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Forum - View topicNEWS: TOHO to Acquire N. American Animation Distributor GKIDS as Its Subsidiary
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Nate148
Posts: 521 |
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OH NO
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DamianSalazar
Posts: 776 |
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Toho have been making acquisitions lately. TIA (now Toho Animation Studio), Science Saru, and now GKIDS. I wonder what's next on their radar...
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KitKat1721
 Posts: 976 |
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Really have no idea how to feel about this until we actually see how it unfolds, but curious what this means for GKIDS when it comes to their international animation releases outside of Japanese anime. Maybe the company will be able to handle more releases in general post-acquisition if their staff grows(?), but I'll be so bummed if their priorities are solely focused on Toho productions/anime in general vs the more robust slate they typical offer.
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FireChick
 Subscriber Posts: 2500 Location: United States |
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It is good that management at GKids is going to remain, but I really hope this acquisition doesn't spell doom for anything that doesn't involve Godzilla. GKids was one of the few independent licensing companies remaining, and their management clearly cares about all the stuff they put out. I don't want another corporation turning them into just another content machine.
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Hagaren Viper
 Posts: 793 |
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GKids is the only particularly interesting licensing companies outside of Discotek so hopefully things continue as normal for them if not better. Wonder if it's much of a stretch to thing the acquisition is part of the the reason GKids licensed Dandadan out of nowhere?
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el_morris
 Posts: 283 Location: Tijuana, México |
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A streaming platform to close the circle? |
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GNPixie
Posts: 322 |
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I think you're underestimating how much stuff Toho has its hand in. I could see this as them just wanting to cut out the middleman and handle their stuff themselves in addition to whatever GKIDS wants to get up to. The recent My Hero movie's western release was 100% handled by Toho rather than CR/Funimation/Sony for instance and I wouldn't be surprised to see GKIDS/Toho on the home video release rather than Crunchyroll. |
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Lord Geo
Posts: 2702 Location: North Brunswick, New Jersey |
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I won't bemoan this acquisition, as it's literally just been announced so I can't make any judgement... but this now leave literally only four independently-owned English anime companies (in North America, at least) that are still actively operating: AnimEigo, Discotek, Media Blasters, & Ascendant Animation.
It's really getting to the point where the English anime industry is becoming either "New stuff licensed by corporately-owned entities" or "Other stuff licensed by a literal handful of independents, and if these guys won't license something you want you're SOL". |
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Kougeru
 Posts: 5602 |
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acquisitions in this industry have proven in the last decade to be nothing but bad news. always exciting on the surface but bad in the long run. They're basically say nothing is changing but I expect layoffs within 2 years
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GATSU
Posts: 15614 |
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Toho must really want that Oscar recognition. Hope this leads to a GKids release of Fuma and Macross DYRL.
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InNeedOfAName
Posts: 237 |
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There was also that interesting acquisition in January 2023 when Toho International bought 50% of Bee & PuppyCat, Bravest Warriors, and its spinoff Catbug. I wonder what's going on with that. |
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GATSU
Posts: 15614 |
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Probably means GKids also gets home vid rights to the final season of MHA over CR.
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Tenchi
 Posts: 4555 Location: Ottawa... now I'm an ex-Anglo Montrealer. |
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If this means that Urusei Yatsura the Movie 2: Beautiful Dreamer, a Toho production, could finally get a limited North American theatrical release (still a couple of months left to do the 40th anniversary thing), I'm all for it.
(A new Blu-Ray would also be lovely for those of us who missed it the first time and don't want to pay triple digits for an OOP copy but I think Discotek still has the North American home video rights. Ironically, I can buy a Japanese Blu-Ray of Beautiful Dreamer off Amazon Canada for only $70 Canadian, an option I'd take but I don't think it includes English subs.) EDIT: Oh, according to EDIT; (not) Justin Sevakis in the replies to this Reddit post, Toho *is* the stumbling block to a Discotek re-release of Beautiful Dreamer on Blu-Ray so perhaps we will see a GKids Blu-Ray release of it (hopefully sooner rather than later). EDIT II: Re-reading it, Justin himself didn't specify it was Toho in the replies but someone else who claimed to have seen the same Discotek stream where they were asked about a Beautiful Dreamer re-release said that they specified the problem was Toho. Last edited by Tenchi on Tue Oct 15, 2024 6:12 pm; edited 4 times in total |
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L'Imperatore
 Posts: 941 |
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And e-shop, like Sony/CR with Right Stuf. |
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KitKat1721
Posts: 976 |
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And you could really tell the new MHA movie had a brand new distributor who's first ever US theatrical release was only just over a year prior (Godzilla Minus One). Especially compared to a company that has been overseeing the entire anime's brand for years from films to merchandising rights in North America since the very beginning and has way more expertise on the franchise in this market. They released it in slightly more theaters than the third film (1,845 theater opening compared to WHM's 1,585 theaters), but it made about half the box office in just its opening weekend. Each of the first three films made better gains than the last with WHM having a $6,255,779 opening compared to You're Next's $3,007,027. And then you take into account that the theater market in general was way worse off in 2021 since audiences were only just returning post pandemic... I wouldn't be shocked if they have been questioning taking it all on by themselves this time around. |
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