Borders Troubles Hit TokyoPop Hard

I've been talking about this a lot recently in our newsletter and blog posts, and have been doing a lot of speculation as to how the Borders failure would effect the US Manga industry (i.e. how hard the publishers would be hit). I think this is a bigger deal than most people realize, but now I'm wondering if perhaps I've been under estimating the impact.Today Stuart Levy, the CEO of TokyoPop,

Navarre Says No 'Adequate' Offers for Funimation Yet

From Navarre's earnings report released this evening:"Discontinued operations includes the results of FUNimation Entertainment. Net income from discontinued operations during the third quarter was $1.8 million, as compared to $928,000 in the prior fiscal year. Strong earnings performance in discontinued operations resulted from solid year-over-year sales growth. Cash flow from discontinued

Dilbert on Tax Policy

This strip seems to, um, fit a lot of different narratives that have cropped up over the last couple of days:Funimation Sues 1337 Bittorrent Users Over One Piece...

Navarre May End Up Keeping Funimation

Navarre's 3rd quarter (Q2 fiscal) earnings call earlier this week was quite revealing. They reported a quarterly profit of $1.7 million for the FUNimation division (now reported as “'discontinued operations'), vs. $435,000 in the year ago period. Now while that looks pretty good, keep in mind the year over year is up against the truly abysmal Q3 numbers everyone was turning in last year, and that

Namco Bandai of America Lays off 90 Employees

Via ANN,"The game company Namco Bandai of America is laying off 90 staff members and relocating a part of game development from San Jose, California to Japan. The cuts are a result of the merger between the company's mobile and online game businesses into a single division. "We are partnering with external development studios out there because that is where the game business is going," Namco

Funimation Delays More Titles

In what is becoming a pretty regular event from ALL the R1 studios this summer, we heard from Funimation today who gave us another grocery list of release delays, but most of these are only 1 week pushes so it's not too bad. Here's the changes:Slayers Revolution DVD Boxed Set (Eps #1-13) (BLURAY) - 9/14 to 9/21Slayers Evolution-R DVD Boxed Set (Eps #1-13) (BLURAY) - 9/14 to 9/21Full Metal Panic

Funimation Delays More Titles

In what is becoming a pretty regular event from ALL the R1 studios this summer, we heard from Funimation today who gave us another grocery list of release delays, but most of these are only 1 week pushes so it's not too bad. Here's the changes:Slayers Revolution DVD Boxed Set (Eps #1-13) (BLURAY) - 9/14 to 9/21Slayers Evolution-R DVD Boxed Set (Eps #1-13) (BLURAY) - 9/14 to 9/21Full Metal Panic

Media Blasters Delays More Titles

It's only been three weeks since their last big delay announcement, and today Media Blasters let us know they they will be delaying the release dates of another batch of Anime titles, a few for the second time.Here are the date pushes that will directly impact us:Queen's Blade: Wandering Warrior, Vol #2, The Beaten Path DVD (Eps #5-8) - From Sep 7 to Oct 26Kanokon: The Girl Who Cried Wolf, Vol #2

Media Blasters Delays More Titles

It's only been three weeks since their last big delay announcement, and today Media Blasters let us know they they will be delaying the release dates of another batch of Anime titles, a few for the second time.Here are the date pushes that will directly impact us:Queen's Blade: Wandering Warrior, Vol #2, The Beaten Path DVD (Eps #5-8) - From Sep 7 to Oct 26Kanokon: The Girl Who Cried Wolf, Vol #2

Japanese and US Publishers Declare War on 'Pirate Scum'

Finally waking up and smelling the impending doom, manga publishers both here and in Japan have suddenly realized that the proliferation of scanlations and illegal content posted online for free is a direct threat to the survival of the manga industry.From the Anime economatrix this week:"The 36 publishers in Japan's Digital Comic Association and several American publishers are forming a

Navarre Can No Longer Afford Funimation's Great Results...

If CMX's announced exit from the Manga market last week was equivalent to a hand grenade, this is a tactical nuke from orbit. From the Economatrix earlier today:"Navarre Corporation has announced on Thursday that it has hired the investment bank Houlihan Lokey "to assist it in structuring and negotiating a potential transaction for the sale" of its Funimation anime arm. The plans may not result

Clarke and Dawe ask the Million Dollar Questions...

Leave it to our friends in Australia to sum up the entire current global financial crisis in less than 3 minutes:

Signs Of The Apocalype - CMX Manga Shutting Down in July

From ICv2:"DC is closing down its CMX manga unit, effective July 1st. The company will cease publishing all CMX titles other than Megatokyo (its OEL title) which will continue under the DC Comics imprint.We asked DC whether U.S. publishing rights would revert to the Japanese publishers or if DC was planning to try to sell or sub-license the rights, and received a 'No comment' from a DC

The Hits Just Keep on Coming...

Lots of interesting news from the Anime Economatrix today:"The Publishers Weekly trade magazine reports that the North American manga and anime publisher Viz Media has laid off up to 55 people at its San Francisco headquarters and closed its New York branch, which had five employees. According to the magazine, the layoffs represents about 40% of the publisher's workforce. Viz confirmed the

Pull It!

I saw this while reading over some financial blogs this morning and thought it was pretty funny:But maybe I shouldn't be laughing...

AnimEigo Unable to Complete Yawara

AnimEigo has announced that they will not be able to complete Yawara. From ANN:"Robert Woodhead, CEO of the North American anime distributor AnimEigo, has announced on his Twitter account on Thursday that "so far, we have not been able to secure a license to release the rest of Yawara." AnimEigo licensed the television anime adaptation of Naoki Urasawa's Yawara! A Fashionable Judo Girl manga in

Bang Zoom Draws a Line in the Sand

Eric Sherman, the CEO of Bang Zoom studios (who I've have many excellent dealings with personally) has issued a subtle ultimatum to the fan community regarding the state of the Anime market and what will happen if folks continue to illegally download rather than buying shows on DVD:From ANN:"Eric P. Sherman, President and CEO of the anime dubbing company Bang Zoom! Entertainment, has posted an

Small Business Tax Increases

Time to stand on my tax soap box once again! :-)Forget about what you are hearing about small business tax cuts in political talking points this year, our taxes have actually gone up substantially and it's only the middle of February.So far we've received two (of many to come) new tax assessment rates for 2010, both big increases:1) The first is on our building in the form of county real estate

Economics 201 - Keynes vs. Hayek Rap

Before we tune into a state of the union address tonight, here's a refresher for 2 years worth of University economics philosophy in less than 8 minutes. Don't forget to take notes...Brilliant! No matter if you're a Keynesian or Hayek Austrian Schooler basically the gist is that either way we're all probably screwed in the end. -_^I'm an Austrian Schooler myself.

ADV Films Shuts Down - Section 23 Films Takes Over Title Distribution

Hot off the wire via ANN:"A.D. Vision has announced that it is shutting down after transferring its assets to several other companies that will continue its operations. AEsir Holdings has acquired selected programming from ADV's film library along with other intellectual property. The SXION 23 (Section23 Films) home video distribution company will assume account servicing and distribution