The recent news about the downsizing of Bandai Entertainment is of course very sad, firstly for those who are losing their jobs and secondly for fans seeing another American anime distributor ceasing operations (or in this case, no longer releasing manga or anime on DVD/Blu-Ray).
What does it mean for K-On!? Well, according to Bandai their catalogue titles will remain in print, so the first season should remain available on DVD and Blu-Ray. But obviously, any hope of them releasing the second season or the movie is now dead.
That doesn’t necessarily have to mean the second season or the movie won’t ever be released in the US, however. As far as we, the fans, know, there’s nothing to stop another American distributor from picking them up and releasing them. Whether this will actually happen is impossible to tell at the moment. If recent rumors are true, and K-On! underperformed in the US market, it probably won’t look like a very attractive property to other anime companies.
About the only thing we know for sure right now, is that we really don’t know anything about the future of K-On! in America. But with Bandai pulling out of the home video market, things are looking kind of grim.
Hmm, what do you think the chances are of them changing their mind and doing season two??
ReplyDeleteI know it sounds weird, but I truly believe K-ON is not the type of anime to be underpopular(I don't think that's a word lol). What may have happened is that most of the K-ON fans in America didn't want to buy the DVDs that were released here as they were($20-$30 for 4 episodes...), and were waiting/hoping for a complete first season release...maybe that's why the sales were so bad...since I know for a fact that I almost went crazy at the thought that they sold a 14-episode series in individual discs for $20+ per disc of 3-4 episodes...
I know(or at least I hope...) that now that they announced a complete set of the 14 episodes in season 1 for only $40($28 on Amazon), the sales for K-ON will surely go up. I'm even buying this set even though I have the 4 individual discs on both DVD and Blu-Ray JUST because the price is so good(at least compared to the first U.S. release).
You could be right, the problem is that Bandai will completely stop releasing anime on Blu-Ray and DVD after February so even if K-On! does well for them after all I think we can forget about them doing season 2. :(
ReplyDeleteIt's better to hope for someone else to license and release it in the US instead. Maybe that's a longshot, but then again you never know...
Ahh...you're right...sorry, that detail completely slipped my mind...(most important detail too >.<)
ReplyDeleteYeah, I guess we should just hope for another company to license it...who knows...maybe Aniplex America...my memory of this is a little fuzzy, but I think I remember in an interview, that Azusa's English voice actor was cast as the main character for the English dub of Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica(another 5-girl anime that I watched recently...actually the only other one that I watched after I finished K-ON!!), which is going to be distributed in America by Aniplex...so who knows, maybe she'll recommend it or something?
Then again I don't know exactly what I'm talking about...when it came to paying attention to all the details and stuff for anime, I did it a lot more for Naruto and Dragon Ball games in the past. Anime licenses and what not never really caught my attention until I read about the whole situation with Bandai D:
This is a shame :(
ReplyDeleteI really felt that the second season was better than the first.
Hopefully this sells well and Bandai might consider releasing the second season.