If you’ve been to any convention over the years, you’ll likely here some light grousing over the Japanese licensing companies about how they do particular things, though often said in humor. It’s simply a fact of business that dealing with other companies can be difficult because of quirks of the people in particular you’re dealing with, a business ideology or just demands and interests that don’t seem to make much sense on the outside but make perfect sense inside. In the end though, business is business and generally everything comes together in a way that meets most everyones needs and you rarely hear much about it in a truly public way.
While light on the details for obvious reasons, the Manga Entertainment UK Twitter got into things a bit more than usual this morning about problems with a certain licensor that will have them actively looking to avoid dealing with said licensor in the future. Any guesses on the company(s) in question?
I have had it up to here with the anime licensor otherwise known as “Company A”. I will never, ever work with them again so longs as I live.
If I find a new license I want for UK and CompanyA is either a producer, distributor or US licensee I will avoid said license at all cost.
Anime CompanyA have made my life miserable for the past several weeks. It is enough to make me want to quit. Truly horrendous.
I’m guessing Bandai. They exist both in Japan as a licensor and in the US as a licensee. Add in the fact that Manga UK is hard at work trying to release Akira on Blu-ray right now, and they’re the most logical choice.
I would guess Toei. Alot of people and groups and expressed problems working with them.