Still calling Section 23 Films Licensed Titles, ADV Titles

For those of you who might not know, ADV was recently bought out by several companies with the company Section 23 responsible for distribution of the titles that were in ADV's licensed library. So this brings up one question that I'm pondering: are we still gonna call titles licensed by ADV "Licensed - ADV Films" or will the entry be changed to Section 23 to reflect the change in owners?

I suppose we could duplicate what was done for "Geneon (formerly Pioneer)" titles. I'm pretty much waiting for Jan-chan to do what he sees fit.

Did you read the comment at ANN where someone pointed out that "Section 23" is actually the name of the set of Texas laws covering bankruptcy?

Yep. Quite ironic considering the plummeting slope ADV was in over the past few years.

We will need to add the R1-Section 23 to Titles which are not 100% adv. and change ADV to ADV - Now Defunct or something like that.

We still have "Geneon (formerly Pioneer)" for those titles that went to ADV and now that ADV films is gone ... who can say? I seriously doubt that R1-Section 23 will choose to use their name as a marketing name.

Central Park Media has at least 4 different working marketing names or labels - CPM, Software Sculptors, U.S. Manga Corps, and Anime 18.

I suggest that we make NO CHANGES at the moment and see what happens..... Who knows? R1-Section 23 might fold next month and sell all of their assets off to FUNIMATION....

More thoughts ...

Titles that were originally licensed and dubbed in English, but then have been discontinued are still around. True, one might have to go to EBAY to find them, but listing a title as being R1 licensed by a company tells a visitor to our site that the title is locally available.

To be honest, many of the titles that I end up buying actually come from EBAY or from other discount vendors. Knowing that a title has been released dubbed or subtitled to the R1 market is an important bit of research and understanding.

Perhaps we should add a flag the reads R1 Licensed - Discontinued

Edited on 09/22/2009 12:17 PM.

So, a former ADV title might eventually have the Notables

R1 License: ADV (discontinued)
R1 License: Section 23

Or something like that?

That's what I think.

BOP BOP BOP and another one bites the dust ......

Kadokawa Pictures USA Licensing Unit Shuts Down (see article here).

Kodakawa was trying to get a bigger piece ($$) of the anime pie, so they created a company to 'hold' the R1 licenses for various popular titles. US companies would then have to deal with them (under their terms) to get access to their titles. But the recent changes in market place have forced Kodakawa to rethink their marketing approach.

A partial list of the titles that they currently hold are.....

• Canvas2 ~Niji-iro no Sketch~
• Full Metal Panic! The Second Raid (TV)
• Full Metal Panic! The Second Raid (OAV)
• The Girl Who Leapt Through Time
• Goshūshō-sama Ninomiya-kun (My Heartfelt Sympathy, Ninomiya-kun)
• H2O ~Footprints in the Sand~
• Junjō Romantica
• Lucky Star
• The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya
• Spice and Wolf
• The Third: The Girl with the Blue Eye
• Wagaya no Oinarisama.

I think that leaves only three or four remaining US anime marketing companies....

• FUNimation
• VIZ/Shopro media (Inuyasha, Bleach, Naruto, Death Note)
• TokyoPop (a minor player)
• The Right Stuff (check out their licensed titles !?!)

Edited on 09/28/2009 12:23 PM.

Oh dear...I sure hope that this doesn't mean FMP won't get made anymore? I MIGHT be able to stomach Zac if that's the only reason it gets made.

Also Tokyopop is pretty much gone. The have reduced their production 75%

And The RightStuf doesn't do dubs. /sigh

Edited on 09/28/2009 02:38 PM.

You left out Bandai, Section 23 (new ADV distributor and announced some new title releases a couple weeks ago), Manga Entertainment and Walt Disney Pictures (distributes and markets much of the Ghibli library).

Bandai Visual USA choked in May '08.

Bandai Entertainment picked up Bandai Visual's titles and seems to be doing well.

Manga Entertainment really does not hold the license for any interesting titles and seems to be focused on the distribution of other companies' titles in the US, UK and Australia.

And Walt Disney Pictures is DISNEY!! ... they only deal with Gibli titles .....

Edited on 09/29/2009 02:20 AM.

From what I hear, Bandai announced at the New York Anime Festival last weekend that they're gonna be putting greater focus on distributing their titles on Blu-ray next year.

Where do you get these people? Heh I don't watch much broadcast TV.

Is Sentai Filmworks japanese based or US based? I know a lot of the newer titles from Japan are being released through them and some are getting dubbed as well.

UPDATE - Just looked up the website and they are US based. I guess you can add that to this list of US based companies.

Edited on 07/21/2010 11:17 PM.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentai_Filmworks#ADV_Films

Sentai is one of the post-breakup successor companies of ADV films. They appear to focus exclusively on licensing overseas titles.

Summary of the breakup of ADV in detail....

http://anime.mikomi.org/forum/showpost.html?num=426&posts=8

Edited on 07/22/2010 01:22 AM.