New Anime Licensor Needs Help
See article updates below
The prospective commercial anime distributor New Voice Productions, run “by fans, for fans” has announced a tentative plan to acquire domestic distribution rights to the independent sci-fi OAV Hoshizora Kiseki. The 2006 OVA was almost entirely written, drawn, and animated by illustrator Matsubara Toshikazu (Aquarian Age card game) and character designer Watanabe Aiko (SoulTaker, Yamamoto Yohko). The voice cast consists of Hosono Yumiko (Honoka Sakurai in Suzuka), Tomogiri Kyouko (Zou in Onegai My Melody), and Gouda Hozumi (Chirico Cuvie in Votoms, Leorio in Hunter x Hunter).
New Voice Productions is hoping to collect $3,500 in donations to cover the initial cost of licensing, translating, dubbing, authoring, replicating, and distributing a bilingual $9.95 commercial domestic DVD release.
Update:
Right Stuf Marketing & PR manager Alison L. Roberts stated publicly on June 21, 2010 that, “We have had only a preliminary conversation with a representative from New Wave, and at this point, we (Right Stuf) have no formal agreement in place for any production, marketing or distribution work.”
On June 24, 2010 New Voice Productions head “Dakota Smith” reported via Twitter, “All Donations have been refunded, we predict we will not reach our goal, bur we will continue looking for other ways to make this work.”
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Crowd-funded anime licensing? Dunno if it’ll work, but good luck.
I’m awfully skeptical if they’re claiming they can license, author, replicate, distribute and dub it for just $3,500. It’s tough to believe such a cheap dub would be even bearable and if that’s the case, I’d much rather they just put out a sub only release.
It seems FUNimation needs your money more XD
They haven’t licensed anything good in a long time.
Geneon knew how to run a business. They always licensed the not
only the popular stuff but also some of the not so popular stuff…
So is it just me, or is FUNimation licensing shit all?
haha wild… I suppose they’re asking fans to put their money where their mouth is when it comes to the licensing of obscure, artistic anime. I like the idea, but I don’t think Hoshizora Kiseki is all that special of an indie OAV. I sat through it as an Akio Watanabe fan, but it’s not Hoshi no Koe or anything.
“Geneon knew how to run a business.”
*looks for Geneon releases not distributed by someone else.
Sorry, but I’m going to disagree with this one. Had they knew, they’d still be a distributor here.
“So is it just me, or is FUNimation licensing shit all?”
It’s just you.
“I’m awfully skeptical if they’re claiming they can license, author, replicate, distribute and dub it for just $3,500.”
I agree. If it were this cheap, then Sentai Filmworks would be dubbing all their titles. Maybe they meant $35,000?
If it’s not a typo, I’m actually less likely to support this idea. The thought of a subpar product doesn’t bode well.
“It’s tough to believe such a cheap dub would be even bearable and if that’s the case, I’d much rather they just put out a sub only release”
The blog text indicates they’re having Joe and Jane Internet doing the dialogue. If there’s really only 2-3 speaking characters, as the Wikipedia or ANN data sheets say, and it’s only 27 minutes long, I think $1000 would be sufficient (especially if the leads want to get into the business and consider the advantage of putting this on their CV).
Also nice that they’re giving larger donors copies of the DVD, if it comes out.
The strange part here is the amount of money they need and how they want to earn it.
Honestly $3500 is nothing for the kind of company they want to be, I doubt the founder or anyone involved in this CANNOT use those 2 months to get at least part time jobs and or sell their stuff to start this businbess!
Are they THAT penniless or what? otherwise start this kind of company and not even have that little money for their first? project? That over over anything leaves a lot to be desired honestly.
Seriously for that amount of money work yourself to get it or sell some of your dvds, music cds, computer parts not needed, car if you have one, bicycle if you have one, your plasma/lcd tv you may have, or —insert many more things they can do to raise the money here–
Honestly, this sounds LAME considering their objective is to start a company and make a profit. If their objective was NON profitable and they would give away ONLINE the work they are trying to licensee then asking people on the internet for donations would not be as questionable.
Honestly, if you are going to go this low to make people help with money so you can start you own company AT LEAST they should have promised to return they money + a fair interest rate with the profits thet make once they release this commercially.
But hey, its easy to rip off people on the internet so what! Meanwhile lets watch some naturo at crunchy while “fans” give me their money, I am a fan too so they will help!
Talk about wanting to have it easy!