sad news for anime
I've been watching the threads on raam the past couple of weeks about Geneon, formerly Pioneer, and am not sure entirely what's going on, but it doesn't look good.
http://www.geneonanimation.com/
Recent Anime News Network posting:
The onetime anime distribution company Geneon Entertainment (USA) Inc. has notified its retail customers that it will cease "the sales of DVDs and all related distribution and marketing operations as of 5 p.m. on Friday, September 28, 2007." The deadline for ordering all Geneon USA products is that time and date, and only orders for "catalog products in inventory or new releases with a street date" of November 6 or earlier will be accepted. Any outstanding retail orders will ship as soon as stock is available. No more returns will be accepted after 5:00 p.m. on November 30, and new orders after September 21 cannot be returned at all. The letter to retailers also says that "payables to Geneon remain unchanged."
From Right Stuf's site:
According to a letter that we received today, Geneon plans to cease DVD sales and distribution by the end of this week, accepting only non-returnable orders for releases with scheduled street dates through 11/6/2007.
We are verifying now whether the remainder of the releases will be canceled completely, but it is our guess that the 11/13 releases and beyond are canceled. Rest assured that we have adequate incoming inventory on all of the titles through 11/6 on order and will be able to fill all customer orders -- if you haven't ordered these titles, order them now!
Things are still a bit unclear as to how things going forward for Geneon will be handled, in terms of licensed properties that are in mid-release or have not yet been released. As more information is available, we will certainly update you.
List of Geneon titles @ Right Stuf
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Dentsu (Geneon's parent company) apparently dissolved Geneon's DVD distribution department while they were still hinging on a deal with ADV for ADV to take over the manufacturing and distribution of Geneon's properties. When that deal fell through, that left Geneon without a way to distribute their finished products since Dentsu jumped the gun.
No one is sure now what's going to happen with series that are only partially released. If Geneon can't find someone to do their distribution for them or can't afford to recreate its own distribution department.... we may never see the end of Saiunkoku Monogatari, Hellsing Ultimate, and other partially complete series.
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Geneon, formerly Pioneer, was one of the big boys. I don't care what anyone says about that; they were. They brought us Card Captor Sakura (uncut), Tenchi Muyo (everything but GXP), El Hazard, Fushigi Yuugi, Haibane Renmei, ROD the TV, Lain, Last Exile, Trigun, Hellsing TV, and hundreds of other titles. Whether or not they cared, they had THE BEST DVD production of any company. They also arguably had the best subtitles, dubs, and overall series production of any company. And boy did you pay for it, too, which may've caused their downfall.
It makes me sad, really sad. Geneon did everything right except their pricing schedules. Everything they produced was exceptionally high quality and probably worth every extra penny that they charged. There is nothing they did that I was ever unhappy with other than the prices. It's pretty obvious that Dentsu seems to want out of the North American anime business. But that said, I sure hope Geneon can dig themselves out of this hole long enough to finish their unfinished series, and then later die with grace and dignity rather than because of this sad, sad catastrophe.
Manga Ent. should've died first. They were terrible. Their DVD production was AWFUL and they just didn't care. Every time I had to email them on behalf of the club they would give me the run around.
http://www.geneonanimation.com/
Recent Anime News Network posting:
The onetime anime distribution company Geneon Entertainment (USA) Inc. has notified its retail customers that it will cease "the sales of DVDs and all related distribution and marketing operations as of 5 p.m. on Friday, September 28, 2007." The deadline for ordering all Geneon USA products is that time and date, and only orders for "catalog products in inventory or new releases with a street date" of November 6 or earlier will be accepted. Any outstanding retail orders will ship as soon as stock is available. No more returns will be accepted after 5:00 p.m. on November 30, and new orders after September 21 cannot be returned at all. The letter to retailers also says that "payables to Geneon remain unchanged."
From Right Stuf's site:
According to a letter that we received today, Geneon plans to cease DVD sales and distribution by the end of this week, accepting only non-returnable orders for releases with scheduled street dates through 11/6/2007.
We are verifying now whether the remainder of the releases will be canceled completely, but it is our guess that the 11/13 releases and beyond are canceled. Rest assured that we have adequate incoming inventory on all of the titles through 11/6 on order and will be able to fill all customer orders -- if you haven't ordered these titles, order them now!
Things are still a bit unclear as to how things going forward for Geneon will be handled, in terms of licensed properties that are in mid-release or have not yet been released. As more information is available, we will certainly update you.
List of Geneon titles @ Right Stuf
-+-
Dentsu (Geneon's parent company) apparently dissolved Geneon's DVD distribution department while they were still hinging on a deal with ADV for ADV to take over the manufacturing and distribution of Geneon's properties. When that deal fell through, that left Geneon without a way to distribute their finished products since Dentsu jumped the gun.
No one is sure now what's going to happen with series that are only partially released. If Geneon can't find someone to do their distribution for them or can't afford to recreate its own distribution department.... we may never see the end of Saiunkoku Monogatari, Hellsing Ultimate, and other partially complete series.
-+-
Geneon, formerly Pioneer, was one of the big boys. I don't care what anyone says about that; they were. They brought us Card Captor Sakura (uncut), Tenchi Muyo (everything but GXP), El Hazard, Fushigi Yuugi, Haibane Renmei, ROD the TV, Lain, Last Exile, Trigun, Hellsing TV, and hundreds of other titles. Whether or not they cared, they had THE BEST DVD production of any company. They also arguably had the best subtitles, dubs, and overall series production of any company. And boy did you pay for it, too, which may've caused their downfall.
It makes me sad, really sad. Geneon did everything right except their pricing schedules. Everything they produced was exceptionally high quality and probably worth every extra penny that they charged. There is nothing they did that I was ever unhappy with other than the prices. It's pretty obvious that Dentsu seems to want out of the North American anime business. But that said, I sure hope Geneon can dig themselves out of this hole long enough to finish their unfinished series, and then later die with grace and dignity rather than because of this sad, sad catastrophe.
Manga Ent. should've died first. They were terrible. Their DVD production was AWFUL and they just didn't care. Every time I had to email them on behalf of the club they would give me the run around.