encoding problem in the first batch. It really is time for Bandai to fire their replicator and hire a contractor that has some decent quality control. These types of problems are getting too common in their releases, and if they continue fans will become more reluctant to buy their DVD’s - and then we’ll have another ‘Geneon’ fiasco on our hands…
So if you’re thinking of picking any of the above at your local brick-and-mortar tomorrow, chances are they will play fine but don’t be surprised if they do not. The only new release from Bandai this week that seems not to have had problems so far is Di Gi Charat Nyo! #5 but I expect that a lot fewer people were anticipating that release compared to Eureka or Gundam.
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.
The first DVD volume of xxxHolic will finally hit US shelves on March 25th, according to AnimeOnDVD’s listing of new Funimation solications. I’m excited about this not because it’s a great anime but because it’s taken so long for it to come out. The delay might have due to Funimation focusing on finishing its Tsubasa releases first, which they will do on January 8 when Tsubasa Vol. 6 is released. The first volume will feature four episodes, with Colleen Clinkenbeard voicing Yuuko and Todd Haberkorn voicing Watanuki.
I was walking around with my parents at Apple Hill today, looking at bunches of apples, pumpkins, and various crafts when I saw the headline “Manga comics losing longtime hold on Japan” in a copy of yesterday’s USA Today that was in a trash bin. So I made a mental note of it, checked out the article when I got home, and apparently there is a big problem of sorts. Sales fell the fifth consecutive year in 2006 and manga magazine sales are far from their 1995 peak of 1.34 billion with a figure of 745 million last year, about a 44% drop. The reporter noted that that high year was when Weekly Shonen Jump stopped carrying Dragon Ball. There were four likely causes given that primarily involve the habits of young Japanese people. Read the rest of this entry »
I did not attend Otakon 2007 because I don’t have the money to fly over to Baltimore, get a hotel room and then likely purchase stuff at the convention itself. I think of Otakon akin to Anime Expo as each being the big summer convention for their respective coastlines. I WOULD like to attend it one of these years to get a feel for how differently it is run from Fanime and AX and the general atmosphere. Thanks to the Internet, I can at least get panel reports from ANN and extract interesting things from them.
Remember John Ledford’s mention of “B” titles a month ago? I had kind of forgotten about it until I came upon two things recently that mentioned it. This week’s edition of the AnimeNation News Podcast released on Thursday covered the topic and an ICv2 interview with Mike Balliff, ADV Senior VP of Sales, mentioned the phrase in a question about whether popularity in Japan is a good indicator of success in America.
Every week on the AnimeNation News Podcast, the hosts cover the news of the past week as well as two or three Ask John questions. The question from June 22nd, “Why Don’t ‘B’ Titles Sell in America Anymore?”, was the first of two to be discussed and below is the audio from the June 28th episode:
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