Little Busters! is licensed by Sentai Filmworks

[CrowKenobi]

Please use this thread to discuss the aspects of Sentai Filmworks licensing of Little Busters!

[bhl88]

Sub only is to DVD as Sub and dub is to Blu-Ray. Will Little Busters be dubbed only, like Persona 4? Or will it be sub only, thus remaining in DVD....

[bahamut zero]

where does this assumption come from?

[TJR]

Originally Posted by bhl88

Sub only is to DVD as Sub and dub is to Blu-Ray. Will Little Busters be dubbed only, like Persona 4? Or will it be sub only, thus remaining in DVD....

Licensing conditions vary depending on the show. Most of Sentai's BD discs (including new releases such as Penguindrum and Bodacious Space Pirates) include both English and Japanese language tracks.

[Kudryavka]

Good for liensing so quickly! but now it means fansubs are illegal lol.

And where are my country's Everyday Life subs?

[Dark Paladin X]

Originally Posted by TJR

Licensing conditions vary depending on the show. Most of Sentai's BD discs (including new releases such as Penguindrum and Bodacious Space Pirates) include both English and Japanese language tracks.

IIRC, Sentai Filmwork's policy is that if the show can support an English dub, they put BD on to it. Otherwise, it's subtitle-only DVD. They also make their BD and dubbing decisions based on the streaming numbers from Crunchyroll and the Anime Network as well.

If this show gets a dub, I really want Johnny Yong Bosch to voice Riki Naoe, and Sandy Fox to voice the loli Kud Noumi. But I'll save that in another thread.

[Kudryavka]

Wow this is surprising. Visual Arts and Key hates non-Japanese people looking at their stuff.

[CrowKenobi]

Is it anymore surprising than Air, Kanon and Clannad getting licensed?

[Kudryavka]

Originally Posted by CrowKenobi

Is it anymore surprising than Air, Kanon and Clannad getting licensed?

That was before the drama that made the company be scared of (or angry at, I only wish I knew what was going on in there) people outside Japan. I'm surprised b/c right now they take special measures to keep non-Japanese from using their products. Apparently not for the anime though, just for their games I guess. Which is a contradictory stance at best.

[Rising Dragon]

IIRC it was only the game localization that they don't like doing. And IIRC there's some sort of opening the company's doing to see if there's interest in localizing the games. A lot of the fansub sites had posts on it.

[Kudryavka]

Originally Posted by Rising Dragon

IIRC it was only the game localization that they don't like doing. And IIRC there's some sort of opening the company's doing to see if there's interest in localizing the games. A lot of the fansub sites had posts on it.

I heard, but I'm not talking about that. They specifically program their new games to not run on non-Japanese computers. If you try to play one it says "For Japan Only" or something and will not run.

That's not "we don't want to localize our games", which I would get because that takes time and money. That's "we don't want people outside of Japan to play our games, and we will do what we can to prevent that".

So that's why I was surprised.

[Ceral]

Originally Posted by Kudryavka

I heard, but I'm not talking about that. They specifically program their new games to not run on non-Japanese computers. If you try to play one it says "For Japan Only" or something and will not run.

That's not "we don't want to localize our games", which I would get because that takes time and money. That's "we don't want people outside of Japan to play our games, and we will do what we can to prevent that".

So that's why I was surprised.

They're weirdos, I don't understand it at all. They've released an iphone/ipad version of Planetarian in English and are promoting it on their main homepage so I don't think they're as Xenophobic as we may think. Actually it seems like a common problem for all the games that use the siglusengine, to get that warning, so I think it has more to do with the programmer for their engine.

I think they want to expand everything into other markets. I don't see anything being very offensive in Rewrite as opposed to Planetarian, so the Japan only message is kind of strange, maybe they have to conform to product region rules or something and they inadvertently put that asinine message in to try to explain that...

[Kudryavka]

Originally Posted by Ceral

They're weirdos, I don't understand it at all. They've released an iphone/ipad version of Planetarian in English and are promoting it on their main homepage so I don't think they're as Xenophobic as we may think. Actually it seems like a common problem for all the games that use the siglusengine, to get that warning, so I think it has more to do with the programmer for their engine.

I think they want to expand everything into other markets. I don't see anything being very offensive in Rewrite as opposed to Planetarian, so the Japan only message is kind of strange, maybe they have to conform to product region rules or something and they inadvertently put that asinine message in to try to explain that...

Yes, when I talk about the problem, I never blame Key, I always blame Visual Arts since it's their engine and they just lend it to Key and other companies under their umbrella to use. But Visual Arts also gave the OK for a LitBus anime license, and for the official Planetarian English translation.

So afaik this whole issue has nothing to do with Key, it has to do with Visual Arts contradicting themselves.

And, I would not call the problem just "xenophobia". It's much deeper than that. I understood it before, but now it's just getting stupid.

Also the message and block occurs in the very last games on the older Reallive engine, so it's not just a new Siglus "feature". Visual Arts, their programmers, can take out that "feature" at any time, or at least issue patches that disable it, if they wanted to. And until they do or present a reason for trying to chase away non-Japanese customers past the eroge fiasco of, what, 2008 or 2009?, I'm going to wonder wtf is going on with them.

You can contact me if you want to know more. Kind of a dead horse by now, but it may put things in some more perspective.

Back on topic I hope we get a Blu Ray release. Dub would be even sweeter, since apparently Sentai usually reserves BD releases for dubs?

[Dark Paladin X]

Few things I want to point out:

-Little Busters! was confirmed to be getting a English dub at Anime Expo with a November release.
-Sentai Filmworks also confirmed that they managed to get Blu-Ray rights for Little Busters! (also for November)