Geneon News - What Does it Mean?
For those who were not enrolled in Geneon's "G-Spot" club and/or did not receive the letter from the CEO, you can find a copy of it here. While I appreciate their finally making a public statement to their customers, this sounds like an extremely non-committal response to fans' begging to know what will happen to series that are not all out yet (Karin, Saiunkoku, Kyou Kara Maoh!, Rozen Maiden, etc.). However, based on this letter, there are a few things which I can discern and announce with a fair amount of certainty.
First of all, Geneon Entertainment, USA, Inc. will NOT be going out of business entirely. The question as to whether they will continue releasing CDs or not still remains unanswered, but so far everything they've announced relates solely to DVDs. This begs the question as to what they WILL be doing.
Secondarily, from a licensing standpoint, further releases of series they were working on may be very complicated. As they are not going completely under, the licenses will almost definitely not automatically revert back to the original Japaneses licensors (as they did with titles released by Orion when the company died), meaning that a lot of negotiations, paperwork, and hassle will certainly be involved in the future release of any titles to which Geneon owns the US rights.
And, once again, the question as to what will happen next arises, with no concrete answer in sight (although, I'm certain that a surplus of speculation will be everywhere by noon tomorrow).
First of all, Geneon Entertainment, USA, Inc. will NOT be going out of business entirely. The question as to whether they will continue releasing CDs or not still remains unanswered, but so far everything they've announced relates solely to DVDs. This begs the question as to what they WILL be doing.
Secondarily, from a licensing standpoint, further releases of series they were working on may be very complicated. As they are not going completely under, the licenses will almost definitely not automatically revert back to the original Japaneses licensors (as they did with titles released by Orion when the company died), meaning that a lot of negotiations, paperwork, and hassle will certainly be involved in the future release of any titles to which Geneon owns the US rights.
And, once again, the question as to what will happen next arises, with no concrete answer in sight (although, I'm certain that a surplus of speculation will be everywhere by noon tomorrow).