The consolidation of US anime distributors is continuing. On July 1, Bandai Namco Holdings will combine Bandai Entertainment and Bandai Visual USA. The latter will be liquidated by the end of September.
Bandai Visual USA has been shrinking. As of April, they had only two employees. The company head, Tatsunori Konno, moved back to Japan earlier this month.
Bandai Visual USA was established to primarily present collectors’ editions of Bandai Visual titles from Japan. The price structure was similar to their Japanese counterparts and was not warmly received by North American consumers. Last year, the company had over $1.15 million in sales, but had a loss of $595,000.
On a related note, parent company, Bandai Namco Holdings announced their financial numbers on May 8 for last fiscal year which ended in March. The news was not bad, but it also was not good. According to Anime! Anime!, the consolidated income was 460,473 million yen (about $4.4 billion US). This was only a 0.3% increase from last year, and did not meet the projected amount of 480,000 million yen (about $4.6 billion US). Other numbers:
- operating income was 33,411 million yen (about $319 million US)
- recurring income was 36,198 million yen (about $345 million US)
- net income was 32,679 million yen (about $312 million US)
ANN Story:
Bandai Visual USA to be Liquidated by September
Press Releases:
Bandai Namco
Bandai Entertainment
Bandai Visual USA
Anime! Anime! Story (translated by KatanaXtreme):
Namco Bandai’s financial result reveals the hard fight of AM, and visual and music content businesses
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In other Bandai news, Bandai Entertainment announced that the Gainax series, Gurren Lagann, will air on the US’s Sci Fi Channel. It will air as part of Sci Fi’s Ani-Monday block beginning July 28. Two episodes will be presented every week through October. The announcement was made earlier this month at the Talks on Gurren Lagann panel discussion which was part of FanimeCon (San Jose, California).
Image © Gainax/Aniplex, KDE-J, TV Tokyo, Dentsu
ANN Story:
Bandai Entertainment Confirms Gurren Lagann on Sci Fi Channel (Updated)
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Director Mamoru Oshii (Ghost in the Shell) recently supervised the opening and ending animations for NHK’s new documentary mini-series, Futto Toshi (Effervescent Cities…ANN’s translation of the title is Cities in Tumultuous Change). Production I.G animated the title sequence and Kenji Kawai (Ghost in the Shell movies) composed the music.
The 8-part series premiered on May 18 and focuses on cities which are “becoming new international players with the advance of globalization“. On the NHK website, Shinichi Terazono, Senior Producer (Special Programs Division in charge Futto Toshi) comments about the series:
“This is said to be the year when the world’s urban population is overtaking the world’s rural population. Globalization is also shifting power away from the United States to other growing economic powers. I believe we can present a new type of documentary. The title sequence images have been created by Mamoru Oshii, whose work is popular among young Japanese people, and the pace of the program will be faster than in our conventional documentaries. Dubai is the first rising city of the series, followed by London, Dacca, and Istanbul.“
Image captures taken from a promotional video of the first two episodes of Futto Toshi:
Copyright NHK Japan Broadcasting Corporation. All rights reserved.
ANN Story:
Oshii Oversees Opening, Ending for NHK Documentaries
NHK Reference:
On two new NHK Specials, Futto Toshi (Effervescent Cities), and The Arctic Circle – The Future of the Globe
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ADV Films and San Francisco based video sharing site Crunchyroll have teamed up with a digital promotion campaign. The first 12 episodes of the 24 episode series, Welcome to the NHK will be available on Crunchyroll’s website. Currently, episodes 1 – 4 are available (as of May 29). Over the next four weeks, the remaining episodes will be posted, two episodes every Thursday. As a cross-promotion, ADV is also offering Volumes 1 – 3 of Welcome to the NHK DVDs at 50% off the suggested retail price at select retailers.
Crunchyroll has its own promotional tie-in. They are running a contest to find the “Top Otaku”. The contest is open to community members, who have to post photos of their otaku room showing off all their fan stuff. The winners will get Volumes 1 – 4 of Welcome to the NHK DVDs. For full rules, check the Crunchyroll website.
What makes this partnership a little unusual is that Crunchyroll is known for pushing (and often stepping over) the boundaries of copyright law. The site has been popular and, in 2007, Viacom nearly bought Crunchyroll for $10 million. Probably someone in the company realized that the purchase of a company known for posting copyright infringing content would hurt their lawsuit with Google (YouTube) and the deal was dropped. Still, Crunchyroll was able to secure over $4 million of funding earlier this February from venture capital firm Venrock.
ANN Story:
Crunchyroll to Stream ADV’s Welcome to the NHK
Crunchyroll References:
Crunchyroll Pushes the Envelope On Video Copyright
VC’s Back Crunchyroll: Guts? Brains? Or Sheer Stupidity?
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Speaking of copyright infringement, the Belarusian baked goods and confectionery company, MINSKHLEBPROM, seems to be pushing the envelope with a mascot character shown on the packaging of their chocolate waffle. The character looks suspiciously like Haruhi Suzumiya, the title charater of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (light novels, manga, and anime). Several online sites in Japan have nicknamed the Belarusian character “Haruhinov,” “Haruhichov,” “Haruhikov Dekovitch,” and “Haruhinikov Uchujinsky”.
Haruhi Image © 2006Nagaru Tanigawa /Noizi Ito / member of SOS
ANN Story:
Haruhi Lookalike Appears on Belarusian Waffle Packaging (Updated)
Japanese Source:
newAkiba.com
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Japan’s Ministry of Tourism is hoping that kawaii will bring in more visitors from China. Earlier this month, the Ministry appointed Hello Kitty as the tourism ambassador to China and Hong Kong. She is very popular among children and young women there and ministry officials are hoping this popularity translates to helping with their “Visit Japan” campaign’s goal of attracting 10 million overseas visitors every year. Last year, there were 8.35 million overseas visitors to Japan, a record high.
It doesn’t hurt that Hello Kitty’s Dream Light Fantasy, a multi-million dollar musical, opened earlier this year in Beijing. The musical is currently touring China and will later visit Malaysia, Singapore, and the U.S. as part of a three year run.
Hello Kitty will be the first fictional character to be used as a tourism ambassador. Past ambassadors include J-pop duo Puffy AmiYumi, Korean singer Younha, and Japanese actress Yoshino Kimura. On a side note, Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs tapped robot cat Doraemon as Japan’s anime ambassador in March.
Picture of Hello Kitty with Japan’s Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Minister Tetsuzo Fuyushiba: AP Photo/Koji Sasahara
Associated Press Story:
Hello Kitty is named Japan tourism ambassador
Whoa…
Now I thought Bandai Visual USA was a huge branch in the USA, but it’s only being operated by two employees? O_o
As well, up to now, I still can’t believe that Crunchyroll got funding by venture capitalists.
The fact that they’ve been streaming fansubs forever and have been threatened by various companies for a while for copyright infringement ceases to amaze me.
Still, I detest Crunchyroll, streaming anime is never good, and if it still exists, I believe they make you pay to get “better” quality streams, while FLV format fails either way.
@Piroko
Bandai Entertainment has been the larger of the two production/distribution arms of Bandai Namco in the US…and now it will be the only one. Bandai Visual USA was there to cater to the hard core fan, so their product and pricing structure was similar to Japan’s Bandai Visual. Unfortunately for them, the North American hard core fan was not as willing to pay the prices their Japanese counterparts were paying.
Crunchyroll, lately, has been making a bid for legitimacy. Besides the venture capital funding, they recently announced that they will host the international premiere of the computer-graphics anime film Egg Man from T.O. Entertainment in the fall. Still, it is going to be difficult for them to distance themselves from their past.