[quote]The American anime distributor Bandai Entertainment has confirmed with ANN that the company still holds a license for the sola romance television series
. Section23 Films announced on Friday that Sentai Filmworks has licensed the 15-episode sola series, and Section23 will release a boxset of the series in August. Bandai Entertainment’s Robert Napton noted that his company is “not involved with anything [Section23 Films] are doing,” and is “currently releasing sola and will continue to do so.” [/quote]
How can two companies hold the rights to one anime and it not be a joint venture? This is perplexing to say the least. I wonder if Section 23/Sentai will issue a comment about this development? Maybe neither company has exclusive rights to the show so Bandai Visual can license it to as many companies as possible.
Maybe Sentai is trying to get back at Bandai for taking Gurren Lagann from ADV. The confusing part is how Bandai called their statement a clarification. This is weird.
In a way, what Bandai is saying is true. They may indeed still hold the license to Sola, until August that is, when the license then transfers over to Sentai. So that means they ARE “currently releasing sola and will continue to do so”.
It’s probably just, what’s the phrase…PR control damage(?) on Bandai’s part to show that they’re still in business and are in no danger of closing down. After all, they went through a similar thing not to long ago with the whole Eric Sherman/ANNcast situation.
Again…yes, Bandai still holds the license now till August when it transfers over to Sentai, along with Shingofumi. And they’ll probably do a quick and cheaper rerelease before then, just to be ‘male body part here’.
I think the phrases “bitch slap” and “Damage control” best fit this. Bandai Visual USA was the Japanese answer to trying to sell DVD’s at near Japanese prices in the US. They could have easily gone with Bandai Entertainment for distribution ,but no they went with Image first , then Geneon USA , then some other company I can’t remember and finally they announced they were going merge the titles in to Bandai Entertainment after the business model they set up failed. Did Bandai Entertainment still get a dick move? I’d say yes since out of the Bandai Visual USA titles only 3 maybe 4 got released by them. The rest sit in a limbo contest no one seems to win. In other words it sounds oblivious that the Japanese side strongly dislike Bandai Entertainment because they can’t sell DVD’s here for the same price they can in the Japan. For farther proof I still don’t have the rest of the Universal Century Gundam shows on my shelf since Bandai Japan won’t give Bandai Entertainment the rights.
As for Damage control it seems to me Bandai Entertainment is just trying to not look weak. Everytime someone says something they have to retort back. Bang Zoom says Bandai Entertainment is not looking to good Bandai retorts back saying its B.S. . Bandai Entertainment announces they got more Haruhi and are dubbing it to try to prove people wrong. Probably had it all for a while now. If they are doing well their Japanese side are really being dicks.
I guess David Williams has said “announcement is forthcoming.” God only knows what this announcement will entail. I can imagine there have been some interesting calls back and forth between Houston and Japan the past week…
The Japanese anime production company Bandai Visual and the North American anime licensee Sentai Filmworks have issued a joint press release to address the licensing issues surrounding the sola television anime series. The two companies cited a clerical error for the accidental re-licensing of the anime to Sentai Filmworks, when another North American anime licensee, Bandai Entertainment, already released the anime on DVD and still maintains the license.
Bandai Entertainment, which is a Bandai Namco Group company just like Bandai Visual, will continue to distribute the anime. Sentai Filmworks is removing the title from its catalog.
