Funimation's November Releases - Now Available for Pre-Order!

Funimation has sent us over their November sales book a little early this month, and we now have it up on the store site for pre-order.

Here's what's coming:

Dragonball Z Movie Pack #1 (Movies #1-5) DVD - Nov 8
Dragon Ball Z Level 1.1 (BLURAY) - Nov 8
Initial D Second & Third Stage Season 2 + Movie DVD Boxed Set (Eps #27-39 + OVA + Movie) (S.A.V.E. Edition) - Nov 8
Mushishi Complete Collection DVD Boxed Set (S.A.V.E. Edition) - Nov 8
Romeo X Juliet Complete Collection DVD Boxed Set (Eps #1-24) (S.A.V.E. Edition) - Nov 8
Blassreiter Complete Collection DVD Boxed Set (Eps #1-24) (S.A.V.E. Edition) - Nov 15
Love Hina Complete Collection DVD Boxed Set (Eps #1-25) (Classic Collection) - Nov 15
Shuffle Complete Collection DVD Boxed Set (Eps #1-24) (S.A.V.E. Edition) - Nov 15
Fairy Tail Collection #1 DVD/BD Combo Set (Limited Edition) - Nov 22
Hetalia (Axis Powers) Paint It, White the Movie DVD (Limited Edition) - Nov 22
Bubblegum Crisis Tokyo 2040 Complete Collection DVD Boxed Set (Classic Collection) - Nov 29
One Piece Collection #3 DVD Boxed Set (Eps #53-78) (Uncut) - Nov 29
Yu Yu Hakusho Season 4 DVD Boxed Set (Eps #85-112) (BLURAY) (Classic Collection) - Nov 29
Yu Yu Hakusho OVA (Eizou Hakusho) DVD Set - Nov 29

My thoughts? Well, I thought their Nov schedule would be a little better (it will be the holiday season after all), but it's mostly another slate of S.A.V.E. and Classic Collection re-releases. I'm sorry to say but it's pretty clear that, ex Navarre, we are dealing with a company diminished. Anime is a tough business folks. Still, we are going to get the first half of Fairy Tail and the Hetalia Movie (though Paint it White is not being offered on BD at this time). We are also finally going to start getting original DBZ episodes on BluRay, though frankly after Kai I have to wonder how many fans will be ready to spend money on yet another release of DBZ - especially one that's only 17 eps at a time. Around here we think the next logical step would have been to publish the mythical 'Deluxe Limited Edition FULL DBZ Boxed Set' that everyone has been waiting more than 10 years for - you know, the entire 291 eps all in one Super Deluxe package. Then Funi could FINALLY, and I mean FINALLY, put DBZ in the rear view mirror. I guess we'll never see that in my lifetime though. ~sigh~ The re-release of BGC 2040 was a bit of a surprise, and a welcome one as those episodes have been off the market since ADV went under in 2009. One final note: we'll only be offering the limited edition version of the Hetalia movie up front, but we're going to price it at what the reg edition would sell for anyway. I think the LE is the one most of you will want, so that's the one we are going to offer in pre-order.

Gen Fukunaga and Investor Group Buys Back Funimation - for Just $24 Million

HEH. I had noticed that there seemed to be a lot of selling of NAVR stock over the last few days, because something was driving the price down, and now I'm reading this from the Anime Economatrix over my coffee this morning:

The media distributor Navarre Corporation announced on Monday that it has sold its anime company Funimation to a group of investors that includes Gen Fukunaga, who is also Funimation's chief executive officer. The price of the all-cash transaction is US$24 million. Navarre will continue to serve as Funimation's exclusive distributor in the United States, as well as its logistics and fulfillment services provider. The investment group also includes John A. Kuelbs "who was then instrumental in selecting Darwin and Doug Deason to join the team," according to Funimation.

Gen Fukunaga gave this statement:

"We have a great history with Navarre and we thank everyone there for their longstanding support throughout the last five years. It is due to Navarre's logistical expertise and wide distribution network that we were able to grow our company into the Anime industry's market share leader. Though it will no longer be our parent company, Navarre will continue to distribute our product and we look forward to working with them for years to come. We are very excited about our new partners all of whom understand our vision and will help us develop our initiatives in physical product, digital entertainment and other growth areas."

In January 2005, Navarre Corporation announced plans to acquire from a group of private owners that included Fukunaga and the Cocanaour family . The acquisition was completed in May that year. Navarre initially offered $127 million dollars for Funimation ($100.5 million in cash and $26.5 million in Navarre common stock) and $17 million in performance based earnouts, for a total of $142 million. Adjustments to the value of the Navarre stock and cancellation of the earnout payments brought the total price for Funimation down to $114 million, $90 million more than today's announced sale price.

Funimation's 2004 net sales totalled US$72 million, with pre-tax income of US$29.8 million. Earlier this year business reporter Eric Wieffering estimated Funimation's 2010 net sales at US $35 million and pre-tax income at US $10 million (Funimation's 2010 financial year ended on March 31, 2011).

Last year, Navarre announced that it was considering selling Funimation. In September, the company stated that it had six potential buyers, but announced in January that it had received no adequate offer and was considering halting the sales process.

Gen really is the smartest guy in the room in the R1 Anime biz, and is one of the few people who has actually gotten rich from it. He put together this little Anime company with the help of a some private investment money, built it up with the help of his family connections in Japan, and sells it a few years later at the top of the market to Navarre for $142 Million, and then (with the help of a little more private investment money) buy's it back from the same now debt laden company six years later for $24 Million - 17 cents on the dollar - and got to run the thing the whole time. Unreal. In the end, Gen had to round up a group of investors who could easily afford to loose a few million.

So there is really nothing happening here except that Gen is getting richer and Navarre shareholders take a bath. After all, shareholders usually do - it's always those big money private equity guys that come out roses.

Update: Reid Porter, the COO of Navarre says: "This transaction ends a comprehensive sales process undertaken over the last year. As previously discussed, FUNimation's future strategies and associated risks to execute them are not in line with Navarre's strategic direction." In other words, we no longer have to risk loosing more money in a declining R1 Anime industry.

Cary Deacon, and CEO of Navarre says: "Navarre will be able to deploy the funds generated from the sale of FUNimation to build or acquire new businesses and services to diversify our revenue streams that will support our long-term objectives." Cary, it seems, thinks there are better places to deploy their capitol than in the Anime industry.

The folks at Navarre seem to be pretty happy about getting Funi off their books. NAVR shareholders seem less enthused. Stock is trading flat on the announcement. Looks like all the folks 'in the know' got out already over the past few weeks.

UPDATE 2 (Apr 6): Cary Deacon, the CEO of Navarre was fired today by the board of directors. I guess some of the larger shareholders have had enough.

Weather Alert - Expect Time in Transit Delays

We have managed to dodge the bullet so far here are RACS HQ with only ice out of this last big winter storm, and it has not effected our daily operations too much. In fact the problem hasn't really been getting orders out, as much as getting new stuff in from the vendors. For example, even though Funi is in Texas, all their product ships out of Navarre's warehouse in Minnesota. Think about that.

Anyway, because so much of the country is getting slammed by so much snow, ice, and blizzard conditions, especially to the North and West of us, I thought I'd better post a little something about it. So here it is:

Due to severe winter conditions in the Mid-West and North East region of the US, some delays may be expected during the usual in transit time of your orders. Please allow extra time for the delivery of your orders, even if you live in an area not effected by the winter storms. Because of the scope and extent of the storms, it's likely that freight schedules will be effected nationwide.

Navarre Says No 'Adequate' Offers for Funimation Yet

From Navarre's earnings report released this evening:

"Discontinued operations includes the results of FUNimation Entertainment. Net income from discontinued operations during the third quarter was $1.8 million, as compared to $928,000 in the prior fiscal year. Strong earnings performance in discontinued operations resulted from solid year-over-year sales growth. Cash flow from discontinued operations contributed strongly to the company's year-over-year debt reduction.

The company has not yet received an adequate offer in connection with its efforts to sell FUNimation Entertainment. Although this sales process continues, if the company does not receive an adequate offer in the fourth quarter, it anticipates that these efforts will be halted."

The full report can be found here.

It's late and I'm tired, but I would add a couple things real quick:

1) Here's my blog entry from the last quarterly report.

2) Navarre's 'third quarter 2011' is actually the forth quarter, 2010 (Oct to Dec 2010). That's the holiday quarter and should be their best performing reporting period of the year.

3) 'Discontinued operations' is just financial lingo to separate out the Funimation business segment. It doesn't mean they are discontinuing Funimation, just that they are trying to sell the division and have to report it's earnings separately. This is required by GAAP if you are a public company.

4) Funi has pulled out every card in the deck over the last two quarters to get their revenue up in anticipation of a possible sale. I'm not sure $1.8 Million in quarterly revenue for the holiday quarter of a company that owns 60% of a national market can really be characterized as 'solid sales growth', but they certainly managed to beat their previous, and truly dismal year over year quarter, in 2009. I'm not knocking them here, 2009 was absolutely terrible for everyone.

5) One of Navarre's stated business objectives is now listed as "expanding our products and services beyond digitally downloadable products". That means they want to sell more stuff that can't be downloaded online. Hey, don't we all!

6) During that period I had made them an offer to swap companies, but apparently Gen's office was already bigger than mine and he doesn't like cold winters, so they didn't go for it. He also said something about "wouldn't give a squirt to be on the retail end right now", or something to that effect, but I probably misunderstood... HEH.

If anyone is interested, Navarre's earnings conference call will be at 11:00 a.m. EST tomorrow (Tuesday, Feb 1). The call can be accessed by dialing (866) 831-6243, and entering pass code "83066830" ten minutes prior to the start time. It will also be webcast live and can be accessed in the "Investors" section of their website here.

Listen in if you can, it might be very revealing. More later, I'm pooped.

Navarre May End Up Keeping Funimation

Navarre's 3rd quarter (Q2 fiscal) earnings call earlier this week was quite revealing. They reported a quarterly profit of $1.7 million for the FUNimation division (now reported as “'discontinued operations'), vs. $435,000 in the year ago period. Now while that looks pretty good, keep in mind the year over year is up against the truly abysmal Q3 numbers everyone was turning in last year, and that during the 3rd quarter Funi has been doing everything possible, like liquidating a lot of surplus inventory, to help make their short term numbers look better in advance of a potential sale. Still, not too shabby.

Anyway, after going over the numbers, most of the questions asked during the Q&A were about Funi and how things are coming along with the proposed sale. Cary Deacon (CEO of Navarre) when asked about progress, said this:

"Yes we have had offers and indications of interest. We have gone through management presentations with those parties and some of those parties have come back with further rebids. At this point we’re analyzing those rebids and expanding our look at it."

After listening to him, it's clear to me that they are really not too far along with the sales process. Cary went on to say:

"The predesigned strategy that we’ve talked about earlier was to sell that asset and move forward with our distribution expansion strategy. However, we’re analyzing the value of selling that asset and whether that makes sense at this time based on the price levels and the indications of interest that we have. We’re not final in that process but we will very shortly decide whether the indications of interest and the ability to close a transaction is valid or whether we should continue to run FUNimation.

I’m pleased to tell you that (I think you’ve seen in the quarter) FUNimation continues to be run as if we’re going to own it. We’ve said from the get go that nothing is certain in life and we can’t just let FUNimation slide so we’ve done a good job of running FUNimation.

Would we like to sell it? That answer is yes, it’s part of our strategic plan; but we’re going to be very selective in that decision and decide whether it’s best to keep it or to sell it at the current levels of indication."

Cary said that by the end of December there would probably be an indication of whether or not Navarre will (or rather can) sell Funimation .

I don't think they are having much luck finding someone willing to make a big investment in this industry, and I repudiated the whole 'strategic plan' thing last May. The economy is still terrible, and raising money to fund a purchase like this has got to be next to impossible. Taken as part of the whole, Funi has gained truly impressive market share carving out about a 50% slice of the US Anime market. If you count only dubs, Funi is probably 85% of that market. But the days of the DVD business are waning, and when you ask someone in the industry how they plan to monetize their licensed content digitally - in a way that will show similar results to former DVD sales - well, no one has a clue. There are some bright ideas about how it 'might' be done, but it's going to cost a lot of money testing markets and delivery methods in order to figure it out. In fact, a lot of us (including me) are rather doubtful that it can ever be done. Right now, everyone's digital strategy seems to be to give the content away for free, hoping that the audience they are building will someday be converted into paying customers. Don't count on it.

So unless they find themselves willing to give Funimation away for a song, I think Navarre is going to be stuck with them, whether it plays into their 'strategic objectives' or not. Frankly, I still question to original premise for trying to separate the company. Rates are at 50 years lows, so Navarre should be able to refi it's debt through the market and let Funi keep adding to the bottom line.

And as a final thought, if they do end up keeping Funi, I want to just thank Cary for creating an incredible atmosphere of uncertainty in our business. As Funi goes, so goes the industry. We have been keenly aware of that more than ever in recent months, and so has the fan base.

Navarre Can No Longer Afford Funimation's Great Results...

If CMX's announced exit from the Manga market last week was equivalent to a hand grenade, this is a tactical nuke from orbit. From the Economatrix earlier today:

"Navarre Corporation has announced on Thursday that it has hired the investment bank Houlihan Lokey "to assist it in structuring and negotiating a potential transaction for the sale" of its Funimation anime arm. The plans may not result in an actual sale.

Navarre emphasized that "Funimation's recent results have generally met expectations," but CEO Cary L. Deacon said that Navarre will be focusing its strategy on its distribution and software publishing businesses. According to Navarre, Funimation plans to grow its business through "co-productions of original anime content, social networks and digital broadcasting," and those plans are best executed with another owner that has assets or expertise in those areas.

If the sale goes through, Navarre plans to present Funimation as a "discontinued operation" — a financial term for a segment of a company that has been separated from the rest of the company, or has been approved for separation — starting in the first quarter of the 2011 fiscal year. The first quarter runs until the end of June. Navarre will discuss its strategy in more detail during its June 4 year-end conference call for the 2010 fiscal year."

[Robert Bangs Head on Table]

On the upside, this could be interpreted as a 'Navarre Problem'. Funi is probably one of the few detachable divisions that Navarre could sell off to raise cash, so on the surface this move does not have to be about any sort of fundamental appraisal of the future of the R1 business.

But of course, it is.

I wish they had not said the thing about 'considering the directions Funi is going, it would be better off in someone else's hands'. That thought seems like pure spin. If digital content is the future, that should be exactly where they would want to be. So what if it doesn't jive with their other business units? Top management's job at any company is to look into the crystal ball and decide what they think the best allocation of available capital will be in the current business environment to maximize future returns.

So I think this is all about Navarre management's view of the future prospects of the R1 Anime industry (in any capacity - media, digital, etc.) against the deployment potential of that capital elsewhere - for them. And they will surely be selling Funi at a fraction of the $125 Milllion in cash and stock they paid Genji for it back in 2005.

Currently in the R1 industry, Funimation is the 800lb gorilla in the room. They own maybe 55-60% of the total R1 Anime market, with all the other players together carving up the scrapes. Plus, this move will put fully half the current available Anime catalog 'in play'.

Can they even complete a transaction in this market?
What will they do if they fail to sell it?
Will Genji stay once it's sold?
Will the business focus of a new owner be different?

I've got a headache this evening the size of Kansas.

Funimation Licenses Dragon Ball Z 'Kai'

Funimation's parent Navarre Corp announced last week during their shareholder conference call that Funi has licensed Dragon Ball Z Kai. Certainly no surprises there. DBZ Kai is not a new series and consists entirely of remastered material from the original DBZ series

Dragon Ball Z Kai is basically a hi-def, streamlined version of the DBZ series. Toei has been showing DBZ Kai episodes in Japan since last April. For DBZ Kai, Toei remastered the original DBZ footage in high definition, updated the opening and ending sequences, and re-recorded the vocal tracks using the original cast members. The footage was re-edited to conform more closely with the narrative flow of the DBZ manga. Some story arcs were completely eliminated and the 291 original episodes of DBZ have been reduced to around 100 eps for the Dragon Ball Z Kai version.

Funimation Now Pretty Much Owns the R1 Anime Market

From ICV2:

"In a conference call discussing his company's latest quarterly financial results Cary L. Deacon the CEO of Funimation parent Navarre told industry analysts that Funimation has 'a first look at all opportunities in terms of licenses. We’re seeing them all, we have an opportunity to bid on them all.'Deacon noted that currently Funimation was being “pretty selective” in choosing which anime to license, but he reiterated Navarre’s optimism regarding the future of Funimation in spite of the fact that 'the overall DVD market continues to be somewhat soft.' Navarre reported a 26% decline Q2 sales for its publishing division, which includes Funimation, thanks to the shutting down of Navarre’s BCI unit, and a softer schedule of anime titles from Funimation.

According to Deacon in spite of the soft schedule, Funimation had 'a solid quarter and met its internal sales targets.' Deacon said that he remains 'buoyant' about 'the opportunities that Funimation’s anime market dominance will provide in the future.' In response to an analyst’s question Deacon estimated Funimation's share of the U.S. anime market at about 56% to 60%."

Our DVD sales numbers corroborate those market share figures. That means that just about all the Anime now licensed for R1 that's published by any of the other companies will be something that Funi passes on. Think about that. But it's not surprising, Funi has always taken care of us (as an Anime retailer) the best of all the other R1 companies, some of which (not naming any names) have done things in the past that are actually openly hostile to their retailer partners. From where we sit, Funi has definitely earned the top spot.

Snow (Ice) Day / Macro Economics

We needed to close the warehouse today due to the snow / ice storm that come through the Washington area over the last two days. Most of us managed to get in and take care of business yesterday in the snow, but the ice that followed today pretty much closed everything down. If you have an e-mail inquiry in and haven't heard back yet, don't worry, Jamie and I will be working on them later this evening here at home and all morning tomorrow to get caught up. We'll have quite a few orders to catch up on tomorrow.

OK, so I'm spending a rare afternoon not working, reading the news, and wondering back to my Macro Economic days in college 16 years ago. The thing that strikes me in all the economic headlines is how difficult it is to figure out what the data means. For instance, home sales apparently turned around a bit in December, and inventory was down - BUT - 45% of those sales were banks dumping foreclosed properties for whatever they could get, accounting for a huge drop in median home price levels. The MSM will spin it however they want, but is that a good thing, or a bad thing? The proposed 825 Billion so called 'stimulus' is so large the number seems to loose all meaning to the masses, and will be financed strictly through more borrowing. This is in addition to the 750 Billion TARP funds, which is in addition to the existing budget deficit, whatever that is (it seems to change from week to week). I have to wonder just how much debt our government can really afford to take on. In other words, how much annual tax revenue, which is a direct reflection of our national productive capacity, will have to be consumed making interest payments on our dept, and were is the tipping point when we have to increase deficit spending just to pay the debt interest.

It’s just mind boggling to me, and I don’t claim to be able to understand it all, and I suspect most people and commentators can’t either which is why everyone seems to try to boil the problems down to some common denominator that probably misses the big picture. Is this just another negative blip in our history (which is what we want it to be), or will it be the perfect storm, the 500 year flood that will alter our way of life forever. I have no idea, but it does seem to suggest a Black Swan when you see something like this:

I had seen this scary fed borrowing graph highlighted here a few days ago, and now someone has made a movie (above) out of it that demonstrates how the current economic situation is an order of power higher in scale than anything we’ve ever seen before. What does it mean when the Fed borrows more money in one month than in the previous 70 years? I have no idea, but you get a gut feeling that it can’t be good. Those huge borrowing numbers over the last 14 months are purportedly funds drawn by banks and financial institution at the Fed’s open discount window under the emergency rules that allow them to use assets of questionable value and quality as collateral for Federal Reserve loans, and that money is being drawn to keep up the government required capital ratios up to par at thousands of financial institutions as they have to write down the value of commercial paper assets that have gone bad. Since lending is still stalled, I can only assume that this money is currently sitting on Bank balance sheets waiting for better times. What happens if the government decides to nationalize the banks? – something to me that has implications far more reaching than just trying to stabilize the economy. Do these people really know what they are doing, or are they doing things because they simply have no other choice?

And here again, I have no answers. Where do these trillions of new dollars come from? Do they borrow it? Do they print it? What happens if that new money gets turned loose on the economy in general? Will people’s habits change? Will they start saving more than they spend? Will this lead to a period of terrible deflation like in Japan during the nineties? Or will all this new money lead to a period of hyper inflation that will devalue the US dollar and deflate the US debt, and along with it destroy the net worth of every asset holding household in America? The latter seems to be the only way the government can deal with it’s massive debt long term, as there seems to be no chance what so ever that debt will ever be paid off, and just making the interest payments will become the biggest budgetary challenge in coming years. How will entitlement programs possibly be able to remain solvent in the near future? How will business owners like me have any opportunity to continue to create value under such conditions?

As you can see, I have no answers to these questions. Maybe some of you guys and gals out there who are a lot smarter than me can give me some reassurance that my concerns about our economic future as a nation are – well – unfounded?

On the Anime front, Funimation's parent Navarre will release Q4 earnings on February 6th. If anyone is interested in sitting in on Cary Deacon's conference call, there is info here. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that Funi will report relatively strong numbers.

Note: No political commentary or political finger pointing in your comments please. That would be subject of an entirely different conversation.

Updates - November 9th, 2008

Schedule Updates, Delays & Cancelations

Well, November is here and the holiday shopping season has officially begun. We'll be getting about twice the number of new product shipments in between now and the middle of December, and (hopefully) about twice the number of orders. We're busy putting the last minute touches on things here in preparation for the usual onslaught, though I have decided that we won't be putting up the Christmas graphics until around the middle of November. I know, I know - everyone else puts them up around the middle of July nowadays, but we're taking a stand! -_^

As the holiday panic sets in around studio HQ conference tables, I've got several date changes for you this week. First, Funimation has let us know that the upcoming Glass Fleet DVD Boxed Set has been bumped back from Dec 30th to Jan 13th. The first Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha DVD Boxed Set has been moved from Nov 11th back to Dec 9th, putting it right in that holiday release sweet spot. The highly anticipated Samurai 7 BluRay Box will not be available for Christmas and has been moved from Dec 9 back to Jan 20th. Finally, the first half Kodocha Thin-Pak #1, which is being re-released to match the 2nd half box we got a few month ago, has been moved up from Dec 30 to Dec 16, though it's a moot point now as it actually arrived in stock this week. No, the irony does not escape me. :-)

ADV to Distribute Princess Resurrection

This week ADV announced they would be distributing Princess Resurrection for Sentai starting next spring. The deal is similar to the ones they recently signed for Clannad and Indian Summer, with Sentai hiring Amusement Park Media to do the R1 production and ADV to handle the marketing and distribution. The plan is for the series to be released as 6 individual DVD's starting in March of 2009. Of course, the single DVD release is a big mistake, but I don't really have to harp anymore on that point here. Anyone who buys any single DVD release from ADV before all the DVD's are out is taking a big risk, but I think everyone knows that already. In fact, Steven Den Beste recently said the same thing on his blog.

ADV Films, for all intents and purposes, is no longer an R1 Anime studio and has re-invented itself into a quote unquote 'distributor', which means they are a middleman being hired by other studios (who actually do the production) to market and distribute Anime and Live action films. Their recent deals with Sentai and Switchblade are good examples of this. Of course, they still have a big back catalog of original ADV titles that I imagine they will continue to recycle through the release schedule until the licenses for them ultimately expire. When ADV came apart earlier this year it was reduced to basically two revenue streams - DVD sales of recycled catalog titles and revenue sharing from cable providers who carry their Anime Network channel. Lacking the ability to continue licensing and producing Anime releases on their own, ADV had to (at the very least) do some sort of deal to continue to pickup new content for the Anime Network, lest they loose the Anime Network revenue stream as well. The good part is that this(hopefully) also translates into a few new DVD's releases for us next year - assuming they can stay in business long enough to get them all out. :-)

Just for Fun - The Ultimate Itasha!

Just when you thought it couldn't get any better, here is the ultimate Itasha (Otaku Car) for fans wanting both high performance and high visibility! This particular Itasha is tied up in some music marketing and looks awesome:

But does it beat the Macross Ero-Itasha unveiled at the Macross Galaxy Tour Final a couple of weeks ago? You decide!

And yes that is a picture on the right side door of a naked Ranka Lee over the Heart with the text 'Hard On'. Hey, what can I say. If you want to see more of the Macross Ero-Itasha, there is a short YouTube video of it's unveiling here.

Adult Swim Jumps Back On Anime Gravy Train

I few weeks ago I reported here about Cartoon Networks drastic cutbacks on Anime programming, with them either eliminating or rescheduling several blocks of Anime shows. Well, apparently things have not gone as well as they would have liked, and they have decided to bring back a nice chunk of Anime programming to keep the viewers coming back. Starting on November 8th Adult Swim is revising its schedule with a 5-hour Anime programming block that begins at 1am. Also, and even better, Adult Swim's Saturday night schedule will not involve repeating shows from earlier the same night.

The Saturday night Adult Swim schedule begins with two hours of its original English language programming, which will be followed by TEN anime series including Moribito and Code Geass, both of which had been banished to the "Milkman" hour of 5am - and Shin Chan, which had been dropped entirely last summer.

The anime portion of the new Adult Swim schedule begins with Bleach at 1am followed by Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit (1:30am), Code Geass (2am), and Shin Chan (2:30am). Then come some classics like Fooly Cooly (FLCL, 3am), Death Note (3:30am), Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (4am), Cowboy Bebop (4:30am), Big
O (5am), and finally Inuyasha (5:30am). The new schedule represents an Anime programming increase from 6 hours to 8.5 hours per week. Of course there is no telling how long they will stick with this, but we'll take it none the less!

Bookstores Can't Keep it Up: It's the Economy Stupid... Right?!

Two big bookstore chains, Barnes & Noble and Borders, said this week that they are bracing for very weak holiday sales. Reportedly, both chains have reduced their November and December Manga inventory buy in's by 30% to 60%. I know that looks bad, but both chains have not been doing well at all this year and have been experiencing year over year sales declines for the first time. My guess is that both chains are tight on money, and with their suppliers reigning in credit lines, they probably have no choice but to cut back on inventory. I hear through the grapevine that a couple big online Anime retailers are having to do the same thing this year. You won't have to worry about anything like that happening here, we're doing fine and we'll be increasing our inventory levels as usual for the holidays, plus bringing in lots of new stuff! Just a little shameless plug so you'll know where to go to find what you need this holiday season and get it delivered on time. :-)

Funimation's January 2009 Release Schedule Has Been Posted

Funimation announced their January release schedule this week, and it's a grand plan! We've added all of the items to the store for pre-order, and here's what it looks like:

009-1 Complete Collection DVD Boxed Set
Baccano!, Vol #1 DVD Baccano!, Vol #1 DVD w/ Collectors Art Box
Case Closed Season #4 DVD Box Set (Uncut & Unedited)
Darker Than Black, Vol #2 DVD
Fullmetal Alchemist Season #1 DVD Boxed Set (Eps #1-28)
Glass Fleet Complete Collection DVD Boxed Set
Hell Girl Complete Collection Deluxe DVD Boxed Set
Kodocha (Kodomo No Omocha) DVD Collectors Boxed Set #1 (Re-Release)
Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A DVD Boxed Set
Moon Phase (Tsukuyomi) Complete Collection DVD Boxed Set (Viridian Collection)
One Piece, Adventures in Alabasta Movie DVD (BLURAY) (UNCUT)
One Piece Season 1 Part 3 DVD Boxed Set (Eps #27-40) (Uncut)
Ouran High School Host Club Season #1 Part #2 DVD Boxed Set
Samurai 7 Complete Collection DVD Boxed Set (BLURAY)
Shonen Onmyoji , Vol #5 DVD
Story of Saiunkoku Collection Part #3 DVD
Utawarerumono Complete Collection DVD Boxed Set (Eps # 1-26)
Yu Yu Hakusho Season 4 DVD Boxed Set
Wallflower Complete Collection Season #1 Part #1 (Eps #1-13)

Navarre (Funi's parent) reported earnings a few days ago, and the growth story was all about Funimation with their other divisions (BCI and Encore) coming in flat. It's no wonder why, with a single month's releases coming in like the list above. With Funi now controlling at least 50% of the R1 Anime market, we can expect more of the same to keep coming in 2009!

Coupon Corner - Save 5% On Any Order Until Nov 13th!

We're kicking off the holiday shopping season early with some great savings across the entire store! No limits, and no restrictions! From now until Thursday, November 13th you can save up to an additional 5% off our already low prices on every product on the store. Coupon can be applied to any items on the store, including pre-order and sale items. The more you order, the more you can save! US customers can also combine this offer with our super saver shipping option to save even more!

To save 5% off ANY ORDER, just use the following coupon code during checkout:

HOLIDAY08TAKE5

Coupon code is valid ONLY for NEW orders and is only good through Thursday, November 13th so don't wait!

Just In and Hot off The Truck!

Good grief, like we didn't already have enough new stuff in this week, Ron just peaked in and told me that a bunch more new stuff just hit the dock and are being unloaded now! Here's what it looks like we've got so far:

Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit DVD Bundle #1
Ghost Hunt Season 1 Part 2 DVD Boxed Set (Eps #14-26)
Coyote Ragtime Complete Collection DVD Boxed Set
My Santa Special DVD

We'll update these on the site later today, and we'll be able to include these in new orders shipping out today. If this keeps up we'll have the entire November release schedule in stock by next Tuesday! -_^

New Arrivals in Stock this Week - Too Much to List!

Holy smokes people, l think we got like a months worth of new stuff in this week including maybe 25 new DVD releases, 50+ new manga and import items, and over 20 new PVC figures - all in stock and ready to ship! We also got in our first batch of new 2009 calendars direct from Japan! There's way too much for me to try to highlight here, just be sure to check below for the complete story on all the new stuff, and don't forget to check our updates page over the weekend for the very latest as we're not quite done yet! :-)

Have a great week, and as always, enjoy your anime!

Funimation's Parent to Report Earnings Today

A reminder to anyone interested in the business side of the Anime industry that Navarre corp., which owns Funimation, will report 3rd quarter earnings after the closing bell today (Thursday, Oct 30th).

While Funi's profitability has been holding up well in an otherwise tough market this year, Navarre's other divisions including BCI, Encore, and the Game Distribution arm have been flagging. The recent severe drop in Navarre's (NAVR) share price below a dollar (not that everything else hasn't been dropping too of course) has had me a little bit concerned, especially since there has been virtually no insider buying this year (the last insider buy was in June) even though the shares are selling at a fire sale price right now (or are they?). Gen Fukunaga (the head of Funi) hasn't bought any stock as the price has gone down over the last year, but of course he already owns 726,000 shares (worth about $550,000 at today's stock price, close to his annual salary of $350,000) so perhaps he doesn't want to take on anymore risk in his personal holdings. Cary Deacon, his boss, only personally owns about 186,000 shares and draws a salary of $453,000.

Navarre took on a lot of debt when they purchased Funi in 2005, and with credit markets frozen I'm mainly concerned with their ability to service that debt short term. Like most mixed home entertainment distributors / producers, they use short term credit for most of their operational funding and have a fairly poor cash position. Their balance sheet as of the 2nd quarter showed them carrying only .03 cents of cash per share, about $1.2 Million in cash on $663 Million in revenue, while they carry approx $49 Million in debt against a $27 Million market cap at the current share price. That revenue figure sounds like a lot, but they have a terrible operating margin of only 2.41% and a razor thin net profit margin of only 0.74% (that's less than one percent). Those numbers imply that the company will be fine as long as they execute, but has absolutely no room for error.

Needless to say, we watch them very carefully because their business directly impacts ours. We certainly know first hand how Funi is doing in the direct Anime market, but I'm anxious to see how their overall numbers come in for the 3rd quarter, and also to see if they will offer guidance for the next 2 quarters. This particular earnings report is important because we are at somewhat of an economic crossroads in the industry, especially now that Funimation represents about 50% of the total US Anime market (and is currently the most financially sound R1 Anime studio). The numbers and guidance Navarre reports will be important in gauging where the US Anime market actually is right now beyond the 'all is well' rhetoric the studio marketing machines continue to spew out.

If you are interested, Cary Deacon (Navarre's CEO) will be hosting an earning conference call Friday (10/31) at 11AM EST, and you can listen in by calling (800) 299-0433 and entering conference passcode "67756564". You'll need to call about 10 minutes before the start time. The call will also be web cast here if you want to access it over the Internet.

Consensus estimates have them coming in at positive earnings of .02 cent per share. I personally hope they beat by a penny. :-) If they miss, it's a problem.

UPDATE: Navarre reported .04 cents per share. Before everyone jumps for joy it's useful to note that the earnings increase was all carried by Funimation, and mostly due to the additional market share Funimation picked up in the third quarter from the Geneon and ADV license acquisitions. Otherwise earnings would probably have been flat or down. They reported a very tough economic environment, and did not offer any forward guidance except that their goal over the next 2 quarters is basically not to go negative.

Looking at the schedule, most of the real honey pot licenses that Funi picked up in the Geneon and ADV deals will be exhausted by the end of the first quarter next year. Hopefully they are looking forward and working on some dynamite new licenses for stuff that hasn't previously been released, which is the only thing that will carry them through 2009 profitably. I work on the inside of this industry. Doing my best to be dispassionate and look in from the outside, and I hate to say this, but I now believe that in the current environment the bad Anime companies are being eliminated and the good Anime companies (including ours) are now getting an increasing share of a shrinking US market, so expect plenty more shakeout over the next 2-4 quarters.

Couple Updates

<--- Oh so cute! Do you know what she is? It's a little inter-office joke we have about one of our, um, so called competitors. If any of you guys can guess what it is, AND what our little joke about it might be, I'll give you $100 gift certificate. :-)

(No Steven, you're not eligible since you already know...)

We really appreciate all the new orders everyone have been placing over the past few days. We figured things would be pretty slow during the first few days of the Olympics, but order volume has been pretty robust and is keeping us on our toes!

Because new product shipments from all our studio partners have been so unpredictable recently, we've been keeping on top of upcoming releases requesting daily status reports so we know what's coming and when it will get here.

Funimations Aug 19th Releases

Today Funimation confirmed that Tsubasa RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE, Vol #7, the Dangerous Pursuit DVD has shipped to us and should be in stock here around Thursday.

At the same time Funi said that as of today (around 1pm anyway) they do not yet have stock from the replicator on Black Lagoon Second Barrage, Vol #1 DVD or any of the Black Lagoon re-releases. This means that 2nd Barrage will be shipping to retailers at the very last minute for next weeks street date. Certainly we would have liked to have had them already, and of course, it's bad policy for me to share my concerns publicly that a particular title might arrive close to the street date, or even, God forbid, late - so please ignore what I just said. All is well, it will be here right on time, and there is nothing to worry about. See, I sound just like a mouth piece for ADV Films marketing dept... 'all is well, nothing to see here'... I've got it down pat... :-)

Seriously though, we have asked Funi to expedite our copies to us, so if they get them into the Navarre warehouse by tomorrow we'll have them on Friday. We have a massive amount of pre-orders for 2nd Barrage, so we're going to start pre-processing your pre-orders for it on Thursday so they are ready to ship the minute the DVD's arrive.

UPDATE: 2nd Barrage is IN STOCK as of 11:30am Wednesday, Aug 13th.

Bandai Stuff Shipped Out

We have now shipped all your pre-orders for Code Geass, Gurren Lagann, Vol #2, and Zegapain, Vol #6 out of that 2nd batch we received from Bandai Monday morning. I REALLY hope that these DVD's are all good or at the very least 'less defective' than the ones from the original shipment we sent back. We've included letters in all the shipments with instructions for what to do if you do run into any problems, and I want to thank everyone again for their patience.

Catching Up on Figure Pre-Orders

We've been working hard over the past few days building new upcoming figures for pre-order, some all the way out to March 2009. As a side note, we're also posting better product images, and I think you'll be pleased - especially in the 'blow-up' boxes. Anyway, here's what we've posted so far:

Ah! My Goddess: Belldandy Battle Wings 1/8 Scale PVC Figure
Bible Black: Yukiko Minase 1/8 Scale PVC Figure
Bubble Gum Crisis: Motoslave w/ Nene 1/15 Scale PVC Action Figure
Bubble Gum Crisis: Motoslave w/ Linna 1/15 Scale PVC Action Figure
Chichinoe+ Black Haired Waitress Uniform 1/6 Scale PVC Figure
Dead or Alive Xtreme 2 Kokoro 1/6 Scale PVC Figure
Demon Bane: Chibi Al Azif Non-Scale PVC Figure
Evangelion: Rei Ayanami New Movie Version 1/8 Scale PVC Figure
Gurren Lagann: Yoko 1/8 Scale PVC Figure
Hoshiful: Kotone Kuruhara 1/8 Scale PVC Figure
Hoshiful: Ruka Hoshikawa 1/8 Scale PVC Figure
Ikki Tousen Kanu Mogdan Drawing 1/7 Scale PVC Figure
Ikki Tousen: Ryomou Shimei Maid in Cuffs 1/6 Scale PVC Figure
Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS: Hayate Yagami 1/7 Scale PVC w/ Reinforce II
Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS: Signum 1/7 Scale PVC Figure
Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS: Unison Vita 1/7 Scale PVC Figure
Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS: Vita 1/7 Scale PVC Figure
Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS: Nanoha Takamachi 1/8 Scale PVC Figure
Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya: Ryoko Asakura Blue Bunny 1/4 Scale PVC Figure
Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya: Mikuru Asahina Gothic Punk 1/7 Scale PVC Figure
Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya: Mikuru Asahina Bunny 1/4 Scale PVC Figure (2nd Wave)
Monster Princess: Hime 1/7 PVC Figure
Persona 3: Elizabeth 1/8 Scale PVC Figure
Please Teacher: Mizuho Kazami 1/7 Scale PVC Figure
Queen's Blade Alice Excellent Model 1/8 Scale PVC Figure
Queen's Blade Mellona Excellent Model 1/8 Scale PVC Figure
Sexy Magical Girl: Ai 1/8 Scale PVC Figure
Shana (Shakugan no Shana II): Shana 1/7 Scale PVC Figure w/ Removable Top
Shining Tears X Wind: Clalaclan Philias Noir 1/8 Scale PVC Figure
Shining Wind: Blanc Neige 1/8 Scale PVC Figure
Shining Wind: Elwing (Elwyn) 1/8 Scale PVC Figure
Shuffle! Memories: Asa Shigure 1/8 Scale PVC Figure
Take Moon Magical Amber 1/7 Scale PVC Statue
Tandem Twin Animal Girls Dog Brenda 1/6 Scale PVC Figure
Witchblade: Maria 1/6 Scale PVC Figure
Witchblade: Masane Amaha 1/6 Scale PVC Figure [KOTOBUKIYA]
Witchblade: Shiori Tsuzuki 1/7 Scale PVC Figure
Xenosaga: Kos-mos EPIII Version 4 1/8 Scale PVC Figure [Alter]

That's all I've got for now, have a great evening eveyone!

ADV Implodes, Funimation Picks Up ADV's Former 'ARM' Licenses

Well folks, stuff is going down. And this is supposed to be my day off! :-)

Funimation announced yesterday that they had finalized a deal for many of Geneon's former titles. We knew that was coming. What we didn't expect was this:

Today Fun answered all the questions about what the heck is going on down at ADV. Funimation has now officially signed a deal with ARM corporation for the following former ADV titles:

009-1
Ah! My Goddess: Flights of Fancy
Air Gear
Air movie
Air TV
Blade of the Phantom Master
Comic Party: Revolution
Coyote Ragtime Show
Devil May Cry
Guyver: The Bioboosted Armor TV
Jing, King of Bandits: Seventh Heaven
Jinki:Extend
Kanon
Kyoshiro to Towa no Sora (Shattered Angels)
Le Chevalier D'Eon
Magikano
Moeyo Ken TV
Moonlight Mile
Murder Princess
Nerima Daikon Brothers
Pani Poni Dash!
Project Blue Earth SOS
Pumpkin Scissors
Red Garden
Sgt. Keroro 1st & 2nd
Tokyo Majin
UFO Princess Valkyrie
Utawarerumono
Venus Versus Virus
The Wallflower
Welcome to the NHK
Xenosaga

So we're going to be making a lot of changes to our store catalog over the next few days. Any ADV stock we have on the above titles will become 'limited to stock on hand', and we will await further info from Funimation on how and when they plan to start re-releasing these series. I think we can also assume that the successive volumes of Kanon, NHK, Wallflower, Tokyo Majin, Devil May Cry, and Shattered Angels that ADV failed to release are in fact 100% canceled. I doubt Funimation will be reusing any of ADV's old ADR and will likely re-release these series in the future starting from vol #1 again or more likely as boxed sets.

I feel terrible for everyone who invested in these series in anticipation of ADV finishing them, but unless you have been in denial I think everyone knew ADV has been hanging on by a thread since January - and I have not made any secret of their problems in my weekly newsletters this year. The failure of ADV to finish these shows will hurt us also in terms of lost sales and unsold inventory on the incomplete shows, so the pain will be felt all around.

I read through the threads on ANN and AOD regarding this briefly today, and a lot of fans and wanna be business scholars are speculating on exactly what happened, but I think it's very simple. ADV has been plaged by serious cash flow problems this year. When your business partner becomes unable to make regular royalty payments, you pull the plug and look for another one that can, and Funimation is currently the strongest player in the R1 industry. They currently have 30% of the US Anime market in terms of sales. Genji has always been the smartest guy in the room in this industry, and has Navarre corporate financing backing him up. He's clearly looking to give Fun a 50%+ market share by next year, and in the process do in a few competitors. That's just good business. Personally, I don't see how ADV will survive after this. There is no way they can make it on re-releases for any length of time. Who will give them financing now? How can their revenue stream ever recover? If they do, they don't have much chance to be a significant player in the industry anymore.

I think fans would have more sympathy for ADV had they been more forthcoming about their problems earlier on, but that's not the way they do things. It's been well known in retailer circles for the past 3 months that none of ADV's new releases have sold well as many fans no longer trusted them to finish the shows. Moonlight Mile, Project Blue Earth, and Shattered Angels all came in with abominable initial sales. Kanon did well with the directs like us, but was a disaster in retail chains like Best Buy and Amazon. I have always felt deep down that they have tended to carry a certain hidden contempt for the fan base (and their retail partners) that has been built into their corporate culture. Gary Steinman (he was the former head of NewType) told me once (in 2006) that he felt like the Anime fan base were mostly 'a bunch of whiners' (a comment that shocked me, mostly that he said it to ME), and there was no love lost between me and him when we heard he was out last January. While we have always have excellent relations with Bandai, Funimation, and Viz, our relationship with ADV has had a lot of bumps over the years. They have always found it difficult to work with us whenever a situation would arise when we were more concerned with the fans wants or needs than with just selling whatever priority they had at the time. I have never felt their strategy to dump excess inventory into the marketplace was wise, and we have showed that by not becoming an outlet for their unsold junk like so many other retailers. There are some really good people over at ADV, but the guys in charge have never run that company the way it should have been. We had the a similar experience with Geneon in that once Denstu took over, they became all about 'pump and dump', and never cared too much about the fans concerns. Looking back, it's not hard to see how these companies end up where they are.

I hope everyone has a great July 4th. Jamie and I are heading out this evening to see the fireworks.

UPDATE: For the last couple of years I have heard execs at both Funimation and ADV blame much of the industry's profitability problems by pointing the finger at each other for bidding up licenses too high. It would seem that Funimation is out to finally solve that problem. By consolidating more than half the R1 market into one company they will finally have some pricing power in negotiations with Japan, so I see this as a net positive for the R1 market over the long run. It will also give Funimation a lot more contract flexibility in choosing how titles are released, and when, and will put pressure on the other healthy studios (Viz, Bandai Ent, and Media Blasters) to handle their businesses better.

UPDATE 2: Our local fireworks show has been rained out until tomorrow. ~sigh~

UPDATE 3: Gen Fukunaga's (Funimation) confirmed at his keynote address at AX that they now indeed have all rights to the 30 titles ADV produced in the last 2 years, but he also said that "for the ARM titles, we are in talks with ADV for continued production", so that means they are looking to finish ADV's ADR on the incomplete titles and then probably re-release them with dubs completed by the original ADV voice actors. Why shouldn't they, it would be the quickest and least expensive way to bring these titles back to market and please the fans at the same time. Kudo's to Funimation for this.

UPDATE 4: Ledford's (ADV) keynote address at AX was a prepared speech, and the mood was quite somber. He said this has been a very tough year for ADV, but that they are working on a deal with another Japanese partner for new licenses and additional financial backing. They are going to wait until Otakon to make any announcements about that to "wait for the blood to dry". ADV's characteristic 'tower booth' at AX this year has been replaced by a simple DVD sales table being run by an ADV employee who also owns a local DVD shop. Ledford said their partnership with Sojitz has been very difficult from the beginning because they tended to concentrate "on the spreadsheets", which means they were worried about unit sales and ROI on their titles. It's clear ADV was not producing for them in a satisfactory manner, causing them to pull the plug.

Bandai Gets Gurren Lagann / Others

New York Comic Con is going on this weekend, and Bandai has really come through on a few rather ground shaking announcements.

1) First, they have announced that they have licensed both Hiroyuki Imaishi and Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. That's right, Gurren Lagann! Unlike ADV had originally announced, Bandai plans to release the series subtitled only (no Dub), and I would speculate that since they could not have acquired the license over a few weeks ago the sub-only release is an effort to get the title released as early as possible. The first DVD is due out in July, and had they dubbed it it might have needed to get pushed way back into the fall schedule.

There is also a lot of speculation around the web that ADV simply lost the R1 license and Bandai then jumped on it. This is certainly plausible, however, I would forward another theory. Perhaps ADV sold the license to Bandai in order to raise much needed capital. ADV was in quite a pinch financially back in February, and Gurren Lagann was arguably one of their most valuable unreleased properties. In business when you need to raise money fast in tough times, sometimes you have to sell off your highest quality assets because it's all your competitors will buy quickly and pay up for. I would also speculate that by selling the license to Bandai it would have kept it out of Funimations or Viz's hands. Funimation is the absolute dominant player in the market now and they have the big corporate backing of Navarre Corp., and Viz has been extremely successful with the titles that are popular across large demographic segments like Inu Yasha, Naruto, and lately Buso Renkin. Between the two of them they have, frankly, been eating ADV's lunch.

We in the biz (you know, out here in the ragged edge) have been speculating endlessly on how ADV came up with the Angel capital to survive the recent licensing fiasco, and who it came from. Perhaps we know a little more about that now.

2) Bandai will continue to bring the Gundam franchise to North American fans with the 25 episode Gundam 00.


3) Now check this out, Bandai Entertainment (NOT Bandai Visual) will be re-releasing the Ghost in the Shell: Innocence movie on BluRay! It will be their first BluRay release, and it won't be $150 like everything coming out of the 'other' Bandai. That's excellent news in itself, but even better is that they are going to dub it. Previously, only the European release had an English track, and there are many R1 dub fans that will be very pleased by this. Personally, I can't wait to see it in HD!

We'll get all these posted for pre-order as soon as we get the date and product info from Bandai.

Let the good news keep on rolling in! :-)

UPDATE: Just for clarification, Bandai plans to release the sub only Gurren Lagann release on three DVD's in July, August, and September. They are 'planning' a bilingual release for 2009, and the subtitled release is intended to get the title out this year since they will not be using ADV's original dub. I did not originally mention the bilingual release because in the Anime industry these days you can assume that all plans are soft until 30 minutes prior... :-)

Updates - November 9th, 2007

Anime retailing is not always glitze and glitter, wild parties, and amazing paychecks like you probably think. :-) Sometimes the hardest part of our daily routine is not in keeping up with orders, or the new product arrivals, or the prebooks, or the customer inquiries - it's coming up with all these cute blurbs, one liners and holiday promo tie ins like 'Gobble Up the Savings' or 'Spooktacular Discounts'. Believe me it ain't easy being cheesy... -_^ ...but if it brightens your day a little then we consider it a job well done.

Monday is the Veterans day holiday here in the US. We'll be working that day, but all Government offices will be closed including the post office, so there won't be any postal deliveries made next week until Tuesday. UPS and FedEx deliveries will not be effected.

I have one date push to share this week. Bandai told us that they needed to bump Flag Vol #2 (DVD) from December 4th back to January 8th. I have been a little skeptical of this title after reading some of the online reviews, but Jerry (one of our highly respected Otaku friends) wrote in this week and highly recommends Flag. He characterizes it as a 'thinking mans Anime' and understands why some reviewers have had some trouble figuring it out. I often read bad reviews about an Anime that I end up really enjoying, and I think it's important that you take what other people say with a grain of salt (even pro critics like Chris Beverage misses the mark as often as not). We all have slightly different expectations for a series, and until you've tried one out for yourself, what do you really know - and then of course, it's too late and you might get hooked! So that's exactly what I'm going to do this weekend - because if Jerry says it's good then I have to see it!

Kerry Deacon, the CEO of Navarre, which is the company that owns Funimation (yes I know, it's a rich tapestry) said this week that the demise of Geneon will probably be good for Funimation's sales - as in fewer Anime DVD releases mean higher sell throughs for Funimation's existing titles - good for them, but not necessarily for us. He also 'eluded' to a couple of Geneon licenses like Black Lagoon and Hellsing as great licenses with uncertain futures. If you've seen the headlines and are reading that as "Funimation is interested in picking up former Geneon titles" - don't. As of the end of October any hopes for a quick fix distribution deal coming out of Geneon are over - there is simply no staff left there to support it. I'm sure the folks at Dentsu have been getting calls from the other US Anime studios like Fun, ADV, and Media Blasters trying to cherry pick Geneon's catalog of licenses, but as to any progress on that front - well that's something we probably won't know about for awhile.

One of the newest 'ultra fan service' shows to hit the scene in Japan is a 13 episode sports/comedy called Umisho, and here Darry gives us 60 reasons why we must watch it once it comes to R1. They all look reasonable to me.... Here's the OP.

After a better than usual October, sales continue to be brisk for us going into November. To be honest, after the Geneon debacle we didn't really know what to expect this holiday season, but it's pretty clear now that our order volumes will be as strong as ever, so I decided to move our 'Gobble Up the Savings' November promo up a week. Between Thanksgiving and about the second week of December we pretty much work around the clock, and after looking at the numbers from past years I felt that if we could encourage some of you to do your holiday shopping a little earlier this year it might help us a bit during the rush. We'll see how it turns out. :-)

In addition to the 'Gobble Up' coupon savings, we've discounted every in stock item in the Figure and Toy section an additional 10% to ensure there is plenty of Anime goodness to go under the tree this year. Combine that discount with our current coupon savings and our economy shipping option and you've got your self a real deal - and you didn't have to pay to join some loyalty club or wait for a particular brand to be put on sale. :-)

To save 3% off any in stock order over $99 use code: GOBBLEUP3
To save 5% off any in stock order over $199 use code: GOBBLEUP5
To save 7% off any in stock order over $299 use code: GOBBLEUP7

Coupons are valid ONLY for NEW orders and are good through Thursday, November 15th - so don't wait - shop early and save!

Our partner sale with Adult Source Media continues this week, so you can still save up to 40% off on all of their titles. We've done a big buy in of extra stock for the sale so the low prices will only be valid while our extra sale stock lasts. Adults only please!

It's been another big week for new arrivals, with Viz and Funimation putting more of their late November DVD releases into our hands early. In addition to DVD's we have another huge manga update with 46 new volumes from TokyoPop, Viz, and CMX. Be sure to checkout the excellent Azumanga Omnibus Edition which collects all 4 volumes of the series in gigantic hardcover edition.

This week the rest of our Saber Maid figures arrived, which features Saber in a skimpy black and white lace maid outfit. My personal figure of her had to come out of the second shipment, and I have to tell you the pictures do not do her justice - this is just a fantastic figure, for the way she has been sculpted down to the level of costume detail and paint work. PVC figures have been getting more expensive recently, but this one is definately worth the price. We also received the absolutely gorgeous Blanc Neige figure which not only is perfectly sculpted and highly detailed, but is also a great value. We have filled all of your pre-orders for these now, and only have a few left over in stock, so get em while they last! Check below for the scoop on everything that's come in, or check our updates page for the complete story!

My parting words for you this week are - Ice Witch!

That's it for this week. Have a great weekend - and ENJOY your Anime! :-)