Quote:
Originally Posted by takumi2k4
I beg to differ. Kadokawa USA held a panel back in Otakon 2006, and the representative said that they recieved offers from various companies so I highly doubt that there wasn't any licensing fees. Also, the panel was held in August, and the licensors probably had a bidding war, and Bandai ended up winning it, or Kadokawa just chose Bandai.
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Well, keep in mind that licensing means (very basic explanation) that the owner transfers their rights to sell a product in a certain market for a limited period of time to some other company. In this case, though, Kadokawa U.S.A -- the original publisher's own branch office -- is the one selling the show. Bandai didn't license it, and Kadokawa didn't pay any licensing fees to
itself, obviously. However, because Kadokawa doesn't have the facilities to do dubbing, re-mastering, authoring, duplication, distribution, etc., they either paid or partnered with another company (in this case Bandai) to do that work on their behalf. I'm guessing that it's some sort of shared investment/profit-sharing sort of model.
So, when WanderingKnight says that there's no licensing fees, he's essentially correct. But that doesn't mean the companies weren't bidding for the distribution/production job -- everyone would want a piece of that pie if they could get their hands on it. The time it took for Haruhi to be "licensed", in this case (announced for localization, really), was probably just the result of Kadokawa negotiating with companies to figure out how they wanted to release it and with whom.
So what does that mean for season two? It means that the word "licensed", in the traditional sense, doesn't mean anything here. Kadokawa U.S.A. already basically has the rights to distribute the show here, simply because Kadokawa owns the rights to the show to begin with. However, until they actually announce their
intention to release here (because who knows... they could decide not to release it, or whatever...), AnimeSuki won't consider it licensed. From a business perspective, it's a totally different animal, but the net effect to us viewers is basically the same.
Probably way more of an explanation than was required, but you know... "The more you know..."
