Holy imports, Batman, ADV is actually still alive! And they got Clannad!
The ICv2 retail news website reports that A.D. Vision, a 16-year veteran of the North American anime industry, will localize and distribute titles for the licensing company Sentai Filmworks. Their new partnership is highlighted by Kyoto Animation’s 2007-2008 television adaptation of the Clannad visual novel franchise. Their other planned releases for 2009 include Indian Summer, Mahoromatic, Mahoromatic: Something More Beautiful, Tsukihime, Pet Shop of Horrors, and Jewel BEM Hunter Lime. Matt Greenfield, Senior V.P. of Content and acquisitions, and voice actor Chris Ayres had announced that ADV Films will be releasing Clannad at last month’s Sogen Con in South Dakota. The first of six DVD will ship on April 21, 2009.
Yeah, like that’s a place that everyone’s going to notice your announcement. A South Dakotan animé con. (Commence snickering now.)
Hm. One A-list title, one B-list, and a bunch of retreads. Still that’s a hell of a lot more than anyone expected three months ago.
Ok, question about one of the retreads. What exactly is Mahoromatic: Something More Beautiful? An attempt to retcon the second worst ending in animé history?
Best part of the interview: Ledford refers to Clannad as a “teen comedy”.
Heh. I’m beginning to understand how they collapsed.
We’re talking about a man who once said, with utter seriousness, that Monster Rancher would be bigger than Pokemon. ;p
“Mahoromatic” was 12 episodes. “Something more beautiful” was the other 12 episodes. It’s the Mahoromatic equivalent of “Vandread: Second Stage”. The Minawa character was introduced in “Something more Beautiful”, as was “Management”.
The first 12-episode series actually had a pretty good ending. Wrenching, but good. It was “Something more Beautiful” where they finally outran the manga and implemented the legendary trainwreck in the final 4 episodes.
This package deal is a weird one. Clannad is a first-class title, no doubt about it. But everything else they took is a reissue. It looks like ADV had to accept a package deal because of poor negotiation position, and got stuck with a bunch of junk that will probably lose them money.
I wonder if they’ll have to redub any or all of the old stuff, or if they’ll be able to license Geneon’s dubs. (Most of that stuff was originally Geneon.)
I’ve heard (alas I can’t remember the source) that they will use the old dubs.
Ah, here’s the source:
http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/13546.html
Here’s the quote:
“The previously-issued series we’re distributing for Sentai will all carry their original English dubs. “