Word was just let slip today that Media Blasters has licensed Night Head Genesis. That’s especially significant, because the internet domain had been registered (though not developed) by ADVFilms. This would appear to indicate that either ADV is selling off rights to its licensed properties to raise cash, or those rights have been revoked by the seller, who is then offering them to other companies. Either way, it’s been almost two weeks since the Great Disappearance, and no new word has been seen from ADV since John advised us to adopt a holding pattern and wait.
In related news, check this article out from ICv2.
According to the ICv2 Guide #51: Anime/Manga, sales of anime DVDs in North America tumbled by more than 20% during 2007. The number of anime releases in the North American market also continued to fall, dropping another 21% after a 19% decline in 2006. ICv2 estimates the size of the North American anime market at $275-300 million (in retail dollars).
The discussions at AoDVD were surprisingly mature, at least for the first page or so, and made for some intelligent commentary. Haven’t got time to excerpt it, but if you want to look it over or participate, it’s here.
UPDATE: I’m going to have to retract that statement that they owned the registration. The original tip was from a forum poster at AoDVD, but it was definitely not enough to go on. I did a little hunting before posting the story. I thought I had finally dug up a story on ADV registering the domain, but of course, I didn’t link it and now I can’t find it to save my life. It was definitely on ANN, and I dug 5 or 6 pages deep into search results.
Baka. The story only said that ADV had registered the domain. I am wondering now if I somehow got the news story about the Japanese website confused.
Without an independent confirmation of ADV owning the site, I’m retracting that story.
Update2: It’s looking more and more like I did confuse myself with the story about the Japanese language website by thinking it was English. One idiot posting in a forum is not a source, it’s just an idiot. Sorry for the waste of time; I’m going back to waiting like everyone else.
Although I should note that after a run of decent series, I’ve bought almost nothing from ADV through most of 2007. They just haven’t been licensing stuff I wanted to see.
This seems rather vaporous. An ADV license was never officially announced, and that URL could have been registered speculatively before negotations eventually fell through. So I’m not sure I believe that this indicates an ADV license that was revoked, or a license resale by ADV.
I’m not saying outright that you’re wrong, though. The whole situation with ADV right now is bizarre.