December 10, 2008

Me? Finicky?

Bob tossed me a link, which was nice of him. It sounds like Magical Girl Lyrical Nanona is turning out to be a pretty good R1 seller. Which suits me fine; it increases the chance that Strikers will get licensed here eventually.

There are several reasons why this is a good thing. First, it's always good when a title sells well; the industry needs it. Another reason is that this boxed set was the original release, not a re-release, and I applaud the industry moving towards doing its R1 releases this way instead of trickling out DVDs one every two months.

It's beginning to look like the new pattern for full-season releases is as half-season boxed sets, and that's fine, too. Even if the per-episode cost is the same, the price on a first-release full 26-ep boxed set would scare some people away. Two half-seasons is still better than a trickle of individual DVDs.

Anyway, I gave 4 stars to Shingu and 3.5 stars to Misaki Chronicles. So there! Pbltltlt!

UPDATE: In another of his posts, Bob says:

Because ADV has so much business exposure to the failing mass market retailers, I'm currently putting ADV's survival at only about 50/50 into next year, and the only reason I'm commenting on this is that a lot of people are e-mailing in asking us about it. I am currently recommending that you fill in any ADV titles you want in your collection before the end of this year, and I would also recommend that you try to purchase any ADV titles complete and be wary of committing money to promised future releases. I'm just trying to give it to you straight, which no one else seems willing to do these days.

Which might put a lot of titles out of print. So if you haven't yet picked up a copy of Divergence Eve/Misaki Chronicles now's the time to do it. Also Petite Princess Yucie and Azumanga Daioh.

Going through their list of titles, it's rather amazing how few of them I consider must-haves. Those three are the lot. (There's other stuff from them I liked, but don't consider must-have.)

Which may mean that ADV was indiscriminate in picking titles to license. Or maybe it does mean I'm finicky after all.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Anime at 02:38 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
Post contains 380 words, total size 3 kb.

1 *looks over at birthday copy of Divergence Eve*

Yep, I did my part.  *cough*

Posted by: metaphysician at December 10, 2008 07:09 PM (h4nEy)

2 Finicky is fine. It saves you a lot of trouble.

Looks like ADV was following Sturgeon's Law as a business model... a few very good series in the list, and 90% crap. I think their plan was "license *everything*."

There's a couple of series I might buy, such as Azumanga Daioh, but most of the ones I was interested in I already have, or am just following through Netflix (like RahXephon).

Posted by: EvilOtto at December 11, 2008 04:53 AM (X+4PK)

3 I think ascribing anything like a "plan" to ADV's licensing process is probably giving them too much credit. ;p

Their biggest advantage was that their production costs were much lower than the other companies out there. Because all the work was done in-house, especially after 2000, they didn't have to spend money on contractors or studio time, and thus the additional cost to produce an additional show was quite low. This let them bid higher on hits while still showing a profit (unlike, say, Geneon), and on cheap shows, even if they sold terribly, they'd at least break even.

On the other hand, it did create its own set of imperatives. The company had to make sure it had a big set of shows ready to be worked on, in order to keep all that staff busy.

As far as good shows, besides the ones you've mentioned? Azu and RahXephon, sure. I'm going to assume everyone's seen Eva by now. If you had the extra money, Area 88 and Noir. Nobody talks about Yugo the Negotiator, but it's a great show for the right sort of person. Steven liked Gravion more'n we did. ;p Kino's Journey was worth watching, as was Dai-Guard (for completely different reasons). Nadesico, of course.

If you've at least seen all of those series (and the ones Steven mentioned... plus Excel Saga and Abenobashi if you have a high weird tolerance), then you shouldn't be worried much that ADV's possible passing will make irreplaceable gems unavailable.

Sorry for the list. It's okay 'cause these aren't "Steven, watch this" recommendations, right? ;p

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at December 11, 2008 10:41 AM (7TgBH)

4 I own Noir and enjoyed it (if "enjoyed" is the right word for a series like that). I *loved* Kurau Phantom memory and was worried that ADV would die before putting out the final disc. Hadn't heard about Yugo. Other than that, not much on the list knocked me out. 

Posted by: EvilOtto at December 11, 2008 12:35 PM (X+4PK)

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