Air licensed by ADV!

[W-General]

I can't believe this is happening. This year has been so kind to me in terms of licenses. First Haruhi, now Air.

What's left is Code GREAT ASS, and I suspect some deal will have to get worked out with Pizza Hut XD



If ADV releases the Blu-Ray set, then I am absolutely willing to buy a PS3 just for Air.
I wouldn't do it for Final Fantasy 13 or Metal Gear Solid 4, but I'd do it for Air.

[CarpeDiem]

This is madness!
"Madness? THIS IS ADV!"

Honestly, though, I am very happy that AIR is coming to US shores. This was my favorite anime of 2005, so I'll be sure to grab it when it comes over here. (Hopefully I won't be too broke from buying the Haruhi DVDs as well.) I admit that even I would be skeptical to license such a title because we're not too sure how the general audience in America would receive it. I know that there are some of us here that will buy it, but we represent only a small fraction of the entire anime-watching community.

Regardless, I must buy this.

[DarkCntry]

I wonder if this is ADV's counter to FUNi's licensing of KimiNozo. Considering at the time, AIR and KimiNozo were probably the top "we want licensed" animes from this genre.

Good news nonetheless.

[CrowKenobi]

Originally Posted by FatPianoBoy

I used to throw around: "If Azumanga Daioh can be licensed, anything is possible." Then it was: "If Pani Poni Dash can get licensed, absolutely anything is possible." Now, I figure I'll be using: "If AIR can get licensed, even the impossible is possible."

Or we can use Kamina's line from Tengan Toppa Gurren-Langen: "Go beyond the impossible and kick reason to the curb!"

--if AIR can be licensed, can Kanon be far behind? I hope that it's a resounding YES!!

Well, here's another series I'm going to get the "limited" discs for...

[Jeiku]

When I read the news on ANN, I thought it was April Fools... then I realized that it was nearly a month ago.

This is my favorite series; it's an understatement for me to say that I am excited about this. I'll probably end up getting the movie too, even though I didn't enjoy it as much... just because I can. Since I know next to nothing about Kimi ga Nozomu Eien even when it was licensed, I can't say I even had more than a zero percent hope that AIR would ever make it statewide -- to me, it's kind of an acquired taste, even for anime. I want to see the 2006 version of Kanon licensed as well (it's great to see that there's some company out there who's not afraid to officially expose Key outside of Japan), but right now all I can think about is this. Fantastic news.

... On the downside, I'm going to have to forfeit buying One Piece boxed sets in favor for this...

[Mirrinus]

I think we all know that this news is really the work of the License Note!

But seriously, I'm quite surprised, amused, and pleased to see that a Key adaptation may make it to the states. Like many of you, I'm crossing my fingers for Kanon and Clannad. ^_^

[Sai the Dreamer]

Originally Posted by Sister Princess

Shuffle, Utawaremono, Fate/Stay Night, Happy Lesson, Sister Princess and numerous gal games/eroge weren't licensed. Would that move hurt more than benefit typical americans?

Shuffle! has actually been licensed for a while now. And Fate/stay night was licensed from the moment it was announced, due to Geneon having a North American branch.

Anyway, yay! I'll have a lot of saving to do so I can get these along with the TMoHS DVDs, but it's totally worth it. <3

[Vexx]

I'm trying to decide if I'm excited about ADV getting it or not (not really happy with them). I guess we'll see if they handle this property as well as their competitors have packaged series over the last year or so.

[andiyar]

Originally Posted by Minoto

OMG -- FPB is right, even the impossible is possible! With that in mind, I hope they're still able to improve on Pony Canyon's encoding despite crunching the series down to a four disc set. In any case, I'm crossing my fingers and counting the days till August 14th...

I wouldn't worry too much about the encode, really. They'll be using DVD-9 formatted, disks, almost guaranteed. That means they'll have 8.5GB odd to play with. The audio will probably come in either LPCM, or as 192kbps AC3 (being only two channel... maybe 224?). I'll presume AC3 for the sake of size benefit here - being laround 50MB per audio track, for stereo sound. Depending on extras (say, around a gigabyte for them + the menus), there's still around 7GB of data per disk just for the video, which is more than sufficient for 75 minutes of high quality MPEG-2. Looking at a bitrate over 8mbps for the video, at any rate - in fact, using DVD-9 would be wasting a couple of gig of space with AC3/MPEG2 combined here, as the maximum DVD data rate is less than 10mbps, if I'm remembering correctly. ^^

[edit] actually, now that I think about it, that couple of gig might not be wasted - if they release Air in Summer as *part* of the four disks, and not additional. That way the pattern could be 4,4,4,3 for the releases - first three disks with eps 1-12 of Air, and the final disk with ep 13 and Air in Summer. Which would rock ^^ [/edit]

This is of course assuming that ADV re-encode the video. I assume they probably will, but then I'm not sure whether that's typical for them? They would presumably make their own version though, as they do need to record at least a new audio track, and mux that in - probably preferable to work from a master than from an already-muxed MPEG source

Oh, and @ Sister Princess:

From your examples:

Licensed:
Shuffle! (Funimation)
Utawarerumono (ADV)
Fate/stay night (Geneon)
Sister Princess (ADV).

Unlicensed:
Happy Lesson.

Just a fyi

Oh, so excited right now ^_^


-Andiyar

[Kinny Riddle]

What great timing, I just finished the whole story, game and anime alike, and now they're announcing it's licensed in North America. Now if the Region 1 DVDs really do come with a "Gao Gao Stegosaurus" T-shirt, I'm getting it.

[Minoto]

Originally Posted by andiyar

I wouldn't worry too much about the encode, really. They'll be using DVD-9 formatted, disks, almost guaranteed. That means they'll have 8.5GB odd to play with. The audio will probably come in either LPCM, or as 192kbps AC3 (being only two channel... maybe 224?). I'll presume AC3 for the sake of size benefit here - being laround 50MB per audio track, for stereo sound. Depending on extras (say, around a gigabyte for them + the menus), there's still around 7GB of data per disk just for the video, which is more than sufficient for 75 minutes of high quality MPEG-2. Looking at a bitrate over 8mbps for the video, at any rate - in fact, using DVD-9 would be wasting a couple of gig of space with AC3/MPEG2 combined here, as the maximum DVD data rate is less than 10mbps, if I'm remembering correctly. ^^

[edit] actually, now that I think about it, that couple of gig might not be wasted - if they release Air in Summer as *part* of the four disks, and not additional. That way the pattern could be 4,4,4,3 for the releases - first three disks with eps 1-12 of Air, and the final disk with ep 13 and Air in Summer. Which would rock ^^ [/edit]

Oops...I didn't even think about dual-layer DVDs when I wrote that. Thanks for providing such a good analysis! Now, on to worrying about whether they'll handle it properly, and whether or not they can possibly sell enough copies to make Kanon and Clannad worthwhile acquisitions in the future...

[Sister Princess]

Originally Posted by Sai the Dreamer

Shuffle! has actually been licensed for a while now. And Fate/stay night was licensed from the moment it was announced, due to Geneon having a North American branch.

Anyway, yay! I'll have a lot of saving to do so I can get these along with the TMoHS DVDs, but it's totally worth it. <3

I was referring to the games, not the anime themselves.

[Cyz]

Seriously!? Wow! the licensing was a surprised.

[FatPianoBoy]

Originally Posted by Sister Princess

I was referring to the games, not the anime themselves.

Eroge is very, very rarely licensed in North America. It must not only be insanely popular in Japan, but the license must be cheap because it's a very niche market over here. Tsukihime is one of the big ones that comes mind.

[Narumi]

Originally Posted by FatPianoBoy

Tsukihime is one of the big ones that comes mind.

Tsukihime the VN is not licensed.

[FatPianoBoy]

Originally Posted by Narumi

Tsukihime the VN is not licensed.

Really? I remember hearing some mention that it was available in English...

[Wuya]

that isnt licensed...


that was a FAN-TRANSLATION if i remember right...

(if it was licensed, i think they would not have to do that)

[FatPianoBoy]

Originally Posted by Wuya

that isnt licensed...


that was a FAN-TRANSLATION if i remember right...

(if it was licensed, i think they would not have to do that)

I think there was some talk of buying it in English...
I could be completely wrong, though. Memory's a bit fuzzy, since I don't play eroge myself. I should probably drop the whole thing now

[sakuravs]

Cheers! The 1000th summer has finally arrived! Oh my dear Kamio Misuzu, so after almost 2 years of waiting, finally you have come to the US with your wings and your lovely "Gao..." ^^

Although the dub is gonna sound funny but who care, there's still the sub there in the R1.
ADV rocks! I wish that after "Gao", they will bring the "Uguu phenomenon" to the Western market in a near future, too. But first, we have a KEY's masterpiece to collect.

[Wuya]

will they even keep "gao"?
only considering that mainstream peeps probably have no clue what it is....
i had to read what it was suppose to "mean" before understanding it myself... otherwise it would have been just a "cute bad-habit" phrase which can be replaced by any other of its likes.