Rightstuf,

Do you happen to know what is going on with all of the older Geneon licenses out there? There are some shows that I would really like to get, but I am noticing that some titles are becoming very hard to get a hold of new or used. I have heard very little in the way of other companies renewing any of their licenses. Is it possible for rightstuf to acquire any of their licenses? Is anyone trying to get the rights to any of their licenses?

Any info would be great even if it is to say that you really don't know.

Thanks,
James438

Theres already a thread about what licenses you would wish would be acquired. Should use that instead of making one of your own.

http://www.rightstuf.com/ubbthreads/ubbt...s_.html#Post401

my mistake, sorry. Please feel free to move this to the right place or edit as needed.

I was trying not to ask about particular licenses, at least not yet. I was mostly wondering if it's possible for Rightstuf to be able to acquire any of their licenses or what the current status of Geneon is. I'm not sure if they are in a state where that would be near impossible for you to acquire of any of their titles.

PS I'll post other comments in the thread you linked, so feel free to delete this thread I created too hastily.

We really cannot comment on licensing at other companies. The terms of every license are unique, and only the companies directly involved would know what is and isn't possible.

-rh

Thanks, that is actually really helpful. I have heard very little about them and I was worried that it was because the licenses were in a state of limbo where no one would be able to acquire them even if they were really popular, but if every license is unique then there is still hope that they can be obtained as some licenses must be easier to acquire than others .

It was feeling like there was a big hole with the Geneon out of the picture. Rightstuf seems to me to be the most promising or likely company that would be interested in some of their products.

By the way, this was an unexpected surprise when I stumbled upon your forum. It looks really well set up too. Also you guys are stationed in Iowa! Woot! Can't believe you guys are so close to me! A little too far for me to drive to casually if I wanted to see what your building looked like, but still pretty cool

For what it's worth, John Sirabella from Media Blasters was helping to spread the rumor that Geneon was in the last stages of talks with someone to start distributing their titles. He seemed surprised we hadn't heard anything yet, actually. Of course, I'm guessing this is the answer to last of the secret licensing clues the Dark Lord has dropped on us and we'll hear something announced at one of the major summer cons. Or it could be MB. They did license rescue Guardian of the Sacred Spirit, so JS could have been teasing us in his own unique way.

so far, the only officially announced and relicensed lost geneon title is Serei no Moribito (that i know of). media blasters has snagged that baby and i highly recommend it.

Thanks for the feedback on the forums. If you're going to Anime Iowa, you should be able to find Nick, Alison and I there quite easily (generally in Anime Today t-shirts, backpacks, talking to people).

-rh

any plans on attending AWA? it's the only con i go to every year, but it's well worth it

yeah, I have gone to Naka-Kan all 3 years. it is still small but a good time is had by all. I really can't afford to travel much and would like to go to one of the bigger cons, but when there is this one literally in my back yard I try and support it.

Alison's working on plotting our con plans for the year, we should know more details soon.

-rh

Come to a-kon 19 in dallas texas! We may not be as big as ax but we are the longest running con in america!

kewl
i have tons in my backyard (florida) but yet i only make it to AWA every year. it was the first real con i went to, and still my fav. tween the hotel, bars, food, and 24-7 otakuness, i can't ask for much more

Sounds like fun, i've only ever gone to Ota-kon and Comiket. The latter was (while fun) terribly, horrendously, overcrowded with sweaty otakus.

in all the years i have gone to AWA, thankfully the fanboy funk has always been at a minimum. that's not to say there might be an occasion where u smell the game room before u see it, but far less than some other events i have been to.

Seriously this event was horrendous. I was packed in a room with about the entire population of Japan around me (definitely not for the claustrophobic) for three hours watching the screening of this new (crappy) anime. Here is a comic similar to my excursion, almost verbatim.
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/anime-news-nina/2007-11-28

ouch that sounds really harsh. Reminds me of the experience my friend said he had during the hentai fest at a-kon a few years back. Said the person next to him smelled like he hadnt taken a shower at all and his BO reeked, not to mention that all the idiots were cheering every time a sex scene appeard on it. Made me glad that i decided not to go to it :-p

Hi, I should have mentioned this earlier, but here is a link to answerman from anime news network who was asked about the Hellsing licence. In his reply he says that there may be an announcement some time this summer from any of several companies. ...maybe. Nozomi Entertainment was even mentioned as a possibility .

All I have to say to the company that takes over that one, they better keep the quality to the same standards and keep the same dub house or there are going to be some REALLY pissed off people.

ohmygawd! i love your avatar! nice to know someone other than myself is in love with Chi's Sweet Home!

*sighs and shakes head*

oh yeah, Chi is my fav cat girl right now. or would that be girl cat?

Let's ask Schrödinger. Is the cat alive or dead? Quantum mechanics seems to suggest that after a while the cat is simultaneously alive and dead, in a quantum superposition of coexisting alive and dead states. Yet when we look in the box we expect to see the cat either alive or dead, not in a mixture of alive and dead. . . . . . . *crickets chirping*

Geneon actually continued to dub Nanoha after their distribution stopped, so it's possible they'd keep doing the same with Hellsing. They'd just need to find another distributor, similar to how Kodakawa does things. Besides, at this point if Nozomi isn't the distributor for Geneon titles that haven't been sold off, I expect we'll all be surprised. Or at least those who play along at AoD.

mmm... Nanoha...
i am now currently having happy fuzzy thoughts.
"vivio has a mommy and a mommy"

*grumbling* man tell one physics joke and the whole forum goes dead for like two days *mumble, mumble*


Huh? That.... sounds very creepy....

it's actually really cute and sweet. MGLN is major shoujo-ai gay, but without being overbearing or corny or one big lesbian drama-fest. ugh. thankfully, though they're blatantly hinted at, it's never openly stated (to keep their privacy) and because it's not the main focus of the story.

the "mommy and a mommy" is from season three, StrikerS, which i will hopefully see licensed. ever since Sailor Moon, i haven't come across too many mahou shoujo anime that really grab me, or have the epic scope that BSSM did. MGLN is the first in a while which i would liken to BSSM in greatness

I disapprove of your definition of "thankfully".


Nanoha isn't really mahou shoujo though, title aside. It more or less casts off that pretense a few episodes into season one.

*dry heaves* Kawaii. . . . sweet, BleArGh! *collapses to floor*
I really shouldn't say that since i do actually read alot of shoujo. Read alot but almost nothing worth.......anything. All garbage. Except sailor moon....and Aishiteruze Baby...and Kaichou wa Maid-sama.....and Moe Kare.....and Shugo Chara...and Shiawase Kissa Sanchoume.....but that's it!

Then you don't have to worry because Nanoha isn't shoujo.

hm... i would have to disagree with Nanoha not being shoujo. granted it's got enough fanservice to keep the guys happy much like sailor moon and others do (gotta pander some to that male demographic), but Nanoha is most definitely mahou and shoujo. it just puts some refreshing new twists on an old standard by melding technology with magic.

after all, the title is Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha. last time i checked my japanese, Mahou Shoujo translates as magical girl.

its target audience is girls. the main characters are girls. they have magical powers, magical beasts, and our heroine Nanoha must battle MOTD (Monsters of the Day) to save the world and her new-found friend.

as for being a loose spin-off of an H game or OVA, Nanoha isn't the first anime to do this. what counts is what the anime producers intended which was a new, fresh, and very good imo mahou shoujo series

lol!!! ~patpat~ daijobu. i will love kawaii and shoujo enough for both of us

But... you'd be wrong. Demonstrably, objectively wrong. Both in the sense of the literal definition ("shoujo anime" is an anime based off a manga that ran in a shoujo manga anthology like Nakayoshi or Ribbon) and in terms of the fanbase that actually develops (which is utterly, overwhelmingly male both in Japan and elsewhere).


I'm really hoping this is a joke. =P

A barrage of fanservicey spreads in Japanese magazines, risque figures and pillowcases and artbooks aplenty, influences closer to mecha/space/sci-fi than magical girl, epic high action beamspam, spinoff of a spinoff of an h-game, manga adaptation serialized in Megami Magazine of all places... there's nothing remotely shoujo about the show. It's magical girl in nothing but name after like... episode three (of, currently, about 52).

I know there's a tendency to try and apply western definitions of feminine and masculine to Japanese anime (which doesn't work), but even allowing for that, the actual content of the show is entirely unambiguous. When you move into A's and especially Strikers, it's just completely beyond debate.

Strikers is aimed at fans of Super Robot Wars before Sailor Moon or Card Captor Sakura. In fact, it went so far in the former direction that I came out very conflicted if not downright disappointed over it, and personally prefer 1st and A's immensely more.

Nanoha is not shoujo, and having the words "Mahou Shoujo" in the title means absolutely nothing so far as categorization. Likewise, a cast being mostly female is not a sign of shoujo either. Because, go figure, a lot of guys like watching shows with strong girls. Look at Chrono Crusade or Black Lagoon. Hell, casts in non-shoujo series can be almost 100% female - look at Azumanga Daioh. Almost all my favorite shows feature a predominantly female cast, and only a minority of them are shoujo or generally targeted at females.

I mean... sorry, but you're just, well, incorrect here. Nanoha is not aimed at girls.

I'm wondering if you would also consider bishoujo (not to be confused with shoujo) romance shows like Clannad or To Heart or Chobits or Kanon or Shuffle to be shoujo? If so, then that would definitely explain your misunderstanding of the concept of shoujo.

If it's just the "magical girl" in the title that confuses you, then I'll also point to the Sasami: Mahou Shoujo Club series from 2006, which is not shoujo either. Same with Okusama wa Mahou Shoujo from 2005. Mahou Shoujo Meruru is a '96 hentai OVA. As is 2003's Mahou Shoujo Ai.

Even more head exploding (or just bizarre): Tiny Snow Fairy Sugar isn't shoujo either. It aired after midnight. It's based on a manga that ran in Dragon AGE, the same place that Chrono Crusade, Full Metal Panic and Maburaho do or did run in.

Japan != North America. Their tastes and target audiences don't always translate well to the assumed cultural norms over here. But even if you take that into effect, Nanoha would still appeal to males much more than females in R1 (if it were ever released...) as long as people got past the title and gave it a chance (which is why Geneon was allegedly just going to call it "Lyrical Nanoha").

i'm not confused, and i still stand by my informed conclusion based on know-how, research, and viewing pleasure. we'll just have to agree to disagree on this one

i'm not the only one who thinks/classifies Nanoha as mahou shoujo:
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=4576
http://www.animenfo.com/animetitle,1494,ttzxdj,maho_shojo_lyri.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahou_Shoujo_Lyrical_Nanoha
(genre: adventure. magical girl)

See, this is your fundamental mistake.

Mahou shoujo is not the same thing as shoujo. Okusama wa Mahou Shoujo can be classified (superficially) as "mahou shoujo" as well, but that doesn't make it shoujo. I really wish you'd seen that show, it would clear up a lot for you to see "mahou shoujo" in the title of something like that.

"shoujo" appears in many, many word combinations. Jousei used the same character but means a series aimed at older teen to adult women, as opposed to shoujo's target being young girls. Bishoujo also has "shoujo" in it, but the whole bishoujo movement arose from eroge, visual novels, harem, and that wide, varied subset of manga and games aimed squarely at males.

Mahou shoujo means it has magical girls. Period. Shoujo means it's targeted at girls based on the pre-anime source material and/or intentionally marketed at girls where such source does not exist. Nanoha has magical girls (though as I point out, they pretty much cease to do traditional magical girl things within a few episodes), but it is not shoujo.

Magical girl is a show theme or genre. Shoujo is a target demographic. "Magical girl" is closer to "romance" or "slice-of-life" or "sci-fi" or "bishoujo" or "mecha" or "sports" or "comedy". They're elements that are, by themselves, independent of the target demographic of the show. Some are narrower, some are broader, and they mix and match in various combinations.

You can have a magical girl slice of life shounen show, a sci-fi romance shoujo show, a sports jousei show, a space-based bishoujo comedy seinen show and so on forever. (Remember that shounen and shoujo are only 2 of the 4 main demographics).

Are most anime and manga with magical girls intended for a female audience? Yes. Just like most baseball anime and manga are intended for a male audience, but you'd be just as incorrect to assume that an anime centered around baseball has to be aimed at males.

If you try to put mahou shoujo on par with shoujo, you'd be making the former a demographic. You'd be saying "this show is targeted towards girls with magical powers", and as much as we'd love to believe otherwise, there is a distinct lack of real magical girls in modern day Japan. Their purchasing power would not make Nanoha the success it's been =P

I understand that Japanese terminology can be confusing to those not used to it, but I really don't appreciate how you read my entire post and then plugged your ears and went "Nope, I'm going to make my own definition up against all evidence to the contrary"? Why didn't you address any of my points? You can't just end every argument with "agree to disagree" to avoid admitting you were mixed up.

That's really not cool, especially since you seem to run some sort of review site. I think you take on a little more responsibility in that case, because you being misinformed is one thing, while misinforming tens, hundreds, thousands (however popular it is) of others is quite another.

So, tl;dr: Do you now see that mahou shoujo and shoujo are two different sorts of concepts, and the existence of girls wielding magic in a series does not mean said series is automatically targeted at a female Japanese population?

Edit: here's a good example, since you like Wikipedia:


Note, Go Nagai is the *creator*. Cutey Honey would never, ever be called shoujo. By anyone. Well, anyone sane. But she is undeniably a magical girl. One of the most historically important ones at that!

To clarify: I *like* shoujo. I'm not trying to make Nanoha "not shoujo" out of some misguided attempt to deny being into shoujo. But the facts are the facts: Nanoha is not a shoujo series. I'm sorry. It's just the truth.

And if you're determined to think I'm untrustworthy, here's someone else commenting on the trend of magical girls made to appeal to male audiences.

I don't always agree with him or even everything he says in this article, but the main point is wuite relevant and correct: http://www.animenation.net/blog/2007/10/...rs-a-new-trend/

i don't think u're unworthy i actually rather enjoy intellectual neutral anime discussions.

for one, i always come to my own conclusion on my own. information is just information. what we do with it, much like science and many other things, is what really counts. or at the very least, produces the end result. u have some very good points and some food to mull over. i understand ur differentiation tween mahou shoujo and shoujo. a lot of them are highly sensual to garner the male audience, but as much as it has said intentions, it is also meant to garner a female audience, so the line for which it is meant for gets blurred and hence the unending debate. the same could be argued for sailor moon and many others. the conclusion i have come to over the years is that mahou shoujo is its own genre, both for females and for males. it all depends on the material within whether it leans more towards the shounen or shoujo side. therefor, mahou shoujo as a genre in general, is neither strictly shoujo nor shounen, and yet, sometimes both.

it's a complex world out there

That's all well and good, but I can't tell from your response if you're finally admitting that Nanoha is not, in fact, a shoujo show. That is, it is not in fact aimed at a primary audience of young Japanese girls. Or, on the other hand, if you're just kind of dodging the original subject now. >_>

I just don't like when a show that is not at all shoujo is called shoujo, because it's hard enough to get attention paid to *actual* shoujo in R1. Lumping a bunch of clearly non-shoujo shows in with the few real shoujo shows we get just confuses things. It also gives people a weird misconception of shoujo that makes it harder to figure out who actually likes shoujo and who is just mistaken.

I thought I knew where he stood on that, but then I re-read it and I'm not sure.



Sure, but that doesn't mean that the end result you choose to embrace cannot be objectively wrong. You can say "Screw you, the north pole is made of cheese!" but that doesn't mean you are right.



But those cases are very rare and the ones that are aimed at both are generally family shows like Sazae-san. Sure, some try to get a bit of a crossover audience but they are still aimed mainly at one group. Nanoha has some female fans but it makes no attempt at all to cater to them and is unquestionably, undeniably aimed at males.

you mean She. i don't know any He named "otakuden" so y'all must be talking about someone else :P

i stand on both sides. Nanoha is both mahou shoujo for girls and for guys, targeting both audiences. i know many a male otaku anime fan who won't lay one finger or eyeball on nanoha, fanservice or not. too girly for them :P

Sure, some guys write it off simply because its a magical girl series. But that has no bearing on what the actual demographics are. Anyone who says its too girly obviously hasn't seen much, if any, of it and is basing their opinion on what magical girl shows typically are. It's aimed at adult men. Period. Some females may like it, but it is not targeted at them at all nor even makes the slightest attempt at a crossover audience.

Anecdotal evidence like this is lacking, to say the least. I know girls that would never touch Card Captor Sakura, and guys that love it (like me). Does that mean it's any less targeted at girls? Of course not.

I don't know why you're so stubbornly adamant about sticking to a position that is just blatantly incorrect. You have no actual evidence, so it has to be either a misunderstanding of the counterarguments so far or just an intense dislike of admitting you're wrong. Either way, it's obvious nothing remotely productive can come out of this conversation anymore.

As long as everyone else has read this exchange and come to the obvious conclusion that Nanoha is not purposefully targeted at girls (and thus is not shoujo), then that's good enough for me.

i do think that the original audience of the show was girls. But when a's came out they quickly found out that guys quite enjoyed it too, and thus strikers was more oriented toward the guys.