Ask John: Will AN Entertainment License Vintage Anime?

Question:
It is good to see that AN entertainment is in the licensing business. I was wondering what the chances were of AN picking up the rights to some older anime titles? (Rose of Versailles and/or Jarinko Chie would be good.)

Answer:
Coincidentally, AN Entertainment has actually been offered the opportunity to license the Jarinko Chie motion picture for American release, so I can confirm that we have considered the possibility of licensing vintage anime. From its inception, our company’s goal has always been to expose English speaking fans to outstanding anime series, regardless of the series’ age. However, as a small distributor, AN Entertainment simply doesn’t have the financial resources to enable acquiring and releasing classic anime series that we respect, but which likely won’t sell enough copies in America to cover their acquisition and localization costs. So the support we recieve from anime fans and consumers through purchases of AN Entertainment DVDs does have a direct effect on how much and what variety of anime AN Entertainment is able to bring to America.

We’re absolutely not excluding vintage anime series from our consideration, and as a fan that grew up with Golden Period anime, I personally have an special fondness for anime series that are now 20 or more years old. All of the staff members of AN Entertainment, in fact, are devoted anime fans that do hope to one day be able to acquire and distribute anime titles that we believe ought to be released in America for artistic posterity or out of respect for their status as modern classics. However, many of these shows, such as Jarinko Chie and Rose of Versailles, are now older than average American anime fans themselves, and therefore don’t appeal to mainstream American anime fans and consumers. Judging from our position as a retail company that sees what anime fans do and don’t buy, and based on our observations of what types of anime are most popular at conventions and in online discussions, we clearly see that while numerous anime fans request the domestic release of older anime series, relatively few consumers actually buy such releases.

So at the present time, AN Entertainment is not actively pursuing distribution rights to older anime series. But it’s practical fiscal concerns that motivate this decision rather than a desire to exclude vintage titles, or a priority on profit potential above all other concerns. Presuming that AN Entertainment will grow and expand, I would like to say that the odds of the company acquiring older classics will likewise increase. When you consider that it took AD Vision ten years to venture into licensing classics like Aura Battler Dunbine and Science Ninja Team Gatchaman, and it took Pioneer/Geneon nearly as long to license the 1979 Lupin the Third television series, it obviously takes time to become stable and influential and successful enough to be able to risk acquiring titles with minimal domestic commercial potential. Hopefully it won’t take AN Entertainment as long to reach a similar plateau.