Licenses

I recently got a new digital camera that shoots 720p video to replace the one I lost at Anime Expo so I figured I’d use it to cover the omgitscoming.com counter reaching zero at noon yesterday and see what changes would happen to the related Nagi-sama Fanclub site. It had been widely speculated that both websites were part of Bandai Entertainment announcing a license for Kannagi and that’s what it ended up being. What was unexpected was a coordinated launch on ANN’s video service and the first of two DVD volumes available for purchase from Amazon Marketplace (through user storefronts operated by BEI and Shawne Kleckner of TRSI – a bit odd!) & Right Stuf only.

As I was offloading the first video onto my hard drive, I noticed some tweets about further details so I did a 10-minute follow-up video where I looked into those particulars, scoped out the subtitling on ANN’s streaming service, and took a very short survey about the T-shirt offered for preorders of the 2nd volume. (Sorry for accidentally moving the camera up during the survey – the other 2 questions were about what size and from which store would you likely preorder: Amazon or RightStuf.)

In the press release accompanying this announcement, Bandai president Ken Iyadomi said:

This is our way of answering the challenges of a changing marketplace to see how streaming episodes helps DVD and we are making both available at the same time to beat bootleggers who are hurting the industry just as much as the illegal downloaders.

North American anime companies have suffered unexpected heavy returns from general market retailers in recent years but if we can sell moderate quantities exclusively online where no sales returns exist, I believe we can acquire more anime for the US market to be released in this pattern. This is a very different business model and a new challenge.

Not bothering with retail stores like Best Buy on the initial release seems like a smart strategy for something like Kannagi that may have a small potential and I’m guessing the two-pack release in 2010 may feature an English voice track similar to the later release of Gurren Lagann, another Aniplex title, although I’m not willing to bet on it. [UPDATE 7/18: Turns it will not be dubbed, according to Dir. of Marketing Robert Napton.] Iyadomi’s mention of “moderate quantities” is an acknowledgement that such properties will likely not be huge sellers while “beat[ing] bootleggers” calls to my mind the speed to market strategy. The 7th episode of Kannagi premiered in Japan on November 15, 2008, so eight months is not a bad time gap.

Meanwhile: the domestic DVD release of Kurokami, the series Bandai aired dubbed on small-reach ImaginAsian TV as part of a simultaneous broadcast, remains in limbo. All the episodes are currently available for streaming on YouTube and Crunchyroll, though, so I guess there’s not too much of a reason for them to hurry. [UPDATE 7/18: BEI said at their Otakon panel that plans will be detailed in the near future and that it will be their title to be released on Blu-ray as well as DVD. So they did remember.]

Friday (today) is day 1 of Otakon and Aniplex has a TBA panel at 2pm (all times ET) as well as an Industry panel right after it at 3pm in the same room. Bandai is having their panel Friday night 9-10pm, which overlaps with the final third of the MELL concert that starts at 8pm. (If I were there and had to choose, I’d go with the concert and then think about possibly catching the end of the panel if I wasn’t tired.) I wouldn’t be surprised if something Haruhi-related came up (asosbrigade.com) either during their panel or later in the weekend. Also: director Yutaka Yamamoto’s panel is Friday morning at 11am.

To take a tangent, I ended up biting on the Bandai sale TRSI in its final hours last night and bought Cowboy Bebop Remix (I’ve only seen bits of the series), the Lucky Star OVA (because I previously liked it), and Hayate Part 1 (almost didn’t get this one). I bring this up because of Hayate‘s packaging, namely, the seven episodes on a single disc that Kannagi looks like it also has. Mania’s Chris Beveridge commented in his review that “[i]t all looks decent but lacks any real sharpness and vibrancy as the colors feel a bit muted” and that “it’s hard to tell if hard to tell if it’s coming from the encoding – which is in the mid range of five most of the time – or the actual source material”. Even though Aniplex provided the production materials to Bandai and I think well of them, I’m hoping that it’s a double-layered disc. (The True Tears and sola sets coming out next month will be spread out over three discs.)

Splitting Kannagi into two seven-episode releases makes some sense (14 halves evenly) but why for Hayate and why on single discs? After the second release in September, BEI will have 38 episodes left and if they continue at seven per disc (maybe a few 4-4 sets), there will likely be 5 more releases for a total of 7 for the first series. They’ve done 5-4 and 4-4 sets with Lagann, Code Geass, and Gundam 00 but all those had English dub tracks and have aired on TV while neither Hayate nor Kannagi have that advantage (yet). Whatever impact TV broadcasts actually have anymore on DVD sales is up for debate.