Bandai Visual USA Going Belly-up.

[Noriko Takaya]

From Anime News Network: "Bandai Namco Holdings has announced on Friday that it will combine its two video/audio content subsidiaries in America — Bandai Entertainment and Bandai Visual USA — on July 1 and liquidate Bandai Visual USA. The company's announcement still lists Tatsunori Konno as the head of Bandai Visual USA, even though he moved back to Japan this month. As of the end of April, there were officially only two employees of Bandai Visual USA. The liquidation of Bandai Visual USA is expect to be completed by the end of September.

Bandai Visual USA was established on January 5, 2005 with an emphasis on collectors' editions of Bandai Visual titles from Japan. It met with heavy resistance to its prices which were similar to those in Japan, but far above those in the rest of the North American anime market. It has US$4 million in capital and, as of last December 31 (the end of its last accounting period), US$2.983 million in total assets. During the accounting period that ended last December, it sold US$1.151 million worth of goods, but lost US$595,000 before taxes."

Well, the only good thing I can see of this merger is that maybe prices will go down on some of their overpriced DVD's. I'm glad I got Gunbuster when I did. I wonder if the licensed titles previously released by BV-USA will carry over to the new company? If so, and prices do fall, I may pick up Diebuster.

[Hikuro]

Hmmm, I wont expect a drastic change for a while....all they did was just get rid of 1 loose end and keep their focuses on just one company to do everything instead of two.

[Keith]

They didn't go "belly up," they're just being merged. Personally, I'm not so big on this move, as they were the more likely company to bring out the rest of the unlicensed Gundam series, as well as Frontier if we were really lucky.

Only plus I can see, is maybe BE will re-release Gunbuster with the proper audio.

[jenius]

Hmm, they lost $595K before taxes. I don't do taxes... but doesn't the US tax on income? Doesn't that mean they lost $595K... PERIOD. Saying a loss, before taxes, makes it sound like the loss would be worse but if you don't make money you don't pay taxes. Am I missing something obvious?

As far as this news go, since they're just being merged it sounds like there's a chance not much will happen.

[lord_breetai]

They didn't go "belly up," they're just being merged. Personally, I'm not so big on this move, as they were the more likely company to bring out the rest of the unlicensed Gundam series, as well as Frontier if we were really lucky.

Only plus I can see, is maybe BE will re-release Gunbuster with the proper audio.

Interestingly enough a Macross F clip I uploaded to youtube did get copyright challenged by Bandai Channel... what to make of that?

[Keith]

Well, Fanime isn't over, so there's still time for them to announce the license. And if not, AX is next month.

[lord_breetai]

I wonder if the licensed titles previously released by BV-USA will carry over to the new company? If so, and prices do fall, I may pick up Diebuster.

I don't think there's any chance it won't... you think Bandai's going to just let go of Haruhi and Lucky Star?

[JB0]

Hmm, they lost $595K before taxes. I don't do taxes... but doesn't the US tax on income? Doesn't that mean they lost $595K... PERIOD. Saying a loss, before taxes, makes it sound like the loss would be worse but if you don't make money you don't pay taxes. Am I missing something obvious?

US has more than income tax. There's state-level taxes to consider as well.

Property tax is the first thing that springs to mind.

[Mowe]

I just want Gurren Lagann to have a safe release....may be Gurren Lagann is like Yoko's kiss of death, first ADV, now Bandai Visual...

[Noriko Takaya]

They didn't go "belly up,"...

I said belly-up hoping you would read this.

[Keith]

I just want Gurren Lagann to have a safe release....may be Gurren Lagann is like Yoko's kiss of death, first ADV, now Bandai Visual...

This won't negatively effect any Bandai Entertainment licenses, the only ones at risk are Bandai Visual licenses.

[jenius]

US has more than income tax. There's state-level taxes to consider as well.

Property tax is the first thing that springs to mind.

What confuses me there though is that most other taxes are expensed throughout the year because you more or less know what they're going to be. I guess you could still account for them separately but it seems silly, they're all a cost of doing business whereas income tax is a cost of being successful.

[bandit29]

I never understood the point of having 2 Bandai's competing against each other in the US/Canada. They should have been one company from the start.

[danth]

F*ck Bandai Visual. I dance on their grave.

(This childish and emotional moment brought to you by extortionate prices and a ruined Gunbuster release)

[VFTF1]

Hmm, they lost $595K before taxes. I don't do taxes... but doesn't the US tax on income? Doesn't that mean they lost $595K... PERIOD. Saying a loss, before taxes, makes it sound like the loss would be worse but if you don't make money you don't pay taxes. Am I missing something obvious?

What confuses me there though is that most other taxes are expensed throughout the year because you more or less know what they're going to be. I guess you could still account for them separately but it seems silly, they're all a cost of doing business whereas income tax is a cost of being successful.

I think what they mean by 595K before taxes is that if you factor in the variouses costs they incurred in taxes (payroll/property/social security etc etc) then the loss would be even higher.

However, the reason you give the figure "before taxes" is because taxes are fixed costs, like you said - everybody's got to pay them - if you gave the gross figure then everybody would just say "well how much of that is taxes?" so they give net loss figure instead.

Oh well -this news doesn't effect me. Don't live in the USA no more; get all my anime via torrent...

although there are Gundam Seed DVDs in Poland - haven't picked any up... don't know who put them on the market... and why only Seed....?

We just all need to move to Japan fellas.

VFTF1

[ChrisG]

They didn't go "belly up," they're just being merged. Personally, I'm not so big on this move, as they were the more likely company to bring out the rest of the unlicensed Gundam series, as well as Frontier if we were really lucky.

Only plus I can see, is maybe BE will re-release Gunbuster with the proper audio.

What makes you think Bandai Visual would've released the remaining Gundam titles? Up to now, they've only touched MS IGLOO, which was in line with a lot of their short OVA releases. BV had never released a series that's 49+ episodes in America. Not only that, but Bandai Entertainment scooped up 00 rather than them, so I don't see why BV would be considered to be in the running for old Gundam.

[jwinges]

hahahahahahahaha

This makes my weekend.

Screw Bandai visual and their high price non dub, few extras anime. I hope whoever thought up their little pricing scheme rots in he@$

[Keith]

What makes you think Bandai Visual would've released the remaining Gundam titles? Up to now, they've only touched MS IGLOO, which was in line with a lot of their short OVA releases. BV had never released a series that's 49+ episodes in America. Not only that, but Bandai Entertainment scooped up 00 rather than them, so I don't see why BV would be considered to be in the running for old Gundam.

Considering that they'd have the easiest time licensing, and were the only company to license a Gundam series aside from BE (who has abandoned all pre-SEED unreleased Gundam), they were the most likely candidate. As for the length of the series, that'd easily be rectified to releasing a subtitled version of the R2 box sets.

[lord_breetai]

I never understood the point of having 2 Bandai's competing against each other in the US/Canada. They should have been one company from the start.

Do you know how many companies own competing brands? You can capture more of the market by having different brands that appeal to different consumers based on percieved or actual differences in the 4 Ps (Product, Pricing, Promotion, Place) it's very common. Do you know how many companies Sega/Sammy Holding owns in Japan? quite a lot, and I'm sure it's the same for Bandai/Namco.

I find it a little funny when we're talking about DVDs but obviously they both have a different approach, and this way they could see which worked better.

[Duke Togo]

Screw Bandai visual and their high price non dub, few extras anime. I hope whoever thought up their little pricing scheme rots in he@$

You say "non dub" like is a bad thing.

[jwinges]

You say "non dub" like is a bad thing.

I do think not having a dub is a bad thing. While I enjoy listening to the original japanese language tract the first time I watch a series I rarely watch it more than once in japanese. Most of the anime I watch, including gundam has a lot of action happening on the screen and I would rather see that action and hear it in english than miss the action while reading the subtitles.

don't get me wrong...there are a lot of poor dubs out there but Bandai/sunrise typically do a decent job on them.

Try watching something like revenge of the sith in another language using subtitles and you'll realize how much of the screen action and eye candy you are missing.

So yes not having a dub is a bad thing....especially if your charging more to boot.

Its funny how many so called anime purests hate dubs. THese folks are missing much of the action while reading the subtitles. From a scientific standpoint I would rather have the action in my focal vision rather than my peripheral vision. If these so called purests actially thought about what draws them to anime they may find that they are best served by dubs rather than subs.

[lord_breetai]

Try watching something like revenge of the sith in another language using subtitles and you'll realize how much of the screen action and eye candy you are missing.

Its funny how many so called anime purests hate dubs. THese folks are missing much of the action while reading the subtitles. From a scientific standpoint I would rather have the action in my focal vision rather than my peripheral vision. If these so called purests actially thought about what draws them to anime they may find that they are best served by dubs rather than subs.

See it depends on how well developed your reading skills and peripheral vision are... I can usually read the subtitles almost instantly and don't miss much if anything. Of course I prefer to watch shows in Raw Japanese with no subtitles unless the dialog is really technical or slangy and thus beyond my ability to understand... even if it's just beyond my understanding level I'd rather watch, get the gist of the convo and look up any words I don't understand. That way my Japanese gets better.

[Keith]

I do think not having a dub is a bad thing. While I enjoy listening to the original japanese language tract the first time I watch a series I rarely watch it more than once in japanese. Most of the anime I watch, including gundam has a lot of action happening on the screen and I would rather see that action and hear it in english than miss the action while reading the subtitles.

don't get me wrong...there are a lot of poor dubs out there but Bandai/sunrise typically do a decent job on them.

Try watching something like revenge of the sith in another language using subtitles and you'll realize how much of the screen action and eye candy you are missing.

So yes not having a dub is a bad thing....especially if your charging more to boot.

Its funny how many so called anime purests hate dubs. THese folks are missing much of the action while reading the subtitles. From a scientific standpoint I would rather have the action in my focal vision rather than my peripheral vision. If these so called purests actially thought about what draws them to anime they may find that they are best served by dubs rather than subs.

I will never at any point in time be "best served" by bad acting, and hackneyed attempts at re-writes. As for "missing action," sure, if you read at a sub-normal pace, but any competent adult can keep up with both the words & the pictures. Hell, words are pictures, that's like saying you can't see the giant mecha because there are big tits on another part of the screen.

I've watched everything subtitled since I could afford to do away with dub VHS, never looked back, and always catch what's going on while enjoying my superior version of the shows. As for paying more for BV releases, aside from the Gunbuster ep 1 incident, the costs have always meant higher than R1 quality releases. Compare the video quality with any one BV release to most R1 company releases. The differences there aren't even funny.

Edited May 27, 2008 by Keith

[yellowlightman]

Its funny how many so called anime purests hate dubs. THese folks are missing much of the action while reading the subtitles. From a scientific standpoint I would rather have the action in my focal vision rather than my peripheral vision. If these so called purests actially thought about what draws them to anime they may find that they are best served by dubs rather than subs.

Some of us can actually read at a decent enough speed so that it's not an issue. Christ, I started watching subtitled anime when I was 12 and I've

never felt like I was "missing" anything. As for being "best served" that's a load of BS. Just because some people can't read subtitles and follow action on screen doesn't mean that horrible dubs are doing me a favor, if anything they're doing me a disservice by making me sit through a terrible script with wretched voice actors ruining the original work.

Anyways, I was an initial supporter of Bandai Visual. Their Patlabor releases were really, really nice and offered lower priced no-extras alternatives for those who didn't feel like spending $60 for the limited edition box. But it seems like their releases following Patlabor were utterly ruined by high prices, no extras and the absolutely retarded move of packaging the HDDVD/Blu-Ray with a regular DVD. That alone has got to be one of the dumbest moves in anime history.

[eugimon]

I do think not having a dub is a bad thing. While I enjoy listening to the original japanese language tract the first time I watch a series I rarely watch it more than once in japanese. Most of the anime I watch, including gundam has a lot of action happening on the screen and I would rather see that action and hear it in english than miss the action while reading the subtitles.

don't get me wrong...there are a lot of poor dubs out there but Bandai/sunrise typically do a decent job on them.

Try watching something like revenge of the sith in another language using subtitles and you'll realize how much of the screen action and eye candy you are missing.

So yes not having a dub is a bad thing....especially if your charging more to boot.

Its funny how many so called anime purests hate dubs. THese folks are missing much of the action while reading the subtitles. From a scientific standpoint I would rather have the action in my focal vision rather than my peripheral vision. If these so called purests actially thought about what draws them to anime they may find that they are best served by dubs rather than subs.

From a scientific standpoint? ROTFLMAO. I speed read, it doesn't take long to read a sentence. And if I missed something, that's the joy of the rewind button. Unfortunately, there's no button to replace crappy voice "acting" who think that all anime characters need to have funny/interesting "voices". And from a scientific standpoint, I prefer to hear the correct pronounciation of character's names. I'd rather read a novel then hear one more person pronouce Akria as "uh-keer-rah".

[kanedaestes]

You know what's sad my younger brothers were watching subtitled anime with my back when they were like 10 and 11 and they kept up just fine. I like to believe i helped them increase their reading capabilities. I find it an insult to say that ppl can't read and watch at the same time. So when Crouching Tiger came out in theaters the mass public must have just not looked at the words and not comprehended the story at all.

[danth]

I get what jwinges is saying. I prefer a good dub to subtitles...but there are so few good dubs. Sometimes I try the dub, but the bad acting causes me to switching to the subtitles nine times out of ten. I'd love to be able to focus on the animation instead of splitting my processing power between that and reading, though. I don't care how fast you read, it's impossible to experience anime fully through subtitles -- it's just better than listening to bad actors screech or drone.

[jwinges]

I guess none of you actually undertand that using your focal vision on subtitles will take away from what your seeing on the screen. It has nothing do do with your reading speed. You are missing action by reading anything on the screen. This is a scientific fact that even an undergraduate Kinesiology student can tell you. Reading speed has nothing to do with it...you are still missing some of the on screen elements and action. If you want a reference try looking it up in Schmidt's motor learning and control book. Particularly the chapters on vision and feedback control.

As far as the quality of the dub, that's another point. I wholeheartedly agree that there are many dubs that are craptacular at best. However, there are dubs that are decent. Like I stated above I watch most anime for the first time subtitled but after that I use the dubs. I do enough reading at work and while working on my doctorate. Oh and btw I can read at a faster than normal level just fine.

Also, if you are such a purest...just learn the language, or maybe only watching anime in dolby 2.0 when a non pure track is available. Oh and forget about any remastered editions. Maybe hypocritical purests should just let everyone enjoy their anime rather than trying to reduce the features found in anime for other's who might find them useful.

[JsARCLIGHT]

Seriously.

Please try to knock this back into the subject at hand and away from the never ending sub v dub debates, thanks.

[ChrisG]

Considering that they'd have the easiest time licensing, and were the only company to license a Gundam series aside from BE (who has abandoned all pre-SEED unreleased Gundam), they were the most likely candidate. As for the length of the series, that'd easily be rectified to releasing a subtitled version of the R2 box sets.

Sorry, but I still don't see you making much of an argument here. How would BV have had the "easiest time" licensing anything than BEI? If that were the case, they would've scooped up properties like 00 and Code Geass instead of BEI. Also, BV releasing IGLOO is no sign of them doing any other Gundam, as many of their releases are short OVAs like Gunbuster, Diebuster and Wings of Rean. As for subtitling the R2 box sets, I'm going to be a bit lazy and quote a point I made on Mecha Talk regarding a subtitled release for Macross 7, but I think the same point applies to Gundam:

Sure, it's easy from your perspective. But Big West doesn't seem to be very interested in exploiting the American market up to this point. Why should they waste the time and expense of translating 49 episodes, plus specials and OVAs, just to make a few American fans happy, when there's no guarantee for them enough foreigners will buy it to make it worthwhile? You can't just look at it as a fan and say all they have to do is add subtitles, like it's the easiest thing in the world to do.

[lord_breetai]

I guess none of you actually undertand that using your focal vision on subtitles will take away from what your seeing on the screen. It has nothing do do with your reading speed. You are missing action by reading anything on the screen. This is a scientific fact that even an undergraduate Kinesiology student can tell you. Reading speed has nothing to do with it...you are still missing some of the on screen elements and action. If you want a reference try looking it up in Schmidt's motor learning and control book. Particularly the chapters on vision and feedback control.

Please... there are people who can read an entire page of a book a in less then a second because they've trained themselves to take the whole page in at once. likewise there are people who don't need to "focus" on the subtitles they just take it in almos instantly.

you've just had several people tell you that they can take it all in, why not trust them? And even if that is the case people feel it's worth missing a tiny bit, to get the true experience and see it as it was meant to be seen. The Japanese language is a high contact, high context language and English subs can't convey it properly spoken english is even worse. That's why I rather watch my Japanese movies raw and rely on my own understanding (but again I study Japanese and am getting pretty profficient on the spoken level anyway), but in those instances where I need help understanding rather watch it in Japanese with english subs 99.99% (the rare exceptions are for dubs that have people like Patrick Stewart or something in them).

[JsARCLIGHT]

OK, last friendly nudge.

Please folks, let's discontinue the sub v dub endless debate. It's a never ending story, just without the tacky Limahl song and the white luck dragon. We've all been there, we've all done that, we've all bought the poster. Please stay on topic about the Bandai Visual "business decision".

[mpchi]

LOL

[Gunbuster]

so is it "business as usual" for Bandai Entertainment and Bandai Visual USA? I mean will they be at AX08? since the liquidating begins on July 1st, would they do a fire sale at AX? I would love to get great deals on their release ;;

[Keith]

Sorry, but I still don't see you making much of an argument here. How would BV have had the "easiest time" licensing anything than BEI? If that were the case, they would've scooped up properties like 00 and Code Geass instead of BEI. Also, BV releasing IGLOO is no sign of them doing any other Gundam, as many of their releases are short OVAs like Gunbuster, Diebuster and Wings of Rean. As for subtitling the R2 box sets, I'm going to be a bit lazy and quote a point I made on Mecha Talk regarding a subtitled release for Macross 7, but I think the same point applies to Gundam:

And they'd also just started branching out into tv series like Super Robot Wars, & Kissdum (had it been set for release before this happened). MS IGLOO was a tip-toe into Gundam, likely to test how sales would be for them. Considering that BV US was a direct linked arm of BV Japan, their goals were to do simultanious Japan/U.S. releases, its very likely properties like the Gundam movies, & various TV series would have been in the pipeline. As for why BE got 00, they out bid for it. Since BE didn't have further interest in U.C. Gundam, that wouldn't have been an issue.