THE US ANIME INDUSTRY IS CRUMBLING!! GENEON FALLS HEROICLY!!
Geneon is dead.
For those who may not know, over the past couple of weeks US anime distributor Geneon has made a couple of strange business decisions. It started with their merger with ADV, to their immediate breaking off with ADV, to their withdrawal from the US anime market just today. All the fine details can be found at the usual places.
I am actually really quite bummed about this, as Geneon titles make up a decent part of my collection. Not only that, but I had my sights set on Karin, Black Lagoon, Zero no Tsukaima and the Nanoha shows. What really bothers me is that Karin and Black Lagoon are being canceled mid-run. I can kind of stand having Karin incomplete (I’ll be slightly angry over the half-empty box) as its animation quality doesn’t really demand a DVD release, but I’m pretty mad over Black Lagoon. The DVD video is such a quantum leap in quality from the fansub video, that it’s a shame to see it crap out, and right before the best bits, too.
Another thing that bothers me is that Geneon had such a great con presence. I couldn’t really get close to a lot of other companies, but I could easily talk with the guys at Geneon. In fact, I had a lot of great conversations with them at this past Otakon. I loved their panels (especially After Dark) so it’s just a shame to see their personality up and leave the industry. I hope they have plans for their out-standing licenses. I can see other companies picking up some, but I worry for the fate of prelicensed titles like Black Lagoon. I kind of hope they rebuild themselves under a new name, but I doubt it.
It’s rather strange how they dropped off so suddenly. I guess they were keeping their financial troubles as secret as possible. All the DVDs I’ve gotten from them seemed to be of awesome quality, so I assumed they had money to burn. Maybe that’s just it– they were putting in too much effort and not getting decent outcome.
With the fall of a such a big player in the industry, I fear for the rest of the US anime industry. In 10 years will we have to go back to only watching anime on unofficial releases? I hope not…
IT’S DEAD! IT’S DEAD! ISN-
Wait, Lewis Black isn’t appropriate here :V
What a pity. Just glad I managed to grab first season of Black Lagoon before this.
Oh thank god at least Mushishi is Funimation, because I just checked my “to buy” list and EVERTHING is Geneon.
So does this mean we should go out and buy all the stuff we need because it will be out of print soon?
I am really mourning this. I’ve almost already cried twice. I haven’t had the chance to buy A TON of things from them! DDD;
What should I do?! If I try to order them all I’ll never be able to pay it off. DD;
Why Geneon?! Why?!
because popular shows on fansub sell 500 dvds
true story
Kamichu :(
Wait that wasn’t even popular when it was fansubbed.
This reminds me of what happened with The Right Stuf back in the day… they are still around now, but for a while they just pulled out and took a ton of awesome shows (some incomplete with them) like Irresponsible Captain Tylor and Utena… took forever for those licenses to expire or the shows to become available again ;_;
oh comon they’re not dead. why are bloggers acting like crappy tabloid news things now…
Because it’s fun.
Also we don’t all have LAW SCHOOL under our belts so we can’t really take it as calmly due to our lack of knowledge as to how these things work :V
Is this really happening? or is it only a nightmare?
I was looking forward to those Black Lagoon releases
WHAT ABOUT BLACK LAGOON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I AM IN DESPAIR!!!!!
My Higurashi will be limbo too. Ah well, I ordered what Geneon titles I felt were worth it. And yeah, their stuff is probably going out of print if Answerman of ANN is to be believed…