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Forum - View topicAnswerman - Endlessly Searching
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GATSU
Posts: 15610 |
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Really? I guess that Ebert mention was a boon to you guys. But I always thought it was moderately successful, 'cus of its depressing subject matter, and because Takahata's generally been in Miyazaki's shadow.
With those new Blu-Rays in Japan, I could see them testing the waters, at least, after Ranma. And Viz has personally stated they're 'considering' it. And the odds are probably better of this happening than for UY, at least. The real question is would a certain Gilbert O'Sullivan song still make it to the final disc?
I could see someone rescuing it one of these days, though, due to the HBO remake. Assuming the anime's not OOP for that very reason, like GunM, of course.
The reason Reborn! didn't get picked up is it has crappy art. But Space Brothers did get licensed by Sentai. I would say marketing it off the success of Interstellar is probably the only way to help it thrive here, though. Sentai, along with Viz, also tried Gintama, but that thing's like Ranma without even the pretense of an ending coming soon. The Sket Dance manga and anime, though, should have been picked up, particularly when HSM and Glee were still hot. But then Viz is terrible at gauging the potential of non-Naruto/Bleach/Inu Yasha-type series.
I got to the end. It was one of the best anime I'd seen in a long time, along with Beelzebub. But it didn't have that shonen dick-measuring contest angle going for it, so it had a short shelf life. |
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here-and-faraway
 Posts: 1529 Location: Sunny California |
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I feel very lucky to own some of the older, longer series. The ones that were allowed to go on "slow burn". That's not to say that shorter series are without merit,(Madoka was 12 episodes after all) but there's a certain charm to those hand drawn, epic stories that I do love.
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AkiraKaneda
Posts: 61 |
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I still remember the great fear that Maison Ikkoku was going to be left unfinished. Those of us who bought the sets as they were released were quite nervous. Sadly, I don't wonder that the widespread fan-subbing of Maison Ikkoku combined with its length and its relative age at release killed the desire for many to purchase the whole thing on disc.
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Key
Moderator
 Posts: 18506 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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Actually there's still more of them around than you might think. Some (especially the ones that have become chains) have survived and even thrived by broadening their scopes to become all-purpose sex-related novelty shops. One local chain has expanded to seven locations in the Indianapolis metro area over the past few years, for instance. |
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walw6pK4Alo
 Posts: 9322 |
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It's kind of a no brainer. They're not TV shows and they're not high quality OVAs. The bigger question of why was the stuff licensed is why did it stop. We have a good guess, but it's still mostly a guess. |
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Alan45
 Village Elder Posts: 10037 Location: Virginia |
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I can still remember scrambling for those last couple of Maison Ikkoku box sets. The first problem was finding when they were issued and then finding a location which sold them. I don't remember if I bought them direct from Viz or from TRSI. It was obvious that the window to obtain them was small. I had also bought the VHS version, but only a small portion of the whole series came out like that.
Back in the early 1980s when we got our first VCR, mom and pop video rental stores were popping up all around town. Most of them rented live action X rated shows. I asked one owner about that. He said they paid the rent and that his store would not have lasted a year without renting "Adult" content shows. They figured they were renting to people ashamed to go into the "Adult Bookstores". Apparently X rated content was a trailblazer for the entire video market. |
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UtenaNicoletta
Posts: 12 |
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I saw about a gazillion of those while driving through the state of Missouri (and they basically vanished when they reached the Oklahoma border). There was one at basically every exit on I-44. A hentai market waiting to happen? No offense to Missouri, of course, it's just funny to me.... |
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mdo7
 Posts: 6495 Location: Katy, Texas, USA |
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I had a good laugh reading today's Answerman. But anyway I'll give my thought:
CPM licensing lots of H-titles back then: Yeah I was hoping that would get answered after this was brought up on Tales of industry thread. Yeah I can see why and how CPM was able to make a lot of money during the 2000 anime boom year. I'm sorry to hear that the reverse import issue made hentai market dead in the US. Damn you, Japan's censorship law regarding genitals. About Seth's question: While I agreed with this. It's not only anime, but live-action film from Japan too are getting the shaft for North America release. I mean the live-action Black Butler got a UK release, but no North America release at all. I've got report from fans in Australia that Japanese live-action film adaptation of anime/manga are being released there too but no US release. Beside not releasing in the US, Japanese film companies are not taking advantage of using Dramafever (where I can find a lot of Korean and Chinese films) where it could help Japanese films in the US. Regarding why 50+ non-mainstream anime don't get picked up and/or get dropped for NA market: I can understand why they don't pick those up for the US market, now I see why Sazae-san never got subtitled stream, it's a lot of episodes and no way US anime fans will find the time and the commitment to watch a 1,000+ episodes, I wouldn't commit to it. I do agree it's risky and too much challenges and also licensing complication could also make it harder for US companies to get these out.
Don't forget Fist of the north star which you can watch on Hulu (I need to finish that series), and Galaxy Express 999 (which you can watch on CR). 
I have nothing to add regarding Brett's question. But I really like this week's Answerman. Can't wait till next week. 
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gloverrandal
Posts: 406 Location: Oita |
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Sket Dance is one of my favorite anime of all time, but I'm not surprised it was never licensed. Like GATSU mentioned it's not an action title and non-action titles seem to do poor in the American market, especially if it's a shounen series where most people expect Dragonball Z and Naruto action. Gintama did poorly from what I understand, and Conan only lasted a hundred episodes.
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ParkerALx
 Posts: 194 |
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Hunter x Hunter's unlicensed status has driven me crazy for years now. At 148 episodes, it isn't obscenely long, and it streamed well on Crunchyroll, regularly making the top five shows in terms of viewership. It really would be a shame if licencors passed on dubbing and releasing it on home video based only off Viz's bad experience with picking up the 1998 series in 2008. HxH has far more exposure and relevance today than it did then, not to mention that the anime market itself is a lot healthier. I could definitely see it taking off if marketed correctly, perhaps with a well-timed slot on Toonami. Surely, something needs to come up to replace Naruto: Shippuden when its run ends?
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Hameyadea
 Posts: 3679 |
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Actually, in Sazae-san's case, the reason that non of the (currently) +3,000 episodes were released in the U.S. - or elsewhere for that matter - is because the manga author, Hasegawa Machiko, has specifically requested that no episode will be released to the home media
As for the other shows - a la D.Gray-man - as Justin wrote, it is the diminished returns due to the ever-decreasing chance of rewatching the show. On the other hand, one can marathon (or "binge-watch", as Justin put it  ) a full 12-episode show within a weekend. There were times where I was just hooked on a show and marathon'd it in a day (12 episodes x 20 minutes of runtimes [excluding OP & ED] = 240 minutes, or 4 hours).
On the other hand, shows like Naruto, One Piece and Fairy Tail took me from 4 months (FT and Naruto, each) to close to 6 months (OP) to "close the gap". At the time I was in a daily schedule that allowed me to catch-up to those shows. Today I can't allow/afford myself that time, and I guess that a lot of people are in similar situations. |
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mdo7
Posts: 6495 Location: Katy, Texas, USA |
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@Hameyadea:
 Oh, I didn't know that the author didn't want Sazae-san to never get home video release or give the show a rare re-runs. That is well I don't know what to say. But thank you for that info.
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PmChivas
 Posts: 53 Location: Dallas, TX |
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Regarding the long series question: For Gintama, sources say it did poorly in sales which is why Sentai stopped releasing it.
 There is still hope that they will pull a Funimation-like move (aka Kodocha) and release the rest of it via subbed boxsets and not worry about dubbing. And as for D. Gray-Man, according to Funimation, they did want to release the rest of the series (it sold well) but Japanese licensing issues were too complicated (expensive) so they weren't able to get the rest of series. Hopefully, they will someday be able to unravel the this mess, so I can complete my collection.
I also think that not releasing a long series here in NA is good business sense for companies in the anime world. With today's anime fans, there are so many other things that demand their attention and sitting through 12 or 13 episodes is much easier to accomplish than 200 episodes. Unless a show is going to be surefire hit, it's going to be a hard push for many of today's fans to think about sinking a good amount of money into owning it and for the companies to do the same with subbing/dubbing and licensing. |
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Wrial Huden
 Posts: 149 Location: McKinney, TX |
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I feel for ya, Seth! I tried to collect Maison Ikkoku but pretty much gave up because of scarcity and the sky-high prices whenever I do find later volumes! It was hard enough finding the Kimagure Orange Road TV series box set with the corrected DVDs, which I finally obtained a few months ago! Good luck to you! |
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GATSU
Posts: 15610 |
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Parker: Hunter x Hunter 2.0 didn't get picked up, 'cus the last one bombed. And I doubt the manga re-release is doing that much better to justify betting on the new show. Though maybe someone could at least bet on the first season, and see how it flies from there.
Pm: Gintama's not gonna be dubbed again ever in the near future. Fans need to stop reading scantalations of series they encourage U.S. publishers to license, knowing full well they will never pay for legal copies of it. Edited out inappropriate content. --willag |
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