ADV is Dead? Long Live the Fragments!

Back again so soon due to news! ADV has officially announced their demise, more or less, with the company's holdings being spread out over several new companies. (Yeah, this is like the Sentai deal only taken up to 11.)

The company as we knew it is dead. I for one am not surprised.



Seriously, this is a tactic in my opinion to boost the chances of selling off the fragments. Many fans believed that the Sentai Films deal, which is more or less ADV's top dog's new company, would save them. This has obviously proven false.

I believe this is an attempt by John Ledford to make assests easier to sell off. (Not that ADV/Sentai was doing anything much with the Amusement Park Media dub production part of the company anyway.) It may also be an attempt to cut down on taxes. Since any move costs loads it will likely add to costs overall so don't expect big savings for them. (They're all living in Sentai's backyard!)

Essentially, while I hate to be the bearer of bad news, ADV as we knew and loved it died before that first Clannad sub-only set came out. While this move won't affect all of the company's anime licenses, expect a few series to be conviently in the hands of another company when Sentai gets around to doing something.

Long live the fragments! Various licenses, production capability and holdings will be spread among AEsir Holdings, which has "selected" programming from ADV's library and some other worthwhile stuff, the SXION 23 home video distribution company will do the books (or cook them) for AEsir while Valkyrie Media Partners has acquired 100% of ADV's Anime Network television unit, about the only profitable part of the old company nowadays, while Seraphim Studios takes on the gathering dust Amusement Park Media. (If you believe in angels, clap your hands, maybe we'll getting a freaking dub out of them!)

The companies are Houston based (guess Ledford doesn't want to move too far away) but, hey, once you're pre-packaged for bite-size sell-off. . . does it matter?

Some, probably most, of the old employees are now with the new SXION 23 but word is not everyone will be carried over. This is an effort by Ledford to make the parts of the company as sleek and neat as possible so any dead weight or just non-essential personnel are toast. (Heck, essential personnel are screwed too in the long run.)

Ninja Edited In: Interesting news: According to this blog post by Robert of the Anime Corner Store, Ledford is the one not showing up again!

I also think it's worth mentioning that John Ledford is not part of the new company.

Wow, he's already getting out?

Again, in my personal opinion, this is an attempt to make the company more attractive to buyers. Even if I'm wrong, the management isn't changing so the same old bad ideas will keep being floated.

This is why I said dropping dubs was a bad things folks! It's a sign of weakness!

Bye-ni!

Manga Review: Ichiroh!

Manga Riview # 002
Title: Ichiroh!
MSRP: US $ 10.99 (CAN $ 11.99)

Greetings and salutations! I am Richard J., the Navigator of this Blog of a Heretical Dub Lover!

Welcome to our second ever manga review! Yah, clap clap. Today I'm reviewing Ichiroh! written and drawn by Mikage! I've read this one numerous times since I bought it and I love it in all it's 4-koma goodness. Our guest reviewer today will explain a few reasons why!

Captain Teletha Testarossa: Reporting for duty sir!



Richard J.: Thanks for giving me a hand. And can I play with your hair?

Tessa: You're welcome and no.

Richard J.: Darn.

Tessa: Before you discuss this manga, I need to properly introduce readers to the product.

Here is the front cover. It features our main heroine, Nanako Konishi, described as "levelheaded for her age" on the character bio page. She's highly practical and always trying to save money. Also featured on the cover are chibi versions of her best friends Akane Nakazawa and Shino Murasaki.



Tessa: And now the back cover. Here we have a rare scene of all three girls together relaxing.



Tessa: Now, I turn the blog back over to Richard J. for a bit to tell you the plot. I haven't been able to read it yet. Classified operations really make personal manga time a no no.

Richard J.: You should make time for this one Tessa! And so should my readers, at least in my humble opinion.

Ichiroh! is the story of Nanako, Akane and Shino, three girls who are the best of friends (though Shino would like to be a bit more than just friends with Nanako) and their journey together into college life! They've been together through elementary school, junior high and high school, so staying together in college is just natural! They'll be together through it all!

Or at least that was what they'd intended. Studious Nanako and gamer girl Akane messed up and failed their entrance exams! Now, the two are ronin, students who are preparing to re-take the entrance exams after failing. Specifically, they are first-year ronin or ichiroh! Hence the series title. (Thanks to Yen Press's translation notes this is clear. Without them, I'd have no idea why the manga was called that!)

Nanako and Akane move into a dormitory behind a shrine, due to the savings Nanako is desperate for, and begin attending a prep school to get ready for another shot at the entrance exams. A good bit of plot takes place there. The series takes quite a bit of humor from the trials of studying and uncertainty about college with Nanako. Akane only really takes the whole thing seriously late in the manga and makes herself quite sick near the end. (It's surprisingly emotional seeing the resident genki girl have a physical breakdown. Also hilarious when Shino tries to take care of her.)

As you can guess, Ichiroh! features a lot of student humor so it's easy to relate to. However, if that's not your cup of tea, fear not! There is plenty of funny to go around with Nanako's occasional moments where she becomes a bit obsessive or out matures her own father and older brother (though it's not hard to out mature the brother!) Also, the series has Shino and even Akane dashing in surprising amounts of Yuri subtext. Actually, it's very possible that the subtext isn't subtext at all, with Shino outright declaring herself the love rival of a male who loves Nanako.

Although she can't attend prep school classes with Nanako and Akane, Shino appears quite often and always stirs things up. Her outgoing and friendly personality belies her inner schemer. When she shows up, you can expect her to fawn over Nanako and try to get closer to her. For the resident rich girl, she's almost as wild as Akane. Other major characters are Nanako's brother, the shy otaku girl Mai Shindou, teacher Kaname Mitsuba, Anko-san and Baa-san who run the dormitory and shrine and the prankster Wakaba-chan, a young girl from the neighborhood. Even with a strong supporting cast this is still the main three girl's show.

On a personal note, when I read this one, I tend to assign English dub VAs to the characters and try to hear the characters as those VAs would play them. Nanako is Luci Christian, Akane is Monica Rial and Shino is Kira Vincent-Davis in my mind.

I would love to see this series made into anime and dubbed with these VAs.

The balance of humor and seriousness in this manga is tipped in humor's favor but it has it's drama moments. This is a comedy first and foremost though. Slice-of-life is the name of the game and while there are bits of Yuri subtext and the otaku favorite miko/shrine maiden, it's first and foremost a student comedy. I have a lot of favorite scenes with this one. Too many to mention in fact!

As a Yen Press title, you can expect a high level of production quality and Ichiroh! is no exception. There are a total of 8 color pages, which includes the entire short arc of the initial entrance exams as well as the character intro page.

Tessa: Here are a few examples. This is the first color page, a cute image that really shows you to the character's relationships.



Tessa: Next, here's a shot of the bio page and the first page of strips in color.



Richard J.: Thanks Tessa! Just a few more shots to go!

Let me tell you readers, paper quality is as good as always with Ichiroh! Mikage does quite a good job with character designs as well, really bringing them to life. The eyes are especially expressive. Eyes can range from blank white circles to intricately detailed pupils and irises. My favorite eyes are Nanako's when she's glaring and squinting at something and Akane's super-excited blank eyes. Akane's hair is also styled to look like cat ears, which just adds to her moe-factor. (She's like a little kid most of the time but she's also extremely observant and understands the hidden motivations of other characters.)

Single character focused art appears frequently throughout the manga as well.

Tessa: Yes. Here is an example of one of the focus images of Nanako.



Richard J.: If you can read the strip next to it, you can enjoy Akane expressing the threat of studying to her life.

Ichiroh! includes translation notes and an Omake section that talks about the covers that Nanako graced for the magazine that serialized this series in Japan. This is also a chance to explain the seemingly out-of-characterness of them. It's really quite clever in my opinion.

Well, that does it for this review I think. Tessa, any final words?

Tessa: I'd like to say that from what I've seen of this series, it's quite nice and a must buy for any 4-koma fan. I empathize with Nanako's brother trouble too. Although mine are a bit different.



Tessa: Thank you for the chance to meet your readers! If any of you have time and some money, please consider buying Funimation's release of Full Metal Panic!: The Second Raid on DVD and soon to be on Blu-Ray as well as ADV's release of Full Metal Panic! and Full Metal Panic!: FUMOFFU! Thank you again!

Richard J.: Always my pleasure Tessa!

Ichiroh! is available at this fine retailers and others: Robert's Anime Corner Store, The Right Stuf, Amazon and Books-A-Million! I highly recommend this one to all of you, especially if you are a 4-koma fan!

Look forward to a contest in September folks and a rant before the end of the month. (You did ask for it!) I'll have an anime review or two this week as well.

Hope you enjoyed this latest blog entry. I'm so grateful to all of my readers, both following this blog actively and lurking in the shadows. Although I'm mostly doing this for my own fun, I really appreciate your continued support! Please let other know of this blog if you think they'd like it!

Bye-ni!

New Blog Features: Blog Needs Input Badly!

Greetings and maulings my few and frisky readers! It is I, your Navigator Richard J. (I never get tired of the Lucky Star homage opening and closing of this blog!) I've decided, in an effort to hopefully expand my readership, to ask you what you want to see here and if you could please go bug someone with extra time to come by and get eye strain reading my rambling.

By the by, executive summary of recent licensing activities: Funimation nabbed Spice and Wolf. (Yah for wolf goddesses and trade economics!)

Read about the show here!

Sentai/ADV did some license rescue work and added Daphne in the Brilliant Blue, Kannazuki no Miko (They're re-titling the series Destiny of Shrine Maiden), Dokkoida?! and Darkside Blues.

Why the re-title for the Yuri mecha title? It may have to do with Geneon's past sales being a little poor or just that people like having a title they can understand. Probably a good move though I'd prefer a straight title translation. (Tell me having an anime with "Godless" in it's name wouldn't spark some discussions?)

We can only hope the re-licenses and re-releases will get ADV back to being profitable enough to start doing English dubs again. There are some rumbles about that being a possibility so consider writing to them about it!

The other companies are still alive. That's good news.

Anyway, here's the real point of this paticular blog entry! (You were wondering when I'd get to the point, I know, I know, say no more.)

In terms of providing content and a reason for people to actually read this blog, I'm a bit lost. You see, I really have no idea how to do this. I suck at interpersonal stuff normally so it's not a surprise I'm a little off here.

So, I ask you, my readers for input! Tell me what you think might help me in terms of regular features. (Eventually I plan to add video reviews but I currently lack a camera for doing it the way I really want to do it.)

Things I'm contemplating: Contemplation 1) A monthly series review (new, old and maybe even a legally subbed one every now and then for the fun of it.) Doing a weekly review would mean dedicating myself more than I have so far and also would require me to start trying to actually pass judgement on a series. I tend to be easy to please though so I'm unsure my review skills will pass muster. However, I think I can be very unbiased in terms of genre. I'm not easily offended and I really don't care if something is formulaic or radically original. I only care if it entertains me.

Contemplation 2 the Sequel) A monthly anime giveaway contest! This would obviously require some money to make it happen and while I'm not a broke man without anything, I'm not rich either. (Oh to have the income of HyugaHinata of ANN's user base! I mean, just look at this order!) Contests would consist of me asking readers and others to do random things, could be drawing fan art, could be making a promotional YouTube video, could be fan fic and it could be lottery. The main limit here is my wallet and my refusual to put sub-only DVDs in the prize pool.

Contemplation 3.75 on a disc) Personal rant time. (Yes, I know, you're wondering why that would be appealing to anyone right?) Basically, under this feature I'd rant once a month about whatever is bugging me in the anime fan community, the industry or just life in general. This might be fun since I'd take off all self-restraint and just go nuts with it.

Contemplation 4 score and seven years ago) I join forces with someone who volunteers to do the drawing to put up a monthly (possibly bi-weekly if things go smoothly) web comic. If this option happens, things will depend on who I can work with for the art. The two ideas in my head are a strip following a cat girl's life as she deals with life in a not-so-sweet life or a strip featuring humans with the powers of monsters battling to be the only one left alive at the end. (One would be more shojo-ish and the other more shonen-ish. I'm sure you can guess which would be which.)

So, that's the options and that's what I'm thinking of right now. Let me know what you think and please, I beg you, pester some of your friends to come here and give me their opinion too. I'd love to see the readership of this blog become high enough to justify my self-delusional belief in my own worth.

Well, that's it for this addition of Blog of the Heretical Dub Lover. I can only hope that one day I'll have the money and power to get some dubs made.

Bye-ni!