Tokyopop Tries Jedi Mind Trick On Manga Fans...

Tokyopop told the Publishers Weekly last week that 28 Summer releases and 11 January 2009 releases that were previously "cancelled" are only "postponed" (unfortunately this does not come close to addressing the approx 125 issues that actually got the axe). TokyoPop Marketing Director Marco Pavia said that the company's restructuring has forced them to lower its monthly output of books, and that now a few of their titles may only be released online. He did not rule out the possibility of eventually dropping some titles though.

On the other end many manga creators have said that TokyoPop has notified them of their works' outright cancellation. Though the issue has remained mostly transparent to our customers, we have been having a terrible time maintaining stock levels on most of TokyoPop's back catalog, and recently have noticed significant restocking delays in new releases which is most likely a symptom of very short print runs. TokyoPop is clearly a company still in big trouble, and I think Mr. Pavia is just trying to do damage control through the media. My experience is that these sorts of things reflect serious systemic problems with a company that almost never have a happy ending.

Around here the folks are already calling TokyoPop the ADV of the manga world, so for the record, here is the whole list of titles that have been, um, delayed - and remember - 'these aren't the books you're looking for... move along...'

TokyoPop Fall 2008 Issues Delayed or Canceled (or both?):

A FLAME INFERNO Volume 1 - Dal-Young Kim, Gwang-Hyun Kim
ADOMANT - Nam Kim
AFTERLIFE Volume 2 - Rob Steen, Stormcrow Hayes
AI YORI AOSHI: VOLUMES 1-3 COLLECTION - Kou Fumizuki
ARCANA Volume 10 - So-Young Lee
ASPIRIN Volume 2 - Eun-Jeong Kim
ATELIER MARIE AND ELIE -ZARLBURG ALCHEMIST- Volume 5 - Yoshihiko Ochi
BATTLE OF THE BANDS - Steve Buccellato
BECK:MONGOLIAN CHOP SQUAD Volume 13 - Harold Sakuishi
BECK:MONGOLIAN CHOP SQUAD Volume 14 - Harold Sakuishi
BEYOND THE BEYOND Volume 5 - Yoshitomo Watanabe
BLANK Volume 2 - Pop Mhan
BLAZIN BARRELS Volume 11 - Min-Seo Park
BLOOD SUCKER Volume 8 - Aki Shimizu, Saki Okuse
BOYS OF SUMMER THE COMPLETE SEASON - Chuck Austen, Hiroki Otsuka
BRAVE STORY Volume 6 - Miyuki Miyabe, Yoichiro Ono
CHIBI VAMPIRE: VOLUMES 1-3 COLLECTION - Yuna Kagesaki
CHRONICLES OF THE CURSED SWORD Volume 23 - Beop-Ryong Yeo, Hui-Jin Park
CIEL Volume 1 - Ju-Yeon Rhim
DARK MOON DIARY VOL 2 -
DEMON FLOWERS: KURUIZAKI NO HANA Volume 4 - Mizuki Hakase
DEMON FLOWERS: KURUIZAKI NO HANA Volume 5 - Mizuki Hakase
DISNEY'S FAIRIES: TINKERBELL -
DRAGON HUNTER Volume 19 - Hong Seock Seo
DRAGON SISTER! Volume 3 - Nini
DRAGON VOICE Volume 11 - Yuriko Nishiyama
EARTHLIGHT VOL 3 -
FEVER Volume 3 - Hee Jung Park
FORGET ABOUT LOVE Volume 2 - Sang-Eun Lee
FOXY LADY Volume 2 - Ayun Tachibana
FOXY LADY Volume 3 - Ayun Tachibana
FRUITS BASKET ULTIMATE EDITION Volume 4 - Natsuki Takaya
FULL METAL PANIC! (NOVEL) Volume 4: ENDING DAY BY DAY: PART 1 - Shikidouji, Shouji Gatou
GAKUEN HEAVEN-NAKAJIMA One Shot - Spray, You Higuri
GANKUTSUOU Volume 1 - Hidenori Matsubara , Hisashi Kagawa, Shuuichi Kouyama
GATCHA GACHA Volume 8 - Yutaka Tachibana
GENJU NO SEIZA Volume 8 - Matsuri Akino
GOOD WITCH OF THE WEST, THE (NOVEL) Volume 3 - Noriko Ogiwara
GOSICK Volume 2 - Hinata Takeda, Kazuki Sakuraba
GRAND THEFT GALAXY Volume 2 - Jim Jimenez, Tricia Riley Hale
GUARDIAN HEARTS Volume 2 - Sae Amatsu
HANNAH MONTANA Volume 10 - Disney
HANNAH MONTANA Volume 7 - Disney
HANNAH MONTANA Volume 8 - Disney
HANNAH MONTANA Volume 9 - Disney
HARUKAZE BITTER BOP Volume 3 - Court Betten
HOTEL AFRICA Volume 3 - Hee Jung Park
I WISH? Volume 3 - Hyun-Joo Seo
I-DOLL Volume 3 - Mi-Ae Choi
INITIAL D Volume 33 - Shuichi Shigeno
JADE OF BANGO Volume 2 - Ae-Ju Yim, Jin-Ju Yim
J-POP IDOL Volume 2 - Original Story By Millenni+M, Script & Art By Toko Yashiro
KARMA CLUB Volume 2 - D.J. Milky, Mark Seidenberg, Michael Dobrzycki
KAT & MOUSE Volume 4 - Alex De Campi, Federica Manfredi
KINDAICHI CASE FILES, THE BURIAL FRANCS - Kanari Yozaburo, Sato Fumiya
KING CITY VOL 2 -
KINGDOM HEARTS(?) - Shiro Amano
KINGDOM HEARTS II(?) - Shiro Amano
KOIHIME SOUSHI One Shot - Koge Dobo
LAGOON ENGINE Volume 6 - Yukiru Sugisaki
LAGOON ENGINE Volume 7 - Yukiru Sugisaki
LIFE Volume 10 - Keiko Suenobu
LIFE Volume 11 - Keiko Suenobu
LILING-PO Volume 9 - Ako Yutenji
LITTLE QUEEN Volume 8 - Yeon-Joo Kim
LOVE MODE Volume 11: (YAOI) - Yuki Shimizu
MAGIC MOON LEGACY OF MAGIC MOON - Wolfgang And Heike Hohlbein
MAIL ORDER NINJA - Erich Owen, Joshua Elder
MARTIN AND JOHN Volume 2 - Hee Jung Park
MISSING (NOVEL) Volume 3: THE HANGED MAN: PART 1 - Gakuto Coda
MISSING (NOVEL) Volume 4: THE HANGED MAN: CONCLUSION - Gakuto Coda
MOBILE SUIT GUNDAM ECOLE DU CIEL Volume 9 - Haruhiko Mikimoto
MY CAT LOKI Volume 3 - Bettina M. Kurkoski
NEVER GIVE UP Volume 9 - Hiromu Mutou
NOSATSU JUNKIE Volume 7 - Ryoko Fukuyama
OFF*BEAT Volume 3 - Jen Lee Quick
PANTHEON HIGH Volume 3 - Paul Benjamin, Steven Cummings
PICK OF THE LITTER Volume 5 - Yuriko Suda
PLANET BLOOD Volume 9 - Tae-Hyung Kim
POISON CANDY Volume 2 - David Hine, Hans Steinbach
PSY-COMM Volume 3 - Jason Henderson, Ramanda Kamarga, Tony Salvaggio
QUEEN'S KNIGHT, THE Volume 13 - Kim Kang Won
QUEEN'S KNIGHT, THE Volume 14 - Kim Kang Won
ROLLING Volume 2 - Geo, Ji-Sang Sin
RURE Volume 4 - Da-Mi Seomoon
SATISFACTION GUARANTEED Volume 8 - Ryo Saenagi
SAVER Volume 7 - Eun-Young Lee
SEDUCTION MORE BEAUTIFUL THAN LOVE Volume 3 - Hyun-Sook Lee
SESAME STREET Volume 4: ELMO AND ABBEY SEE A DINOSAUR - Sesame Workshop
SESAME STREET Volume 5: ELMO AND ABBEY IN WONDERLAND - Sesame Workshop
SHIN MEGAMI TENSEI (KAHN) Volume 3 - Kazuaki Yanagisawa
SHORT SUNZEN! Volume 3 - Susugi Sakurai
SILVER DIAMOND Volume 3 - Shiho Sugiura
SNOW Volume 2 - Morgan Luthi
SORCERER HUNTERS 100% AUTHENTIC FORMAT Volume 11 - Ray Omishi, Satoru Akahori
SPEED GRAPHER - NOVEL Volume 1 - Gonzo, Minoru Niki, Yuusuke Kozaki
STAND BY YOUTH Volume 4 - Juder, Young-Bin Kim
STAR TREK ULTIMATE EDITION - Various
STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION Volume 1 - Christine Boylan, David Gerrold, Diane Duane, Don Hudson, Fj Desanto
SUPPLI Volume 4 - Mari Okazaki
TEA FOR TWO Volume 3 - Yaya Sakuragi
THAT GUY WAS SPLENDID Volume 1 - Gwiyunni, Ji-Eun Kim
TOKYO TRIBES Volume 7 - Santa Inoue
TRINITY BLOOD - RAGE AGAINST THE MOONS Volume 4: JUDGMENT DAY - Sunao Yoshida, Thores Shibamoto
TRINITY BLOOD - REBORN ON THE MARS Volume 3 - Sunao Yoshida
UNDERTOWN VOL 2 -
V.B. ROSE Volume 5 - Banri Hidaka
WE SHADOWS Volume 2 - Sonny Strait
WHITE NIGHT MELODY Volume 2 - Selena Lin
YUBISAKI MILK TEA - Tomochika Miyano
ZIG*ZAG Volume 4 - Yuki Nakaji

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!

Otakon 2008 - The Good, The Bad, and the ADV Panel

I'm back from my short stint in Baltimore, and it's official, I have become a cynical old man at 38. I don't lay the blame on myself, I lay it on trying to make a living in an industry that eats it's own young and will definitely give you white hair before your time.

Did I mention that it eats it own young?... :-)

Industry announcements out of Otakon this year look almost as bored as many of the 23,000 attendees (those that could not get into the JAM Project concert) wandering aimlessly looking for something to do other than spend money in the dealer room (the cash drawers are filled with 'chirping crickets' according to some of my retailer friends there). Is it just me, or do even some of the cos-players look uninspired (what's with the cardboard box dude)? At least for them the masquerade started on time, and I hear the nightlife (ie. the Rave) was pretty good - so maybe I should have drank more coffee and hung around...

On to the show announcements. I think what we did not hear about is more important than what we did. Here's the rundown:

Funimation

Funimation started off their panel with a firm pat on the back for what they have accomplished over the last few months. Among the things they discussed, they said that they will be investigating a new price and packaging model for their DVD releases, meaning that we can expect to see more full and half season boxed sets for new releases with some titles still being released as single DVD's with inventive collectors packaging. This can be seen in the 6th volume of Shuffle which will contain a set of 'God Panties' in the collectors edition.

After rehashing what we already knew about the Geneon re-releases and reaffirming that Black Lagoon 2nd Barrage will have the same dub actors as the first season, they went over some of the early fall releases like Ouran High School Host Club, Ghost Hunt, Jyu-Oh-Sei, and Claymore which they described as 'Berserk with hot chicks'. Scheduled releases that are off the end of the current schedule include Darker than BLACK and a BluRay release of Vexille, both of which will be coming in November. Finally, while apparently Funi is interested in the Tsubasa OVA, there are no plans as of now to release it.

Media Blasters

MB did not make any announcements during their panel, but during the Q&A they did say that they are working on Bokusatsu Tenshi Dokuro-chan and Magical Witch Punie-chan. They are currently finishing up Kujibiki Unbalance (they'd better hurry) and then will be starting Doujin Work and Genshiken 2 in the near future. They said that Gaogaigar 2 did not get a dub due to lousy sales of the first season. Finally, John Sirabella said that they are trying to get the same voice actors to do Dragon Destiny (Ikki Tousen), but nothing has been confirmed yet. Dragon Destiny will definately be a 2009 release, dashing the hopes of everyone who wanted to see it out this year.

Bandai Entertainment

From the people that getting good DVD's from is like pulling teeth with pliers came the announcement (at a hastily arranged Saturday evening panel) of their plans to release the .hack//G.U. Trilogy anime movie 'sometime in the near future'.

VCI Entertainment

Who? Not an Anime company, these guys are the ones who are trying to get Hollywood to do something with the Voltron franchise. None the less, they are planning to release the 1984 Anime Saber Rider and the Star Sheriffs (Star Musketeer Bismarck) on DVD in November. Good luck with that.

ADV

Last week we got ADV's October release schedule, and again is will be a month of 100% recycled thin-paks. Same Bat price, same Bat packaging. Still, I had hope that ADV's much hyped Otakon announcements would be spectacular and would revive everyone hopes that the company would survive. The reality could not have been more disappointing.

ADV announced only one new Anime license at their panel - the three episode OVA Indian Summer (Koharu Biyori) which is a short ecchi robot maid show (yes, another one) and a title so minor it's one that I could see even Media Blasters passing over. Hey, we'll take it though. :-)

They also announced no less that five live action titles to be released under a new label called 'Switchblade Films', appropriately named because ADV is so good at cutting their own throats. The live action films (yawn....) will be, wait, I don't remember... oh yeah - Attack Girl Swim Team vs. The Undead, Female Prisoner Epsilon, Gluttonous 1 & 2, Cruel Restaurant, and some new Kunoichi movies.

ADV will now be making many of their older titles available via DRM free download on Crunchyroll, which represents a final capitulation to current market forces - the thinking being that revenue from 'any' venue is better than no revenue at all.

In the end ADV did say that they are 'working' on at least one more new Anime license, but they could not announce it at this time. They also said that they are still working on finalizing a deal with the new license partner to replace Sojitz, but they were not ready to make any announcement on that at Otakon, which is OK, because given our sales of their titles over the last 2 months, no one seems to care much about what they are doing anymore anyway.

That's it for now. Hope everyone had a great weekend and enjoyed the con!

Status Update for Bandai's Aug 5th Releases

We are now about one-two weeks behind everyone else shipping Bandai's Aug 5th releases, which consist of:

Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion Part #1 DVD
Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion Part #1 DVD Limited Edition
Gurren Lagann, Vol #2 DVD (Eps #10-18)
Zegapain, Vol #6 DVD

Let me explain why.

When a big limited edition set comes our way from Bandai, they usually palettize the shipment and send it via a pretty slow trucking carrier, so in these cases it might take a little longer to work it's way out to us than the stores out on the west coast. Our shipment of the above titles was scheduled to arrive around Aug 19th, however, a couple days prior we had already started to get reports from customers on the West Coast that their Code Geass DVD's were bad.

Well, everyone remembers that fiasco we went through back in January when Bandai shipped out an entire pressing of bad disks. What a nightmare that was! So when this shipment arrived we decided to hold it for a few days and see what happened.

Sure enough, people started reporting glitches in the Code Geass DVD's like crazy - so many so that on July 23rd Bandai announced another 'direct' replacement program. We don't know if Gurren or Zegapain was bad also, but we didn't want to take any chances, so at that point we immediately made the decision to send this entire batch back to Bandai in exchange for DVDs from a new pressing. I simply did not want to be responsible for sending dozens or even hundreds of bad disks out to customers if we could do anything about it. That's why we still have these titles on pre-order status, even though just about every other Anime store out there said to hell with their customers and is just shipping the bad disks.

So I'm glad we hopefully dodged the bullet on this one, but at the same time I'm not happy at all that our customer won't have these by the street date. Bandai has already shipped us a replacement batch, and they are expected to arrive by Wednesday Aug 6th, or Thursday Aug 7th. We will have all the pre-orders ready and ship them immediately once they arrive so we should be able to get these to you guy by this coming weekend, and if everything works out these DVD's will work fine for everyone.

In the event that you do get a bad disk, or have already gotten a bad disk from someone else (which I hope is not the case), you can send Bandai a message here in order to get it replaced.

So I want to let everyone know that I appreciate their patience with this and that we will be getting these out to you guys and gals within the next few days.

How Will You Vote?

If you are still wondering who you will (or won't) vote for this fall, check this out to see which candidate some of the 'coolest people on earth' are planning to support:

HEH. :-)

FedEx Air Shipping & Saturday Delivery

We serve a lot of customers who want their stuff within 24-48 hours, no matter where they are, and I've always wondered how 'Brand X' gets away with charging a customer for 2nd Day delivery, and then taking a week to ship the order out... hmmmm.... it's like hey, thanks for nothing, but I'm sure they are too busy to do better and I stopped trying to figure them out a long time ago...

... so anyway, as many of you already know, if you are a US customer and select FedEx air shipping on your RACS Anime order up until about 2-3pm (EST) we ship your order the same day for delivery the next business day or in two business days if you select 2nd day air. So if you place an overnight order early on Tuesday afternoon, you are going to get it Wednesday morning. There is no 'you might get it' or 'most orders arrive the next day' or 'ships next day but takes an additional 1-2 days for processing' kinda thing going on. Hey, we choose our warehouse location partly for it's proximity to the airport and the regional FedEx air depot (it's only 2 blocks away) - we're pretty serious about this stuff.

So with that in mind, there are a couple of features of how we handle 'FedEx Air' orders here that I thought you guys might like to know:

1) FedEx Air orders, no matter when they are placed, go right to the front of the line and get processed before any other class of orders.

2) FedEx Air orders get priority for inventory allocation. This is the only time that inventory is assigned to orders in a manner that could be considered 'less than fair'. Though it does not happen very often, let me give you an example: If we have 1 unit of a PVC Figure left in stock, and we get 2 orders for it over the weekend, on Monday we would assign it to the first order that was placed - except if the second order is an 'Air' order. In that case, the air customer would get first preference for the inventory, and we would backorder it for the other customer. Bet you didn't know that. :-)

Air customers pay extra for priority treatment, and that's what they get - plain and simple.

So great, we offer FedEx air express shipments, and we get them shipped right away. What's the catch? Well, one issue we run into is this: FedEx delivers on a business day schedule. If your order ships out on Friday, and you select 2nd day, it definately will NOT get delivered on Sunday. It gets delivered on Tuesday, which is 2 'business days' later. Same thing with overnight. A Friday Overnight shipment won't be delivered until Monday unless you specifically check the 'Saturday Delivery' box and authorize us to add the additional $18 fee that FedEx charges for this service, and that's only if your address is inside their Saturday delivery area. Sometime it's not even available.

And speaking of FedEx Air parcels with Saturday delivery, there is a pricing anomaly that appears sometimes. A Thursday shipment going out 2nd day with Saturday delivery added can sometimes be more expensive than a regular Next day air shipment that would be delivered a day sooner anyway. We run into that from time to time, and when we do - if Overnight is cheaper - we toss out the Saturday option and just ship the order for next day delivery.

Just a little info to help you guys understand our FedEx air shipping service.

Have a great evening!

Bob (aka Robert)

Note 1: I want to mention that our FedEx International service is a little different, but those orders typically ship next business day and get delivered where ever you are in the world within 48 hours. In my opinion that service level is worth the extra cost no matter how you cut it. Those parcels get handled with kid gloves too.

Note 2: Just for fun, we're planning to offer a same day delivery service through FedEx later this year, so an order placed at 10am here on the East Coast could be delivered by 3-4pm the same day on the West Coast 3,000 miles away. It will be REALLY expensive, but we think it will fill a niche among the 'gotta have it RIGHT NOW' crowd. :-)

Funimation Will Begin Scheduling Former ADV Titles Soon

Everyone is asking us about the status of the ADV titles Funi is going to re-release. Since I've already answered this question via e-mail over 100 times, I thought I'd go ahead and post about it :-)

Today Funimation sent us this formal statement:

ALL pre-orders that have been placed for the batch of titles that used to belong to ADV films (but are now going to be released by Funimaton) will remain open and on the books until Funimation finalizes their release schedule for these. We have left the following releases up for pre-order with no current release date:

Devil May Cry, Vol #3, Level 3 DVD
Kanon, Vol #6 DVD
Pumpkin Scissors , Vol #5, Battlefield of the Heart DVD
Red Garden , Vol #6 DVD
Shattered Angels , Vol #2 DVD
Shattered Angels , Vol #3 DVD
Tokyo Majin , Vol #4 DVD
Welcome to NHK, Vol #5, 5th Conspiracy DVD
Welcome to NHK, Vol #6, 6th Conspiracy DVD

None of these titles will be out in August like the rumors floating around the Anime boards are suggesting. Don't be too concerned about the stated 'packaging changes' either. They have the change the logo's and such, and all the UPC and studio codes so that retailers cannot try to return their extra ADV to Funimation. Other than that, it looks like the releases will remain as is, and will begin release in October. We'll post that information in a couple of weeks as soon as Funi passes it on to us.

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.

Dentsu Wises Up - Funimation Signs Deal for Geneon Titles

Well they finally announced it! I was hoping we would get the word ahead of AX.

Funimation announced this morning that they have signed a deal with Geneon to distribute a cherry picked selection of Geneon's licenses, but the titles they are picking up are the ones we needed:

FUNimation Entertainment obtains the exclusive rights to the manufacturing, marketing, sales and distribution of established Geneon titles, including international successes "Ergo Proxy", "Hellsing Ultimate" and "Black Lagoon". Among the first titles to be released includes the special edition of "Hellsing Ultimate". Follow up releases include "Black Lagoon Second Barrage", “Karin”, "Kyo kara Maoh! Season 2", and "Lyrical Nanoha".

Additional titles include: “Black Lagoon”, “Elemental Gelade”, “Fate/stay night”, “Kamichu”, “Ninja Vixens”, “Paradise Kiss”, “Rozen Maiden”, “Rozen Maiden - Träumend”, “Shana”, “Shonen Onmyouji”, “The Familiar of Zero”, “The Story of Saiunkoku”, “When They Cry”, and “The Law of Ueki”.

Dentsu had been in serious talks with Genius Entertainment a couple months ago about picking up the whole catalog, but Genius backed out because of a couple of key deal points. One of them was that many retailers, including us, refused to sign off on certain lousy contract arrangements related to prior invoices and credits, and stock rotation terms. The folks in Japan finally relented, and went back to Funimation with their tail between their legs. Any revenue stream from a small selection of titles is better than no revenue at all. You know if they got Law of Ueki, the deal was a giveaway, and all I can say is good for Funimation! I couldn't have worked out better for us, we have the best relationship possible with Fun.

You can read the entire press release here on ANN.

I've got a conference call scheduled with our gal at Fun this afternoon. We'll see what info they have, and any release info will be updated on the site as it comes in. We'll all be doing a little happy dance this afternoon...

We're still following up on the ADV situation, anything going on there will be added to this post.

UPDATE: Just got off the phone with our gal at Funimation. They are expecting to have some initial release information to us on Monday next week. She told me that they are expecting certain Geneon catalog titles to become available for order in August, and new titles should be in the pipeline to begin release in September.

UPDATE 2: As promised Funimation provided us with their plans today for the first batch of Geneon releases and re-releases for August and September, and the best part is that the first DVD's are less than six weeks away. The following titles are now available for pre-order:

Geneon / Funimation New Releases:

Black Lagoon Second Barrage, Vol #1 DVD

Black Lagoon Second Barrage, Vol #1 Limited Edition DVD

Black Lagoon Second Barrage, Vol #2 DVD

Fate/Stay Night Complete Collection DVD Boxed Set

Hellsing Ultimate, Vol #4 DVD

Hellsing Ultimate, Vol #4 DVD Limited Edition

Karin, Vol #4 DVD

Kyo Kara Maoh!, Season 2, Vol #7 DVD

Paradise Kiss Complete Collection DVD Boxed Set

Rozen Maiden Complete Collection DVD Boxed Set

Shana (Shakugan no Shana) Complete Collection DVD Boxed Set

When They Cry: Higurashi, Vol #4 DVD

Geneon / Funimation Re-Releases:

Black Lagoon, Vol #1 DVD

Black Lagoon, Vol #2 DVD

Black Lagoon, Vol #3 DVD

Black Lagoon, Vol #1 Limited Edition DVD

Black Lagoon, Vol #2 Limited Edition DVD

Black Lagoon, Vol #3 Limited Edition DVD

Hellsing Ultimate, Vol #1 DVD

Hellsing Ultimate, Vol #2 DVD

Hellsing Ultimate, Vol #3 DVD

Hellsing Ultimate, Vol #1 DVD Limited Edition

Hellsing Ultimate, Vol #2 DVD Limited Edition

Hellsing Ultimate, Vol #3 DVD Limited Edition

Kamichu Complete Collection DVD Boxed Set

Karin, Vol #1 DVD

Karin, Vol #1 DVD w/ Limited Art Box

Karin, Vol #2 DVD

Karin, Vol #3 DVD

Kyo Kara Maoh!, Season 2, Vol #1 DVD

Kyo Kara Maoh!, Season 2, Vol #1 DVD Limited Edition

Kyo Kara Maoh!, Season 2, Vol #2 DVD

Kyo Kara Maoh!, Season 2, Vol #3 DVD

Kyo Kara Maoh!, Season 2, Vol #4 DVD

Kyo Kara Maoh!, Season 2, Vol #5 DVD

Kyo Kara Maoh!, Season 2, Vol #6 DVD

When They Cry: Higurashi, Vol #1 DVD w/ Collectors Art Box

When They Cry: Higurashi, Vol #1 DVD

When They Cry: Higurashi, Vol #2 DVD

When They Cry: Higurashi, Vol #3 DVD

Some ADV New Releases Now 'Suspended Indefinitely'

We've been keeping on top of ADV regarding the 6/24, 7/1, and 7/8 releases. As of today both the Shattered Angels 2 and Kanon 6 DVD's have missed the street dates. A couple of weeks ago we got the word that these releases would probably be shipping late due to 'replicator problems', however late last week the status was changed to 'on hold'. Since then I've been following up with ADV daily.

I just got the word this morning from ADV that the following new releases have been 'suspended indefinitely':

Shattered Angels , Vol #2 DVD
Shattered Angels , Vol #2 DVD w Art Box
Kanon, Vol #6 DVD
Tokyo Majin , Vol #4 DVD
Welcome to NHK, Vol #5, 5th Conspiracy DVD

I did not inquire about releases out past 7/8. This is just a quick post, and I'm currently working to get some clarification on what's going on.

UPDATE: FYI, a small number of NHK 5 did ship - mostly to Best Buy - but others may have gotten a few copies as well. ADV had a special ongoing promotional arrangement in place with Best Buy for NHK, and they did seem to get a small pressing out to them before they had to pull the plug (for reasons still unclear). I can't comment right now on the other titles.

UPDATE 2: It's been difficult to get anymore hard info from ADV this afternoon, but I'll post more as it comes in - but only news I've been able to verify with at least two sources at ADV and that always takes time. If nothing else, ADV should shed some light on what has happened at their Anime Expo panel this coming Friday afternoon. The 'deer in the headlights' deal we went through back in February isn't going to cut it this time.

UPDATE 3: Just wanted to make a note that any copies of the above titles that we are able to obtain would strictly have to go to fill existing pre-orders.

UPDATE 4: Following up on more e-mails that have come in. This posting does not mean that ADV is out of business, but it does mean that they are still experiencing serious business problems. We've been quietly accumulating extra inventory of their thin-paks for the last few weeks 'just in case'. As of now they are still shipping the new thin-paks and restocks to us. We received the new Divergence Eve thin-pak today, and the FUMOFFU re-issue arrived a couple of days ago. I think we'll be taking things day by day with them for now, and again, their panel at Expo should be very interesting.

UPDATE 5: 'Suspended Indefinitely' means exactly that - their words, not mine.

UPDATE 6: It's defiantly a licensing issue - again. Our sources at ADV confirmed this morning that any retailer who might have received a few copies of any of the above titles got them strictly by mistake as "they are no longer allowed to ship those titles".

UPDATE 7: At the ADV Sneak Peak panel at Anime Expo on Thursday afternoon Matt Greenfield let us know the deal - ADV has officially separated from its Japanese licensing partner Sojitz. He said this means that the status of 'recent titles' are now "fate undetermined". That's industry speak for 'we're probably screwed'. We're working to get a full list of actual names in place of 'recent titles'. As a bright spot, he did say that they are negotiating for 23 new titles. How nice for them.

So the question is: 1) can they actually afford to license new material, and, if so 2) do they still have the resources to produce it - and lastly 3) will the fan base ever trust them to finish any series that they start. I mean, they had to sell the desks and chairs to buy Matt a plane ticket out to AX...

...come on, you know I'm just kidding about that... :-)

...but I don't say any of this stuff lightly. We're going to loose ten of thousands of dollars in business due to the cancellations, much of which was booked in advance. You have to wonder how much ADV management knew about when this deal would end while they still continued to rush these volumes out the door. I had always felt it was very peculiar that they had scheduled Shattered Angels 2 and 3 only 3 weeks apart (6/24 and 7/15) - seemed like they were in a awful hurry to get them on the street before ? what ?. Thanks Matt, enjoy AX - you guys really screwed us again.

Sorry guys, I'm a like cranky this afternoon. It's been a long day. I hope you all have a great long weekend!

UPDATE 8: Funimation answers all. See my post here.

Gurren Lagann in Stock, Code Geass up for Pre-Order, PiQ Magazine Rolls Over, TokyoPop Fails the 'Kobayashi Maru' Test

First a Personal Note: Jamie (who heads up our order processing) had a little motorcycle accident last Sunday and ended up with a broken wrist and ankle.

Motorcycle + Deer Crossing the Road = Ouch.

She's a trooper though, and is already clambering to come back to work, even though we've assured her that everything is fine and we've got her covered until she's 'ready' to return, so we've compromised and she'll be working from home for a couple of weeks - with the definition of 'working' being 'watching a lot of Anime'...

Two momentous events have occurred this week in the annals of Anime, and I'm here to tell you about them:

First, Bandai FINALLY announced the release of Code Geass and best of all, they have moved it up to August (it had originally been planned for September). We now have it up for pre-order here. I would like to note that they are going to release it the same way they are doing Toward the Terra, with 2 single volumes, or a less expensive 2 disk pack that will contain the same two DVD's for a lower price. This seems to be Bandai's new method of 'channel stuffing' and we see no need to carry the two single DVD's when the 'pack' is the better value. Just a heads up as to why we don't have those single DVD's listed in case you see them offered at other places.

Second, we have received Gurren Lagann & Lucky Star 2 way early, and they are already shipping, so no need to wait for those other slow retailers to ship it in July. I do want to note that Bandai is running a big Gurren campaign at Anime Expo, and is holding some copies back for the show, so they have only shipped us the first 1/3 of our order of the single DVD. More are coming, but demand has been VERY high and we'll probably run out of the single shortly before more get here. We have ALL our copies of the Limited edition, so if you want to make sure you get immediate delivery you should opt for that LE version. All of your pre-orders for both versions have already been filled and should be on your doorstep soon! :-) Outstanding!

Heads up, one of our inside contacts at ADV informed me this week that they have experienced some 'reproduction problems' with the upcoming volumes of both Shattered Angels #2 DVD and Kanon #6 DVD so Shattered Angels will probably miss the June 24th street date and ship late, and Kanon 6 will also either be shipping very very close to or shortly after the official July 1st street date.

Coming as no surprise to anyone, PiQ magazine went belly up this week and announced that the July issue will be the last one. A post, from "the editorial/creative/production staff" blamed "low advertising revenue, poor business management, and a lack of proper marketing and promotion" for the cancellation. They also said that its best efforts went for naught, because "without a good financial backing, it's all an exercise in futility." My take is that ADV cannot financially support any startup or money losing division right now, and had no choice but to kill it. We had been a long supporter of NewType USA, but we declined to advertise in PiQ after they choose to pursue a new format. I remember Emily Olman (who quietly quit the magazine last month) calling me and outlining their plan to double their circulation by years end. After I got an advanced copy of the first issue, I knew that was a pipe dream. I hope all the paid subscribers, especially any of you NewType holdovers, are able to finally get subscription refunds from those folks.

Funimation announced that they have licensed the sports Anime Big Windup (Ookiku Furikabutte) but they did not indicate when it might be released. ICv2 reports that in spite of its prestigious awards no American publisher has yet acquired the Ookiku Furikabutte manga. Manga-ka Asa Higuchi first learned about baseball from the Dokaben manga, but she spent 10 years researching high school baseball and she brings a shojoesque interest in character development to the typically shonen sports manga genre. Ren Mihashi, the hero of Ookiku Furikabutte, is totally lacking in self-confidence because he believes that family connections got him the prize role of pitcher on his middle school baseball team. When he gets to high school he is reluctant to try out for the team, but eventually he blossoms as a player thanks to the help of his teammates, especially his catcher Takaya Abe. I think this will be a good decision on Fun's part, because the show was very popular with female viewers in Japan, and should reach out to a similar audience in the US.

I hate to keep harping about what TokyoPop is doing, but this week they announced that they have hired a big Brand Management firm to handle their licenses for spin off merchandise associated with their master brands (you know, like Princess Ai). Ugggg. That's a bad sign when companies do that. Brand management is ALWAYS something that needs to be handled internally, but it's cheaper to outsource it, and again proves that the executive management at TokyoPop has no idea what they are doing.

The 'Kobayashi Maru' test (the no win scenerio) is, afterall, a test of character...

Official details about TokyoPop's future Manga plans are still scarce, but lots of info is coming out of backdoor sources. This week Diamond Comic Distributors, TP's largest independent distributor, quietly announced that the July solicitations of the following manga volumes have been canceled:

Atelier Marie and Elie - Zarlburge Alchemist volume 5
Blazin' Barrels volume 11
Legend of "Zipangu" BLOOD SUCKER volume 8
Dragon Voice volume 11
Forget About Love volume 2
Gakuen Heaven-NakajimaGosick volume 2
I Wish...volume 3
Kat & Mouse volume 4
Liling-Po volume 9
Love Mode volume 11
Missing (Novel) volume 4: The Hanged Man
Mobile Suit Gundam: Ecole du Ciel Volume 9
Nosatsu Junkie volume 7
Pick of the Litter volume 5
Planet Blood volume 9
Poison Candy volume 2
Rure volume 4
Saver volume 7
Shin Megami Tensei: Kahn volume 3
Snow volume 2
Sorcerer Hunters - 100% Authentic Format volume 11
Suppli volume 4
That Guy Was Splendid volume 1
Trinity Blood - Reborn On The Mars volume 3
Zig·Zag volume 4
Star Trek: The Next Generation volume 1 (postponed until Spring 2009)

There is also word through a different source that Love Mode 11 and the next volume of Gakuen Heaven (part of TokyoPop's BLU line) are going to get postponed. It's pretty clear to us that TP will be implementing their planned manga output reduction by looking at each title strictly in terms of profitability, keeping the top sellers and quietly discontinuing a large percentage of their series that only see marginal demand. For our part, we'll be delaying posting many TokyoPop titles for pre-order until their fall schedule firms up.

You know, we've been in the business for a long time, going on 12 years, and I have made a lot of jokes around the office that Anime and Manga producers used to be able to make plenty of money on 10% of the output they currently have, and now are struggling to make ends meet with 10x the amount of annual sales they used to have. It seems to me that during the middle of the decade most of the US companies gained wide eyes and forgot how to structure their businesses to serve a niche market, desperately wanting to move Anime into the 'mainstream' and grow rich off of mass market sales. Now companies like Geneon are gone and TokyoPop and ADV are having to eat a slice of humble pie, but the ones to suffer the most are the fans who have to take the blow of many great Anime series not getting produced or finished here in the US. Now many Manga readers are going to have to deal with the disappointment that some of their favorite series may not be completed. I myself am greatly disappointed that titles like Gundam Ecole, Suppli, and Trinity Blood are on the above list as I've been reading them since they were started. But despite all this turmoil, we here at RACS have built our lives and future around the US Anime community, and we'll stay with you guys through thick and thin no matter what happens in the short run. We've seen hard times before, and we'll get through these challenges now - right beside you.

For you figure lovers (like me) Yamato USA said this week that it has come up with a process to make resin-quality figures out of PVC and is planning to prove it with a series of statues based on paintings by top fantasy artists including Luis Royo, Boris Vallejo, Dorian Clevenger, and Julie Bell. Yamato says their PVC research has yielded ways to minimize shrinkage (without Viagra), deformation, and parting lines. Yamato will use its new manufacturing processes along with revolutionary new painting techniques to produce what the company calls "resin-quality PVC figures." The new figures, which will debut in the US around December, will provide resin quality figures for an MSRP of $98, less than a third of what a comparable resin figure would cost.They sent us over some concept art to review, and it looks pretty exciting, so I'm anxious to see the first figure created from this new process!

In addition to Gurren Lagann & Lucky Star 2 on DVD this week, we also have the next installment of Kujibiki Unbalance and the first Emma DVD Collection in stock. Check the store updates page for the complete list.

On the manga side we have lots of new volumes again this week for your reading pleasure. Some of the notable new arrivals include Dance in the Vampire Bund, Welcome to the NHK, Kekkaishi, and the next volume of MY favorite Inubaka Crazy for Dogs. Check here for the whole list.

We have a couple of new figures for you this week including the delectable Ryomou Standing Figure (get her while they last, because it won't be long), and the newest Eva 1.0 figure of Misato Katsuragi who went straight into my personal collection.

The big news though is that one of our importers e-mailed us a final packing list this week for a HUGE shipment of 26 new figures, which are being loaded onto a tractor trailer right now in California and will arrive here all at once late next week. Here's the quick inside scoop on what's coming.

Ikki Tousen: Dragon Destiny Kanu Unchou 1/8 Scale PVC Figure [ALTER]
IkkiTousen: Ryofu Housen Private Sun Tan Ver. 1/7 Scale PVC Figure [GRIFFON]
Duel Maid 4.8" Action Figure (Set of 2)
Duel Maid Girl's Weapons Series 2 Mini Action Trading Figures (Display of 10)
Duel Maid Plus Girl's Weapons Mini Action Trading Figures (Display of 10)
Fate/Hollow Ataraxia: Saber Alter (Black Ver.) 1/8 Scale PVC Figure
Fate/Stay Night: Saber Non-Scale Figma PVC Action Figure
Hell Girl: Ai Enma 1/8 Scale PVC Figure [OOP]
Kimi ga Aruji de Shitsuji ga Ore de: Shinra Kuonji 1/8 Scale PVC Figure
Magical Soldier Sweet Knight 2: Kiss 1/10 Scale PVC Action Figure
Magical Soldier Sweet Knight 2: Lip 1/10 Scale PVC Action Figure [OOP]
Magical Soldier Sweet Knight 2: Passion 1/10 Scale PVC Action Figure
Magical Soldier Sweet Knight 2: Passion Exclusive Color 1/10 Scale PVC Action Figure [OOP]
Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS: : Nanoha Non-Scale Figma PVC Action Figure
Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS: Reinforce Zwei 1/8 Scale PVC Figure
Megachu!: Jordh 1/8 Scale PVC Figure
Moetan: Pastel Ink Pop Up Vignette 1/8 Scale PVC Figure
Sei Narukana: Ikaruga Satsuki 1/7 Scale PVC Figure [OOP]
Sengoku Rance: Uesugi Kenshin PVC Figure (KOTO) [OOP]
Senko no Ronde: Pec Champo 1/8 Scale PVC Figure
Shuraki: Needa 1/8 Scale PVC Figure (Wave 2) [OOP]
Shuraki: Ryu Meifen 1/8 Scale PVC Figure
The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya: Tsuruya Yellow Bunny Ver. 1/4 Scale PVC Figure
The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya: Yuki Nagato Swimsuit Ver. 1/8 Scale PVC Figure
The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya: Yuki Nagato White Bunny Ver. 1/4 Scale PVC Figure

Prepare yourself for the mother of all figure updates - coming soon!

That's it for this week :-) Have a great weekend everyone, and enjoy your Anime!

Bandai Visual Bites the Dust

After writing so many articles about the folly of Bandai Visual's pricing and release policy, I don't really have much to say about this news (this being a holiday weekend).

From ANN:

Bandai Namco Holdings has announced on Friday that it will combine its two video/audio content subsidiaries in America — Bandai Entertainment and Bandai Visual USA — on July 1 and liquidate Bandai Visual USA. The company's announcement still lists Tatsunori Konno as the head of Bandai Visual USA, even though he moved back to Japan this month. As of the end of April, there were officially only two employees of Bandai Visual USA. The liquidation of Bandai Visual USA is expect to be completed by the end of September.

Bandai Visual USA was established on January 5, 2005 with an emphasis on collectors' editions of Bandai Visual titles from Japan. It met with heavy resistance to its prices which were similar to those in Japan, but far above those in the rest of the North American anime market. It has US$4 million in capital and, as of last December 31 (the end of its last accounting period), US$2.983 million in total assets. During the accounting period that ended last December, it sold US$1.151 million worth of goods, but lost US$595,000 before taxes.

And from ICv2:

Bandai Visual to Shut Down, Assets Transferred to Bandai Entertainment

Bandai Namco has announced that it will fold its Bandai Visual subsidiary in the U.S. into Bandai Entertainment on July 1st, eliminating Bandai Visual as a separate operation by the end of September.

Bandai Visual had been established in the U.S. to release material originally released by Bandai Visual in Japan in Criterion-style, high quality, high priced formats (see “ICv2 Interviews Tatsunori Konno, Part 1”). Its U.S. releases never caught on and the operation was losing money, leading to the liquidation.

The shutdown comes amid generally poor conditions for U.S. anime companies with illegal downloads generally seen as the primary contributing factor.

It's not like we didn't see that coming. Remember what Macarthur said?

" Poorly Run Anime companies never die, they just fade away...."

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... :-)

Good News from ADV Films

We received some good news from ADV Films late this afternoon. Most of the February releases that had been put on hold have been rescheduled and will ship shortly.

Here is the list of rescheduled titles and dates. Please note that these dates are estimates and we will begin shipping these whenever they actually arrive:



Feb 26, 2008 (Note: due to intershipment time, we are scheduling these as Mar 4th)

Kanon, Vol #2 DVD
Kanon, Vol #2 DVD w/ Art Box
Kurau Phantom Memory, Vol #6, To Split Infinity DVD
Moonlight Mile, Vol #1, One Small Step DVD
Project Blue Earth SOS , Vol #1, Invasion! DVD
Pumpkin Scissors , Vol #3, Wounds of War DVD
Tokyo Majin , Vol #2, Dark Arts: Predestined Power DVD
Tokyo Majin , Vol #2, Dark Arts: Predestined Power DVD w Art Box
Wallflower , Vol #2, Lesson 2 Shrewring of the Timid DVD
Wallflower , Vol #2, Lesson 2 Shrewring of the Timid DVD w Art Box
Welcome to NHK , Vol #3, 3rd Conspiracy DVD

Mar 4, 2008

Five Centimeters Per Second DVD (Thank Goodness!)
Kanon, Vol #3 DVD
Ah! My Goddess TV Season 2, Vol #6 DVD
Red Garden , Vol #4 DVD

Mar 11, 2008

Project Blue Earth SOS , Vol #2, Infiltration DVD
Project Blue Earth SOS , Vol #2, Infiltration DVD w/ Art Box
Venus Versus Virus, Vol #3, Plague DVD

Mar 18, 2008

Moonlight Mile, Vol #2, A Gambler's Moon DVD
Moonlight Mile, Vol #2, A Gambler's Moon DVD w/ Art Box

I chatted briefly with Mike Baliff at ADV late this afternoon. There are a couple of things I want to point out regarding this announcement:

1) Many of these titles have actually been advanced on the schedule from their original dates. In fact, 'assuming' they have already been pressed, it's possible ADV might ship us all the titles on this most or all of this list all at once, or at least send us most of these titles in short order. It appears to me that ADV is anxious to close the books on their current open business and thus advanced the release date on many of these - possible based on what they already have in their warehouse. ADV has gone several weeks with severely reduced receivables, and by now the business must be absolutely starving for money, so they want to get as much shipped as quickly as possible in order to re-establish their receivables pipeline quickly.

2) Gurren Lagann and future volumes of Devil May Cry (after Vol #1) is not included in this list. Mike could not comment on the status of either, however, he did say that more announcements will be coming shortly.

3) All of the previously released titles that have been on backorder since mid-January will immediately begin shipping again. This will include Devil May Cry DVD #1.

4) The titles scheduled for 2/26 are supposed to be shipping to us today, so obviously they will not actually be streeting on 2/26 and we have set them up as 3/4 on the store site. They will be available as soon as they arrive here at our warehouse. I'm estimating we should see them by Friday of this week.

5) Other than Gurren Lagann, this update covers all the titles that were on the last published release spreadsheet provided to retailers by ADV. In fact, we ran off the end of that schedule this week as Red Garden 4 was the last line item which we were required to pre-book today. We currently have no information for any new releases beyond Red Garden 4. What this means is that this update from ADV covers all the DVD items that retailers had information on to offer for advanced sale to customers, and have already preordered from the company. This closes the books on whatever open orders they currently have (remember, fans are our customers - ADV's customers are retailers - so they handle their business based on retailer requirements). The next thing we need to see from ADV is a revised new release schedule covering previously unsolicited items after Red Garden 4.

So today's announcement solves most of the immediate problem of Feb/Mar new releases as well as all those backordered titles. We should begin getting shipping reports from ADV tomorrow for our stuff, so we will begin pre-processing all the booked backorders and the Feb 26 and Mar 4 preorders once we have that info. That way we can begin shipping these items to you guys the morning they hit the dock.

Hopefully we'll get some more info from ADV by weeks end regarding Gurren Lagann and what the plan is going forward out to April and May. If that happens, then by the end of next week this will all be a bad memory. Stay tuned.

Updates - February 22nd, 2008

Snow and Ice again - we had to close the warehouse again today (Friday 2/22) due to the winter storm that is moving through (nothing but ice and sleet in our area). Seems like well spend the month of February playing catchup from these weather events. We'll reopen and start shipping orders again first thing on Monday.

I suppose maybe we can use the extra time to get the stores front page updated... -_^

<---- Hey, what's Riki doing here? Eye candy man, eye candy!

We were very happy to discover this week that the Anime Corner Store was voted one of the top 25 most popular Anime sites on web in Active Anime's most recent poll! What's even better is that, since we had no idea we were even in the running, we did not actively try to send viewers over the the site to vote for us like other sites did, so our inclusion and placement on the list is strictly due to fans voting their conscience. In addition to the great ranking, the Active Anime staff also gave us this glowing review:

"Established in 1997 originally as a fan site, the Anime Corner quickly grew into one of the finest and largest online retailers of anime and manga related products. The Anime Corner Store® is now recognized worldwide as a leading, customer friendly, Anime retailer - a place that fans can obtain the latest Anime and Manga products at the most competitive prices, and still be backed up by the fastest delivery and best customer service in the industry."

Wow! I don't think I could have written it better myself. :-) Thanks to the folks at Active Anime for giving us the opportunity to be on the list this year, and for all you who voted for us!

Drumroll please... I have one date change for you this week. The release date for the upcoming Boys Be DVD boxed set has been moved back from Feb 26 to Mar 11. Looks like even the folks out in Iowa can't keep to their schedule these days. There are also a couple of March titles Media Blasters said they may have to ship late (due to their replicator), but we'll cross that bridge when we get there.

I was hoping to have an update for you on the status of ADV Films this week, but I do not. The situation is unchanged and we have heard nothing new out of Houston - which is in itself vexing to say the least. There was one interesting development though at the magazine division. Gary Steinman, the long time editor and chief of Newtype, and the man set to be the same for the PiQ publication, turned in his resignation last Friday and will be leaving the company. He's moving back to the Bay area, and while he said his departure was for 'personal reasons' (don't they always say that?) it was later revealed that he left ADV to take a new position at Playstation Official magazine. What this says about the future of PiQ magazine (or ADV Films) is anyone's guess, but Gary would be in a position to know more than we do about ADV's future prospects.

Last week I said we'd know the winner of the HD wars within the next 3 months, but it only took Toshiba about 3 minutes to run up the white flag on the HDDVD format after Walmart (we call the stores Wally World in these parts) chose to back BLURAY. So Sony's BLURAY is the official winner and Toshiba will stop manufacturing new HDDVD players in short order. But what does this mean for Anime you ask? Everything and not much. Everything in that now that there is a clear format winner, any studio hesitation to press titles in HD format can be set aside and we will probably start seeing more BLURAY Anime DVD releases as early as this spring. Not much in that the only Anime titles currently in release here in the US is Freedom, and Bandai Visual has already announced that they will complete the release of the series in the combo DVD / HDDVD format over the next few months. Kudos to them for not leaving existing viewers out in the cold half way through the release.

And because so many of you have been asking, we've created a subsection tab on the store where you can find all the current Anime titles in HD release. All eight of them. :-)

I'm very excited to hear that Funimation has licensed the Claymore anime. We've been waiting eagerly for that announcement, and I look forward to the release later this year. I'm also glad that it was acquired by a studio that is financially stable!

(Note: Now that's what I'm talkin about! Oh, and I LOVE Hoverphonic too...)

Bandai announced the release of Lucky Star this week, and we've already posted the first volumes for pre-order. It appears they are going to follow a similar release pattern as they did with Haruhi last year. Speaking of that, we'll also have Code Geass up for pre-order shortly. Also, it may interest you to know that Media Blasters has not renewed the license for Invader Zim, and the DVD's are now officially out of print. We still have a few of the boxed sets in stock for anyone that wants to pick one up before they are gone.

Despite the bad weather we managed to complete the shipping of all the Bandai replacement DVD's this week. Some customers have already received them and so far have reported that they play perfectly. Phew! We had done a few in house tests prior to sending them out, but you never know and I'm glad the new disks appear to be 100%. If you have not received your new disk(s) expect them to arrive shortly.

Another week has passed with no new shipments from ADV, so that left Funimation to fill the void with the arrival of Hell Girl, Vol #4 DVD, Mushishi, Vol #6 DVD, and the new

Viridian version of Galaxy Railways. Shuffle, Vol #1 DVD and the new DragonBall Z boxed set continue to sell extremely well and we have already had to go back to Funimation twice for more copies (no worries, we have plenty in stock). We also received the next volume of Simoun from Media Blasters and Naruto from Viz about 2 weeks ahead of their scheduled release dates.

Most of the latest manga arrivals came in from Viz and this weeks update features new volumes from my favorites Hayate the Combat Butler, Eiken, and of course Inubaka Crazy for Dogs which I can't get enough of even though it's more or less a girls title!

Finally we have a couple new figure arrivals which include the new Revoltech version of Rei Ayanami (which you can position just about any way you want) and the absolutely gorgeous (and huge) 1/6 scale Mai Shiranui. This is the most beautiful version of Mai I've ever seen, and not only is she almost 12" tall, she is sculpted perfectly and has everything going on in all the right places. :-) I know she's a bit pricey, but she's just too gorgeous to miss out on!

Have a great weekend, stay warm, and enjoy your Anime!