Tag Archives: ADV Films

A little update on Funimation, Geneon, and ADV

Friday, July 4, 2008 – 1:41 pm

I apologize to gia, but I think it will just be easier to quote from her post:

Fukunaga is now talking about FUNi’s major coup d’etats: the 10+ Geneon titles and the 32 ADV titles (Gen says 34– are there more to hear about? Hm).

Moving into questions…Will you go with box sets for the new titles? Yes if they can, but with Geneon most of the titles are part-in, so they want to start releasing the rest of the series. Also with Geneon, that’s a partnership and Geneon is continuing to dub and will finish all of their shows– it’s their productions still. So no dub changes! With ADV, they’re in talks to have ADV finish up the series, again to avoid dub disruption, but nothing’s set in stone yet.

First thought: The 34 could have been a misspeak, or it could mean they’re also grabbing 2 out of 5 of Best Student Council, Ghost Train, Innocent Venus, Kurau: Phantom Memory, and Synethesia and just haven’t announced it yet (I would have to imagine that ADV would fight to the death to keep 5 Centimeters Per Second).

Second, at least ADV may be able to make a little money to still being in charge of production of the series that were taken from them (Shattered Angels, NHK, Kanon, Tokyo Majin, and possibly Murder Princess, if any dubbing has taken place on it.  I’m not sure what else is still outstanding).  Same thing for Geneon, though Geneon has completed the dubs on a good portion of their shows anyway, so I’m not sure how much there is left to do.

Part of it, of course, could also be due to the fact that I’m sure Funimation may not want to see ADV go away, even though they are competitors.  Right now, Funimation is the undisputed King of anime, but it’s rarely good for an industry to have only one major player in the market (Yeah, I know Bandai Entertainment is still out there, but can anyone argue that they’re as big as Funi is now?).

By Josh | Posted in Anime Expo | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

Funimation takes over anime, aquires THIRTY ADV Titles

Friday, July 4, 2008 – 1:13 pm

I’m guessing this is all part of the fallout between ADV and their licensing partner Sojitz as many of the titles on this list were on the list of suspended shows in February:

  • 009-1
  • Ah! My Goddess: Flights of Fancy
  • Air Gear
  • Air: The Movie
  • Air TV
  • Blade of the Phantom Master
  • Comic Party: Revolution
  • Coyote Ragtime Show
  • Devil May Cry
  • Guyver: The Bioboosted Armor TV
  • Jing, King of Bandits: Seventh Heaven
  • Jinki:Extend
  • Kanon
  • Kyoshiro to Towa no Sora (once titled as Shattered Angels by ADV Films)
  • Le Chevalier D’Eon
  • Magikano
  • Moeyo Ken TV
  • Moonlight Mile
  • Murder Princess
  • Nerima Daikon Brothers
  • Pani Poni Dash!
  • Project Blue Earth SOS
  • Pumpkin Scissors
  • Red Garden
  • Sgt. Keroro 1st & 2nd
  • Tokyo Majin
  • UFO Princess Valkyrie
  • Utawarerumono
  • Venus Versus Virus
  • The Wallflower
  • Welcome to the NHK
  • Xenosaga

All titles were on the list in February except for Shattered Angels, which was licensed after the snafu, Murder Princess, who previously hadn’t had a licensed announced for it, and Sgt. Keroro, possibly because it had no scheduled releases yet.

Shows on the list in February which are not on the list above include 5 Centimeters Per Second, Best Student Council, Ghost Train, Innocent Venus, Kurau: Phantom Memory, and Synethesia, so they are reportedly staying with ADV Films.

The bad thing for ADV in this deal is that it is quite possible that ADV didn’t get a penny from the transfer since the Japanese company they were partnering with held the actual licenses.  This could also be why ADV is in a hurry to license so many new shows, so they have a stream of income to replace these shows, since these constitute the bulk of all the shows that ADV has released over the past couple of years.

By Josh | Posted in Various | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

ADV Update: It ain’t lookin good for Kanon, NHK, et. al.

Thursday, July 3, 2008 – 6:18 pm

It’s hard to tell how much trouble ADV is in, but apparently ADV has had a falling out with their licensing parter Sojitz which, from the sound of it, effectively makes the four titles announced yesterday technically unlicensed for the time being.

The fact that the ADV rep at their Sneak Peak panel talked about how he hoped whomever ended up distributing those titles used the same voice cast was especially foreboding, since it seemed clear that the “whomever” may or may not be ADV Films.

They said they were still working on 23 different licenses, so it doesn’t sound like the company is necessarily in as dire straights as some people have feared, but as I said earlier, this definitely can’t help them.

By Josh | Posted in Anime Expo | Tagged | Comments (0)

Now for the bad news: ADV releases ‘Suspended Indefinitely’ …again

Thursday, July 3, 2008 – 1:55 pm

I hope this thing doesn’t go on 4 or 5 month cycles or whatever. From Robert’s Anime Corner blog:

I just got the word this morning from ADV that the following new releases have been ’suspended indefinitely’:

Shattered Angels , Vol #2 DVD
Shattered Angels , Vol #2 DVD w Art Box
Kanon, Vol #6 DVD
Tokyo Majin, Vol #4 DVD
Welcome to NHK, Vol #5, 5th Conspiracy DVD

I did not inquire about releases out past 7/8. This is just a quick post, and I’m currently working to get some clarification on what’s going on.

Oh, damn it to hell that Kanon 6 is on the list. And I would agree with Robert on this point:

The ‘deer in the headlights’ deal we went through back in February isn’t going to cut it this time.

Especially since it appears to be yet another licensing problem. Apparently this only applies to new releases (Robert says they’re still getting shipments of the new box set releases, for example), but that is obviously still not good for ADV.

By Josh | Posted in General Blather | Tagged , , , , | Comments (0)

PiQ Crashes and Burns. Is ADV Next? [Updated x2]

Saturday, June 14, 2008 – 1:50 pm

Apparently trying to diversify from NewType USA was a mistake. Unofficial reports say that the current issue of PiQ is it’s last. So will those of us who still have an outstanding subscription get our money back, or are they going to herd us over to yet another publication.

PiQ had hoped to expand NewType’s subscription base by 10 times by diversifying it’s content.

My guess is that people who would by magazines like that had no incentive to buy PiQ over magazines that already existed that covered the same content, while PiQ’s already existing subscribers who were used to NewType ditched the magazine in droves. I had basically already decided to not renew my subscription when it was up myself, though I wasn’t going to go so far as canceling the subscription I already had.

Perhaps the more alarming news is that the person who made this public also notes that “apparently the parent company is going out of business.”

Now, last time I knew, ADV was PiQ’s parent company, unless there is a corporate layer between ADV and PiQ and that extra layer is what is being folded (assuming that part of the report is correct). ADV has been hurting for a while, and I noticed that my copy of Kanon 5 is already on backorder from RightStuf even though it was just released (though Amazon apparently has it in stock).

I really hope this doesn’t mean that ADV is going down as well. If so, that would mean we would effectively have only 3 major anime distributors left: Funimation, Bandai Entertainment, and Viz.

Update:

Apparently a PiQ LLC exists, with offices at the same address as and is itself owned by ADV. Whether the reference to “parent company” just meant PiQ LLC or meant to include ADV, I don’t know, and from the sounds of it, the author of the post doesn’t necessarily know for sure either.

Update II:

The PiQ webpage makes it official:

It’s unfortunate that we’ll never get a chance to see how successful PiQ could have been, but a combination of low advertising revenue, poor business management and a lack of proper marketing and promotion all hamstrung the magazine from the start. We, the editorial/creative/production staff, did the best we could to put together a quality publication, but as we’ve discovered, without a good financial backing, it’s all an exercise in futility.

So basically the reasons for this were:

  1. We tried to re-launch a formerly anime and manga based magazine into an already saturated market, and for some reason no one wanted to buy ads in it
  2. We wasted money
  3. We didn’t advertise ourselves, and
  4. ADV screwed us over

As nckl notes in the comments, I’m not sure I would advertise that you basically drove your magazine into the ground via “poor business management” but oh well. Actually, it kind of sounds like some guy who decided to give ADV the middle finger just as he’s walking out the door to me. The “exercise in futility” especially seems to make it read like that. It’s not just a “we’re going bye-bye” announcement, it’s a “we’re going bye-bye, and these are the reasons why we are but didn’t have to if the people above me weren’t morons.”

Look at it: complaining about poor business management and bad financial backing…those would seem to be targeted at either the people put in charge of PiQ LLC or towards ADV itself - especially the part about financial backing.

As for those of us with subscriptions, they say they will have “more details later.” If they’re just going to refund money, I don’t know why they wouldn’t just say so, which means that we’ll probably eventually get our money back in some sort of round-about way.

By Josh | Posted in General Blather | Tagged , | Comments (11)

ADV Films Reschedules Releases

Friday, February 29, 2008 – 1:36 pm

We finally have some new information coming out about this whole ADV Films mess with their licensing partner Sojitz.

ADV Senior Vice-President of Sales and Marketing Mike Bailiff has made comments about the situation, including explaining the lack of comments from ADV about the situation:

There are a lot of parties involved in any anime production, and that can complicate even the best of negotiations. Frankly we had to keep quiet in the interest of resolving this situation as quickly as possible.

Which is basically what I suspected the situation was, even if it was frustrating. While Bailiff didn’t really say what the ultimate problem was which caused ADV to pull it’s products, the fact that all of ADV’s products have gotten new release dates suggests that the situation is either resolved, or resolved enough that titles can continue their releases.

Up until now, 9 ADV Films titles have passed their original release dates: Gurren-Lagann Volume 1, Kanon Volume 2, Kurau: Phantom Memory Volume 6, Moonlight Mile Volume 1, Project Blue Earth SOS Volume 1, Pumpkin Scissors Volume 3, The Wallflower Volume 2, Tokyo Majin Volume 2, and Welcome to the NHK Volume 3.

All of those except Gurren-Lagann Volume 1, will be released February 26th (but, as Robert’s Anime Store Blog notes, due to shipping time from ADV to online retailers, the shipping date in reality will more likely be around March 4th). No release dates for Gurren-Lagann or Devil May Cry have been made, but it was made known that further announcements about those titles would be made later.

All other release dates appear to be the same as they were before (if not pushed up a little) and all titles that had been released previously and had stopped shipping will ship once again.

To see all of my posts on this situation, see posts with the tag ADV Films.

By Josh | Posted in General Blather | Tagged | Comments (0)

ADV Finally Speaks, sort of [Updated]

Wednesday, January 30, 2008 – 6:53 pm

ADV:

We know there are a lot of rumors swirling about, and that fans are looking for assurances that ADV will continue to distribute the anime series they know and love.

While we can’t go into any detail at this time, please know that ADV is working through a few short-term challenges and fully intends to continue our releases.

We thank you for your patience.

So it’s basically sounding like what I increasingly suspect - something went funky with the licensing and that this isn’t a money matter (ie, ADV isn’t going out of business). As I suspected too, it’s also something they probably can’t talk about until whatever they’re doing is done, so I’ll be interested in what happened here.

At least ADV finally decided that things had gotten out of hand to a point that they felt like they had to say something.

Update

More from the Robert’s Anime Corner Blog:

I have heard what I deem as reliable information this morning that ADV is close to a solution to the licensing problems and that there is a very good level of confidence that their existing catalog will remain in-tact with nothing more than a few bumped street dates. I’ve been doing business with this guy for 10 years and he never bullshits me, so I think this is as good of information as we can get less than an official statement. I have verified this info through a couple other inside industry contacts and it jives. ADV will probably not be able to make any official statement though until everything is wrapped up which could be a few more days.

By Josh | Posted in General Blather | Tagged | Comments (0)

More on the ADV ICv2 Letter

Wednesday, January 30, 2008 – 3:46 pm

ICv2 reported this to Anime News Network:

The article on Sojitz and ADV you refer to was one of several contingency articles we prepared and posted on a staging site…. It’s unfortunate because as this is written, the article isn’t true. It may still be one of several possible outcomes of the current situation, but as far as we know today ADV has not sent a notice to its retailers or placed the titles in question on hiatus and may not, pending the outcome of events that are still unfolding. We regret that our efforts to prepare for any eventuality led to this draft article becoming public before it was published and have taken steps to prevent such an event from happening again.

So this muddies the water of what exactly is going on even more. ADV still declines to comment on the situation.

By Josh | Posted in General Blather | Tagged | Comments (3)

ADV Titles on ‘Indefinite Hiatus’? Or maybe not.

Tuesday, January 29, 2008 – 10:55 pm

Yesterday, Anime News Network reported that several pages for many of ADV Film’s recently acquired series disappeared off of their website and store.

Apparently, also yesterday, ADV sent a press release to ICv2, which no longer appears on their website, but can be viewed using Google cache.

In it, ADV reported that 37 series were on “Indefinite Hiatus” due to ADV “suspending certain elements of its former alliance with ARM Corporation” which ADV used to license nearly all of it’s new shows since ADV started their partnership with Sojitz.

The titles in question were:

009-01, 5cm Per Second, Ah! My Goddess: Flights of Fancy, Air Gear, Air Movie and TV, Best Student Council, Blade of the Phantom Master, Comic Party Revolution, Coyote Ragtime, Devil May Cry, Ghost Train, Gurren Lagann, Guyver, Innocent Venus, Jinki: Extend, Kanon, King of Bandit Jing: 7th Heaven, Kurau Phantom Memory, Le Chevalier D’Eon, Magikano, Moeyo Ken TV Series, Moonlight Mile, Nerima Daikon Brothers, Pani Pani Dash!, Project Blue, Pumpkin Scissors, Red Garden, Synethesia, The Wallflower, Tokyo Majin, UFO Princess Valkyrie - Third and Fourth Seasons, Utawarerumono, Venus vs. Virus, Welcome to the NHK, and Xenosaga.

ADV Films still continues to refuse to comment, according to ANN.

However, before people start panicking, Robert from the Anime Corner Store had this to say on the ANN forums:

The letter was NOT sent to retailers. It was pulled at the last minute. The pulled article on ICV2 reflects the bleak situation as of last Friday, but things have changed since then and I’m sure ADV was hoping they could rectify the situation before too much of this became public and caused a panic.

Obviously it is impossible to know what this means for these licenses until ADV decides to speak, and perhaps not even they know the answer to that question. Hopefully the totality of these statements suggest that it looked like titles were going to have to wait, but maybe that isn’t the case anymore. ADV may not talk until whatever dealings they need to do are finished.

In any case, the only thing we can do is wait for official word from ADV before we know anything for certain. Unfortunately they’re keeping quiet for the time being.

By Josh | Posted in General Blather | Tagged | Comments (3)

It’s confirmed: Kanon (2006) licensed

Saturday, September 22, 2007 – 11:12 am

KanonANN Reports that ADV Films officially announced at the Anime Weekend Atlanta Convention that they have acquired the rights to the Kanon remake.

The fact that ADV had their hands on this series was long suspected as ADV Films had registered the domain name kanontv.com (not in of itself something that confirms a license, though) as well as briefly posted a trailer on their website.

It had also been previously announced that they wouldn’t decide on whether to license Kanon until they saw the sales figure for Air. Either ADV Films changed their minds, or the sales for Air are to their satisfaction.

For me, this is probably a big of news as Haruhi getting licensed, as this is one of my favorite series.

By Josh | Posted in 2006 Anime | Tagged , | Comments (0)