Good or Bad News?

Via ANN, a statement (at last) from ADV:

We know there are a lot of rumors swirling about, and that fans are looking for assurances that ADV will continue to distribute the anime series they know and love.
While we can’t go into any detail at this time, please know that ADV is working through a few short-term challenges and fully intends to continue our releases.

We thank you for your patience.

An explanation of the “missing” ICV2 article:

The article on Sojitz and ADV you refer to was one of several contingency articles we prepared and posted on a staging site. Although that staging site is not accessible through ICv2 navigation, an unpublished article was indexed by Google using a spidering technique of which we had previously been unaware. We discovered the Google indexing within an hour or two of when it occurred and immediately removed the article from our staging site (along with any other unpublished articles). Unfortunately, the article was cached by Google and has now been brought to the attention of anime fans. It’s unfortunate because as this is written, the article isn’t true. It may still be one of several possible outcomes of the current situation, but as far as we know today ADV has not sent a notice to its retailers or placed the titles in question on hiatus and may not, pending the outcome of events that are still unfolding. We regret that our efforts to prepare for any eventuality led to this draft article becoming public before it was published and have taken steps to prevent such an event from happening again.

I can definitely sympathize, those damn spiders are a pain, and their owners are pretty closemouthed about how they work in order to inhibit attempts to “game” the search engines.

Also, from Bret, at Alamo Drafthouse, a comment on the prior thread I didn’t see (to approve) for a while:

I cannot add anything regarding the apparent turmoil at ADV, but as the Promotions Manager for the Alamo Drafthouse West Oaks, I can say that our weekly Anime screenings are back on track after a couple of cancelations by ADV. We have enjoyed hosting weekly screenings, partnering with ADV for our Anime Tuesdays, and have no plans on discontinuing any time soon. Here’s a quick rundown of our Feb. schedule:

2/5- Get Backers Vol. 1

2/12- Godannar Vol. 1

2/19- Kaleido Star: New Wings Vol. 1

2/26- Macross Vol. 1

More details to be found on www.drafthouse.com

So the sky might be suffering from “low clearance,” but it’s probably not falling. Everyone cross your fingers and hope for the best.