Anime Central 2007

ADV Films

While David Williams has been A.D. Vision's presenter at several recent conventions, the Acen 2007 session was led by Matt Greenfield. Without wasting any time, he showed trailers for the recent ADV licenses Innocent Venus and Air. This was followed by the openings for ADV's four new licenses: Red Garden, Pumpkin Scissors,Welcome to the NHK, and Magikano. All four were actually announced earlier in the day via press release, and will begin releasing before the end of 2007. And over the summer months, in addition to the usual convention announcements, ADV will be making other announcements on the company website.

Acknowledging some of the changes in the US anime industry and especially in the ways retail outlets look at anime, ADV will be looking at various novel ways of packaging and scheduling both series collections and individual DVDs. One effect of this will be that volumes of Air, a “fan-centric” series according to Greenfield, will be released monthly. Because of the four upcoming Neon Genesis Evangelion movies currently in production in Japan, plans to release the 10th Anniversary Evangelion Box Set are currently on hold. ADV remains committed to releasing thinpacks of older titles, but for some series, that may simply not be viable because of lack of store interest. In those cases, ADV will look to options like online distribution and on-demand production.

NYAV Post, the same dubbing company that produced the first TV season of Ah! My Goddess, has been retained for ADV's release of the second season. One extra included in the Volume 2 DVD will be an interview of Eileen Stevens, conducted by Juliet Cesario, who voiced Belldandy in the original Oh My Goddess! OAV and plays Peorth in the TV series. Subsequent volumes will feature other similar bonus features that take advantage of the history of the entire Ah! My Goddess franchise.

ADV Manga is also making a comeback. Several new titles will be announced in the near future, and many other series have returned to schedule already. Unfortunately, at least some of the manga ADV originally licensed and began publishing did not have strong enough sales to warrant continuing publication.

Answering a fan question on how ADV perceives the threat and challenge presented by fansubbers, Matt answered that while fan subtitling is hurting the industry both in the US and in Japan, “the industry has to learn and adapt to new technology, and has to find ways to work around it.”

This report has been verified with the studio representative