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ADV Films' panel followed directly on from Beez's, and, with the MVM and State of the Industry panel on the Sunday, it was the last industry panel of the day.
There were a fair few people in the hall for the ADV Films / Lace Digital Media panel, and it's with good reason. ADV Films' US parent company have crumbled in spectacular fashion, going from one of the leading Western anime distributors with offices around the world and toy, manga, music and magazine publishing divisions, to struggling for survival in the space of just a few months. The knock-on effect this has had has been catastrophic for their UK office, which closed earlier this year with the loss of all staff. ADV Films survives in the UK as a label because of Lace Digital Media Sales, who are acting a distributor for ADV's titles. Former ADV UK head honcho Hugh David was taken on initially short-term as an advisor for Lace, but the move was made permanent and it is his familiar face that presents the ADV/Lace panel.
Andrew Partridge from Beez also hung around on the ADV panel
as Hugh explained what ADV were bringing us for the rest of
the year. As expected no new series are in the pipeline and at
the moment, just the previously announced box set releases including
a straight to box set release for E's Otherwise, a series
that has not previously been released in the UK. Hugh
commented that if E's Otherwise does well ADV may
release future series straight to box set. He said that they
had discussed this possibility with Japanese anime studio and
distributor Gonzo, who suggested that they may be willing to allow
them to do this with their series. Other box sets on the way
include a new Neon
Genesis Evangelion tin, which would be similar to the
limited edition tin they released previously but would contain
thinpack DVDs instead of the digipack in the earlier set. He's
looking into other exclusive extras for the set, including artcards
of the cover artwork and possibly a PenPen keyring! ADV
are also looking into releasing boxsets for various other series,
including Peacemaker which has sold well when bundled together at
cons, and even those that they have lost the rights to following the
strife ADV USA have suffered. |
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In fact the recovery of the business was a recurring theme, and Hugh said that ADV are looking to finish the series they have lost rights to - particularly those which have been left in limbo with only a volume or so to go. However, it will depend on whether Lace deem it worthwhile as some series, such as Red Garden, did quite badly sales-wise so it could be hard to justify releasing the rest. Hugh did say that there are no new releases lined up for 2009, but if ADV USA picks up the worldwide rights for anything then ADV UK may get the chance to release them. It was at this point that Hugh digressed, as he was also representing Lace as well as ADV. It turns out |