U.S. Anime Heavyweights Form Joint Production Venture

[Last Exile]

Hey,

i was looking at some news in anime and i stumbled accross this new info that is 3 days old but is big news in the anime world. here it is :

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CANNES, FRANCE October 5, 2004 - The three largest producers and distributors of Anime in America - ADV Films, Inc., Funimation Productions LTD and Geneon Entertainment (USA) Inc. - announced plans to form a joint venture for the development and marketing of Anime. The announcement was made here today at MIPCOM by John Ledford, CEO and President, ADV Films, Kevin Corcoran, Chief Operating Officer/Chief Financial Officer, ADV Films; Gen Fukunaga, President, Funimation Productions LTD, Daniel Cocanougher, Vice President; Funimation Productions LTD; Yosuke Kobayashi, President and CEO, Geneon Entertainment (USA) Inc. and Hideki Goto, Vice President, Business Development, Geneon Entertainment (USA) Inc.

The new joint venture will focus on developing high quality entertainment series primarily targeted to children and young adults, where the team can best maximize their respective resources, talent and expertise.

The synergy of these companies is impressive as together they reach 70 percent of the Anime home video market in the United States.

Geneon Entertainment (USA) Inc. (http://www.Geneon-ent.com) is a full-service producer and distributor of entertainment content including film, music, animation and television shows on VHS, DVD and CD. Headquartered in Long Beach, California, Geneon Entertainment's parent company is Tokyo-based advertising giant Dentsu Inc. and the company is best known as the distributor of the well-known Anime hits Pokemon and Akira.

Funimation (http://www.funimation.com) is a leading brand management company for Anime content and one of the nation's largest independent home video entertainment companies. Headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas, the company is best known for creating the blockbuster franchise "Dragonball Z" in the U.S.

ADV Films is a leading producer-distributor of Japanese animation ("anime") for the North American market and has also developed a leadership position in the UK. Headquartered in Houston, the company has also launched the Anime Network, first cable channel in North America dedicated to anime with access to thousand of hours of exciting, eye-catching serialized programming.

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So well what are your toughts on this it seem kind of weird that they would all do this companies usualy do this if they are caving in but they are all doing really well and were great seperate hopefully this wont ruin there companies, also what will the be called? also if they will use both sides Voice Actors... time will tell i guess ! all they really need to do now is launch the anime network Really everywhere, cause i dont have it the 3 [places im always at : Long Beach CA, Chandler AZ, Santa Fe NM. they need to launch with COX and comcast cable.

-LE

[Ryujin]

I don't really care too much about this, especially with those butchers of anime "Funimation". Its nice and all but its not like anyone at those companies has the talent or is willing to put in the money to create a brand new anime, all this means is that they will be messing with each others stuff, and aimed at kids = cut up badly voice acted travesties shown for early morning TV. Not interested.

[yukimoritenchen]

kids and young adults

[Robojack]

You can be pretty sure that when Westerners get their hands on anything 2D animated, it'll either turn into a kids title, or into a poorly piece of work with senseless (and tasteless) violence, gore, and/or software nudity (*cough*Heavy Metal, Spawn!*cough*). Geneon doesn't know what they're getting themselves into.

[Vicious]

You can be pretty sure that when Westerners get their hands on anything 2D animated, it'll either turn into a kids title, or into a poorly piece of work with senseless (and tasteless) violence, gore, and/or software nudity (*cough*Heavy Metal, Spawn!*cough*). Geneon doesn't know what they're getting themselves into.

Ummmm . . . South Park, Simpsons, Family Guy, Futurama . . . yeah, those are all horrible.

[Robojack]

I had those in mind also when I wrote that. But notice what happens when they stray away from comedy, and into more serious, adult oriented genres? That's what I fear.

[Last Exile]

hopefully this will be better for them all and they will release a new mag with a dvd again and actualy have somehting good on it to watch.... when i get back i might just order a sub to newtype, im payign 10$ an issue already.

-LE

[evilomar]

I had those in mind also when I wrote that. But notice what happens when they stray away from comedy, and into more serious, adult oriented genres? That's what I fear.

Sure like Batman animated series, Justice league, and the Superman cartoons, the Disney movies. Sure all crap, just kids stuff nothing for the adults.

[Vicious]

hopefully this will be better for them all and they will release a new mag with a dvd again and actualy have somehting good on it to watch.... when i get back i might just order a sub to newtype, im payign 10$ an issue already.

-LE

I've been avoiding having to point out the obvious to you since you started this thread. You really don't read or perhaps you just don't comprehend what you've read. They annunced plans to 'form a joint venture'. They're not merging together or buying each other out. There IS a difference.

[Mantis421]

The only concern I would have with such a venture is will their be anime titles that never see the light of day because of the market share these three would control. Where would that leave any anime titles where the maker was on bad terms with one of these companies. I fully believe that leaving it where it is now (Healthy compition) keeps the industry competitive.

[Cidien]

The phrase "kids and young adults" scares me.

Funimation has been doing a good job lately. Releases like Blue Gender and Yu Yu Hakusho were done very well.

As for Spawn, I think that was a pretty cool anime. But i'm also a pretty big spawn fan. I just wish they had more episodes releases on dvd. Don't know if they quit making them or what. Was told there were more playing on hbo than they released on dvd but havn't really checked that out myself. Whatever it is, stopping the anime series where they did was crappy. =/

[Last Exile]

yes Vicious i know they arent merging but hey you never know what will happen a lot of merges turn out to be combonations of companies like Square soft and enix to make squarenix soo its not to hard to believe they will combine in the future if there joining forces works out we might just see : AFG
ADV Films
Funimation
Geneon

but i was meaning that maybe when they are all groped together they will be able to mix it up in the newtype-usa mag. add epps and info from the other 2 companies with them. i know they feature alot of funimation'sstuff already but to add more of geneon stuff would be great.

-LE

[tsunami]

Hmm.... what would be the real factor is the "okay" from the government as to those companies being able to merge. All US companies that merge have to get okays from government (to prevent monopolies) and stockholders. I don't know how japanese companies will react to a monster anime company but we will just have to see.

For the worst animated young adult cartoon I'd have to go with Maxx as they totally made that show look crazy.

[Vicious]

It would never happen. There's too many conflicting things for those companies to merge. You guys are thinking 20 steps ahead to something that will never happen.

[Last Exile]

ANYTHING Can happen and i underline anything cause anything is possible in this crazy world. like George W. bush, how he even made it out of elementry school is a puzzle for me but he did, he should of been held back but hey something happened and that litte special retarted kid made it out and became our worst president. see anything can happen so dont be so closeminded.

-LE