1 & Only License Rumors & Speculations Thread

[Mach Rider]

Interesting thoughts. I would absolutely buy a full series release of Hikaru no Go and Prince of Tennis (doesn't Hikaru no Go have a full dub ready to go too?). Slam Dunk would be another one that I'd love to pick up and didn't back in the day because, well, Toei was being Toei.

My big hangup with the Prince of Tennis sets was Viz's horrific handling of the series (their trademark slow release schedule, plus the ever constant fear that the plug was going to get pulled) and replacing the opening and ending songs with electric guitar music (which, if I'm recalling some internet sleuthing correctly, got linked back to some producer's kid at Viz or something stupid like that). I would love to collect it and give it another try, even if sub only.

[BlaizeV]

SD-BD's surely will make shows like this more viable going forward because then even the cost of production is low.

[t-Roy]

I definitely fall into the category of "sports have zero interest to me, especially in anime." I don't own a single sports anime in my collection, and I don't even have television in my house to be able to watch any real sports - I cut the cord on all that garbage over 5 years ago. I played sports when I was younger, but I never really cared much to watch someone else play sports.

[BlaizeV]

I definitely fall into the category of "sports have zero interest to me, especially in anime." I don't own a single sports anime in my collection, and I don't even have television in my house to be able to watch any real sports - I cut the cord on all that garbage over 5 years ago. I played sports when I was younger, but I never really cared much to watch someone else play sports.

The weird thing about this attitude is most 'sports' shows are exactly the same as any typical shonen series in structure. Take Hajime no Ippo, it's about a high school kid who gets bullied so he joins a boxing club. He learns moves in that boxing club and uses what he's learnt to grow in confidence and fight back against those who bullied him and also climb the ladder in the boxing world. To me the basic structure of a show like that isn't any different to Naruto. I totally sympathize with the stark differences in settings between shows like this but ultimately the core is the same. Just one shows grounded in reality and the other is more fantastical.

I know some also get lost in the technicalities of certain sports in shows like this. I honestly enjoy learning about them but I'm already a sports fan. Still getting lost in learning the rules and all the keywords for a sport can be off putting. But then a character in Haikyuu learning how to perfect a spike in volleyball isn't alot different from Gon learning to use Nen in Hunter x Hunter. The difference again being one is based in reality and the other isn't. But learning these terms and what they mean still exists.

There is no reason someone has to watch sports anime but I do think it's a shame some people totally write them off because they are robbing themselves of very good examples of similar shows to those they most likely already enjoy.

[NJ_]

Slam Dunk would be another one that I'd love to pick up and didn't back in the day because, well, Toei was being Toei.

And they still are to this day, there were dub-only DVDs from Cinedigm that came out a while back that we can also blame Toei for and so is the show getting upscaled in Japan a few years ago.

[27CansOfTuna]

Now, we've seen what feels like pretty big counterevidence to this old truism lately. Free! is an obvious one, as is Yuri!!! on Ice. Haikyuu!! also did well. But these are shows that sold sex appeal first, largely created for the fujoshi crowd - it turns out that if you pack your show with cute boys (and a good story) people will show up. Burning sports drama can serve as a pretty compelling backdrop, but in most cases the folks that show up to melt over cute, dramatic sports boys aren't then seeking out Gurazeni or Major 2nd or Ace of the Diamond or The Knight in the Area. I

Feels weird to say Haikyuu!!was a Largely created for a Fujoshi crowd and/or sold sex appeal first, when it starts with middle schoolers, and more importantly, there was something more than its looks to make it last thetypical shonen jump curse of sports series, as anyone could choose five failures that have prettier characters than Haikyuu!! from shonen jump.

Also why didnt the writer mention kurobas, its manga is sold in america afterall.

[Rukiia]

Amazon leaked Discotek releases for December. It revealed new licenses Elemental Gelade and Blue Seed both listed as SD-BDs.

[WTK]

^ All 5 releases were provided by ADA earlier today to retailers. They generally have been behind Discotek and/or TRSI for better part of this year.

[WTK]

Doing another one of these lists...and this time it's inspired by the first two live-action Death Note movies. They were previously released by Viz Pictures and now will be released by Funimation. This marks the first time (as far as I can see) that NTV titles (as a publisher) got license rescued. Ouran High School Host Club was OOP (years and years ago) for about one year but Funimation did eventually offer new re-release (2012). This is basically uncharted territory. It remains to be seen if anything else is license / license rescued via NTV (anime and/or live-action).

http://www.ntv.co.jp/english/index.html
- Run with the Wind | streaming on Crunchyroll
- Fastest Finger First | streaming on Crunchyroll
- Poco's Udon World | streaming on Crunchyroll
- Peeping Life TV Season 1?? | streaming on Crunchyroll
- BONJOUR Sweet Love Patisserie | streaming on Crunchyroll
- Tesagure! (3 seasons) | streaming on Crunchyroll
- Hajime No Ippo: The Fighting! Rising | streaming on Crunchyroll
- GJ Club | streaming on Crunchyroll
- Kaiji - Against All Rules | streaming on Crunchyroll
- Rainbow | previously streamed by Funimation
- Soten Koro
- Akagi | streaming on Crunchyroll
- Berserk | previously released on DVD by Media Blasters
- Buzzer Beater
- Cube of Evil Spirits
- Gokusen | previously released on DVD by Media Blasters
- Hajime no Ippo: The Fighting! -New Challenger-
- Hajime no Ippo: The Fighting! | previously released on home video by Geneon
- Hanada Shonen Shi
- In the Beginning
- Kaiji - Ultimate Survivor | streaming on Crunchyroll
- Monster | publisher may also be ShoPro; previously partially released on DVD by Viz Media
- NANA | publisher may also be ShoPro; previously released on DVD by Viz Media
- Neuro | previously streamed by Viz Media (currently streaming on Tubi TV)
- One Outs
- Otogi Zoshi | previously released on DVD by Media Blasters
- Real Drive
- Space Pirate Captain Herlock | previously released on DVD by Geneon
- The Top Secret - Revelations

- Rudolf the Black Cat
- the case of hana and alice
- Hunter x Hunter the Movie: The Last Mission | I would assume it's Viz Media or no one else for this

[chronoclast]

^ Sentai in particular seem to have a good relationship with NTV as they've gotten a good portion of their newer titles over the past few years. I wish they'd go back and license all of the quality catalog titles too. Especially the Madhouse works like Hajimo no Ippo, Monster, and Nana.

[NJ_]

^Hopefully whoever gets Berserk '97 gets all of those extras back...and do a better job with the Blu-ray encode than Madman did for the UK/AU release.

Also hope someone gets the Death Note J-Drama as well since aside from some changes, it wasn't that bad plus it got licensed for disc in France a while back so it shouldn't be too difficult.

[Art-chan]

I would LOVE to see Tesagure, but that one probably has a snowball's chance in Hades of getting licensed in terms of marketability.

[mikezilla2]

^Hopefully whoever gets Berserk '97 gets all of those extras back...and do a better job with the Blu-ray encode than Madman did for the UK/AU release.

Also hope someone gets the Death Note J-Drama as well since aside from some changes, it wasn't that bad plus it got licensed for disc in France a while back so it shouldn't be too difficult.

What Were all those Extras ?

and Did MVM use the same masters as madman ? - i imported MVMs Set ........

[Art-chan]

^ I know one extra is the infamous outtakes/bloopers. I watched them on Youtube at one point and those were funny.

[BlaizeV]

I have the UK Berserk set and have watched it through. Was fine and quite beautiful. Curious whats supposedly wrong with it?