Bandai Entertainment, what happened?

What's the whole deal with Bandai Entertainment suddenly going belly-up? Why is the company stopping its dubs?

They didn't suddenly go belly-up, they pulled out by choice.

Is it because Bandai didn't see the point in having a foreign division that was only marginally profitable at best when that money could've been reinvested in domestic businesses?

Most likely, but businesses don't ever give too much information if things are going badly unless they've crashed and had to do massive layoffs, in which case investors demand an explanation.

So we never got too much of an explanation. I don't recall exactly what was said, but I think the lack of real profitability was the main thing.

edited 26th Aug '12 10:11:43 AM by burnpsy

Yeah. TBH this isn't the end of the world, its just that releases that would've been done straight by Bandai will just be licensed by Funi, Viz, Sentai, or Aniplex USA instead.

Actually, not all that many Bandai licenses were rescued. Anyone who wanted Gosick or Nichijou without the money for a PAL DVD player and expensive Australian box sets is out of luck, for instance.

edited 26th Aug '12 10:34:20 AM by burnpsy

Does this mean no more Lucky Star manga over here?

Well I think mid-release licenses would be screwed up due to the hold on licensing they have, but going forward I don't see a problem with Western companies picking up the slack.

edited 26th Aug '12 10:35:08 AM by Scherzo09

Indeed.

Which is why my only complaint is that they should have just stopped new licensing instead of new releases. Those series wouldn't have had this problem if they just pushed the licenses they already had out the door, and the person who was running the American branch said they could have kept going a few years more.

edited 26th Aug '12 10:40:50 AM by burnpsy

This is kind of, y'know, old...

If you want information, look up the articles on ANN. They should help.

Maybe Bandai shoulda just focused on releasing its heavy hitters like Bebop, Gundam, and Geass and licensed out the more niche stuff to other anime distributors. I think what Bandai wanted to do, and this may be completely wrong, but it seemed like they were trying to push themselves as a brand while they were in fact entering a niche market and copying the sorta strategies of the niche companies in that market.

edited 26th Aug '12 10:49:20 AM by Scherzo09

I know it's old but I found out recently, plus there was nothing on here mentioning it yet. I just needed to ask... ;_; They did, like, 3 of my favorite things and I was wondering why B&N wasn't stocking them anymore. I only found out why last week.

Are any other agencies doing that? Are any of BE's manga, anime, voice actors etc. being picked up by any other companies?

Rumor has it that some other North American company (or companies) already have those titles. (Rumor came from an NIS America representative, who said they couldn't get them, or at least that's the case with Nichijou.)

Bandai didn't really dub much in house. They contracted out to Bang-Zoom mostly, and Aniplex occasionally goes to them.

Isn't Funi the only one that really dubbed in house? I though Ocean's was another big Bandai dub house.

What about the manga? Did they translate those or what?

There are no manga licensors that also do anime or vice-versa. The two require quite different types of staff, aside from translators and lawyers.

edited 26th Aug '12 4:53:55 PM by burnpsy

Huh. Well... any news on if anyone's taking over what they were doing?

To answer the Ocean question. Ocean is a canadian company and has nothing to do with american dubing except for voice acting.

Well they dubbed alot of Gundam shows I mean.

Viz Media does both, but they do a ton of manga and barely any anime.

Sentai and Funimation are the best placed to take over. Funimation has actually started already. Bandai brought Eureka Seven over, and Funimation snapped up Eureka Seven Ao. Aniplex really only looks at Aniplex Japan shows and they don't even bring over most of those. NISA definitely can't, since they're tiny and only do premium sub-only releases. The only other case is maybe Media Blasters, but who knows what's going on there now. Viz also brought over Tiger And Bunny, which was a Bandai funded series. It looks mostly like the stuff Bandai would bring over will be spread out among the other licensors.

edited 26th Aug '12 8:24:11 PM by Zendervai

Keep in mind, Bandai Entertainment has only stopped producing new video releases. Any of their old licenses that haven't expired, they're still printing them. So, for example, Cowboy Bebop, Gundam (aside from Turn A), Eureka Seven, Haruhi Suzumiya, Lucky Star, the first season of K-ON!, they won't be going anywhere anytime soon.

I thought funi only got streaming rights for AO?

They announced the video rights at the last Otakon.

Heh, I wonder if they'll collaborate with Bang Zoom on that dub. A friend of mine said that Funi said they want to collaborate with them more often, and if original Eureka characters appear it'd be nice for the original dub actors to reprise their roles.