I'm sorry to see CPM go... I don't have a lot of stuff from them, but what I do I like.

I'm cautiously hoping for a license rescue for Utena.  The chances are probably slim, but if there's even a 1% possibility, I'm hoping for it.  I'd definitely peg Nozomi (who is releasing Marimite) as the type of company to pick it up, were it available for the right price.  Nozomi is excellent with niche titles, and let's face it, in today's anime climate Utena is niche. The main thing working against an Utena rescue is its age. Unless you're Evangelion, I don't know how much incentive there is for a company to pick up a decade old series, no matter how good it is.

Last edited by Imaginary Bad Bug (04-28-2009 07:31:22 PM)

I know somebody that works for (or, well, at this point worked for) an anime company. I've already heard a little bit of a little something something. That's probably all I can say at the moment, even though she was fired I'll be good with the informations I have.

Well, maybe the fact that Utena still has a sizeable established fanbase several years after its original release could bump its chance of being re-released? One can but hope, anyway....

And there's another CPM property that has been much maligned, Maze.  I wonder if the Maze movie will ever see the light of day.

That's too bad about it going under. It seems like there's only a few companies left now, unless there are new ones cropping up to replace the ones that keep dying off.

Riri-kins wrote:

Shojo titles aren't doing well.

Only relatively speaking. While it's true that most shojo titles don't make DBZ level waves (and incidentally, I'll never forgive the human race for letting moronic shows like Naruto prosper while leaving RGU relatively in the dark), most seinen/josei or even other shonen shows can't match up with Naruto/One Piece/Bleach sales, yet Western licensers do more than just license or market these big three. That's because enough of those other shows are intelligent/marketable enough to generate sales in their own right. It's like failing to conquer the planet and settling for a well-off country; it still leaves you in good shape, and enough American anime licensors know this. One example I gave earlier is Marimite, full name Maria-sama ga Miteru, known as Maria Watches Over Us in English. To those unfamiliar, Marimite is the current all-the-rage yuri anime out there right now, (even if most of it's subtext), and it's one of the most shojo, girliest anime I've ever seen. The entire plot (and I use the term plot loosely) revolves around a bunch of Catholic schoolgirls making friends. It's elegantly/slow-paced, and it's an obvious niche market, yet Right Stuff released a subtitled version in America complete with phone charms to boot. The result: all of its volumes sold out on preorder. Thus, companies should now realize that there is a sold, dependable market for yuri, and RGU is one of yuri's flagships.

So, I don't think the chance's of another RGU release is small. It might be an overwhelming majority, but it's too big to dismiss.

Yeah, if anyone does pick it up, I'd hope they'd do the remastered version (which I haven't seen since the possibility exists that they might use that but probably not).  But yeah, I would love to have Utena as a nice DVD quality thing, not that I mind what is out there, but still.

Melancholic, the movie was pretty easy to find for a while - it's the one Utena DVD I was able to find in CPM's catalog a couple months back (background: when our anime club was showing SKU, a member's sister enlisted my help in trying to track down a way to acquire the R1 DVDs she was missing. The movie was still available, and there was always ebay, but CPM didn't even respond to email about the availability of other discs). I can't find it on Rightstuf, but Anime Corner Store (http://www.animecornerstore.com/revgirutmov.html) indicates that it might be in stock. Wow, some of the OSTs are $4 on Rightstuf...

As for picking it up - I think there's a decent chance of that happening. Funimation has run SKU via their streaming or on-demand TV service, and ADV recently announced that they've licensed SKU for airing on the Anime Network (another on-demand), though this was part of a much broader set of broadcast licenses from Enoki. I'd guess that Funimation will be a lot more likely to pick up SKU than anybody else, since the rest of the US anime industry is sort of in shambles right now - I mean, Media Blasters is the 2nd biggest US anime company right now, surpassing even Bandai. ADV in particular is having a hard time doing anything but picking up discount titles that nobody else seems to want, while Funi grabs new shonen sensations like Soul Eater and big ticket items like the Eva movies.

Nights1stStar: Marimite sold out on preorder, but was it like Nozomi's release of Emma, where they needed a certain number of orders before they'd release? If that's the case, they probably just printed the series to order, and while that indicates that there's enough of a fanbase to actually sell shojo series (unlike Legend of the Galactic Heroes, say) I'm not sure it's a good argument that there's a solid shojo market here in the US. Hopefully Viz's online release of NANA and Honey and Clover can move things in the right direction.

Well its a damn good thing for ebay boxsets on DVD, 'cause I have the series.

By why is Utena so great, yet it feels like no one besides IRG likes it. and the few people on youtube. Which probably is us.

Tangentially related news of interest, perhaps...  ADV has license rescued of a handful of CPM titles. Including one called MD Geist, which is apparently regarded as one of the worst shows ever, if not the worst. ;

Could Utena be waiting in the wings? Fingers crossed...

Haku Vinevaldi wrote:

Well its a damn good thing for ebay boxsets on DVD, 'cause I have the series.

By why is Utena so great, yet it feels like no one besides IRG likes it. and the few people on youtube. Which probably is us.

1st possibility: It's probably because most frat boys think it will turn you gay.

2nd possibility: Only a handful of the populaton is intelligent enough for SKU, and most poeple don't like feeling stupid.

Anthiena wrote:

I'm a fan of the art, but I also realize that Utena could very well come back as at the least a modest hit-provided that the company that rescues it markets it right.

Whoever gets Utena (assuming someone has indeed got it), if they are fortunate enough to have the restored version, they'd probably do quite well marketing a remastered and remixed release.  If all they have are ports of CPMs masters though, it'll just be a standard catalog reissue with little to no fanfare.

I'm certainly hoping for the former!  My main concern with the remastered Utena though is if rights would have to be renegotiated to release it...

Last edited by Imaginary Bad Bug (05-06-2009 12:47:00 PM)