Claymore licensed by Funimation

[Bikerider]

US is a different regional encode than Europe. DVDs may not play

[dutchman]

Originally Posted by lsley

o.O how much does such a dvd in the netherlands cost? Somehow it looks like I'd have to pay most in germany with about 20€(~30$) for 100 min / 4 episodes of wichever anime.
Maybe if they are as cheap as in the US I'll buy the claymore dvd box there when it's available (really, only the dvds, nothing else )

H'm thats about the same as in the netherlands it ranges around 18 to 28 euros if you are smart you wait for an complete series box which costs around 40-50 euros. However I don't think I will be able to wait when Claymore is released

However the last 3 years I buy most of my DVD's from a belgium firm who sells on internet they import the latest anime and manga and are actually cheaper then most of the dutch shops.
Also my DVD player is region free done at the shop when I bought it. So regions never have stopped me.

[Squawks]

Originally Posted by dutchman

H'm thats about the same as in the netherlands it ranges around 18 to 28 euros if you are smart you wait for an complete series box which costs around 40-50 euros. However I don't think I will be able to wait when Claymore is released

However the last 3 years I buy most of my DVD's from a belgium firm who sells on internet they import the latest anime and manga and are actually cheaper then most of the dutch shops.
Also my DVD player is region free done at the shop when I bought it. So regions never have stopped me.

Hehe yeah, Archonia is a pretty good site for that!

[ashesatdusk]

Thanks for your information. I am not really familair with Funimation. Most of my 300+ dvd's ( I know sick..) are from ADV , Bandai and GENEON. Its good to hear that you rate them currently higher then ADV because until now I have held ADV as the benchmark to compare with. I hope they release the first dvd with an box its easier to store it that way.

I'm not surprised to hear that ADV makes most of your DVD collection. They have the largest market share by far I think over 1/4. But I often feel like they just are out to mass release stuff as quickly as possible, and their also targetted squarely at more avid anime fans ( I mean people who actually watch anime regularly and are more likely to buy anime series if they like it regardless of the quality of the box set). Funimations tends to target a bit more at mainstream audience (hence some of their customers are casual watcher. That makes sense because a few of their major releases air on U.S. basic cable teleivision. They are one of the few studios that keeps in house voice actors, some of which are decent. (Vic Magona who did Edward's voice in FMA).

[khryoleoz]

Originally Posted by Cipher7

Why do people like dubs anyway?? You need to watch anime in Japanese with subtitles. I have tried watching anime in english on adult swim and the voice is just too bland, and I lose interest in the anime so quickly. Japanese VA's put much more "emotion" into it.

I doubt claymore will ever hit mainstream in the United States. It's style and imagery is not really preferred to the generally audience (Cannibalism).

Most anime they show in Adult Swim happen to be those shows that are produced with bad dubs. The studios whose dubs I like are Bang Zoom Entertainment, Animaze, the Industrial Smoke and Mirrors half of ADV, New Generation (well many of them anyway), and the later Coastal dubs.

Funimation's in-house dub is among the worst, always. Like the much beloved FMA, I always find their dubs both flat AND over the top. The characters sound like caricatures rather than real people. DBZ, Kiddy Grade, Furuba, Blue Gender, Baki, Galaxy Railways, Gunslinger Girl, Peach Girl, Suzuka, and tragically Sukuran, you name it and it's just plain bad. I thought that Tenchi GXP was the sole exception, but I find out that its dub was produced by a different studio.

Hopefully, Industrial Smoke & Mirrors gets the Claymore job. Otherwise, I'll stick with the talents of Houko Kuwashima and company.

[Sheky]

Hmmm, how long do you guys think will past before we see this show in HD format?

It's hard to go back to upscaled DVDs once you've seen a Bluray on a 42" 1080P tv. :/

[Synria_]

How does licensing work anyway?

A company in the US buys the license to distribute it in North America, and as an added service, they add english VA's? Anime released in Japan come with english subtitles already right? I think we can do away with Dubs altogether and just get straight up DVD's from Japan. Why can't the japanese companies just handle the distribution in the US themselves?

I'm not bashing, as I'm sure there is a valid reason for this, which is why it is in effect right now. I'm curious and upset thinking about it though.

[khryoleoz]

Originally Posted by Cipher7

How does licensing work anyway?

A company in the US buys the license to distribute it in North America, and as an added service, they add english VA's? Anime released in Japan come with english subtitles already right? I think we can do away with Dubs altogether and just get straight up DVD's from Japan.

I don't think that Japanese R2 releases come with English subs normally. The R2 releases of Claymore in particular come with NO subtitles, not even the native Japanese from the specs that I read. Anyone who knows better please correct me.

Originally Posted by Cipher7

Why can't the japanese companies just handle the distribution in the US themselves?

Because when this happens, you get releases like those by Bandai Visual USA where all they do is repackage the Japanese release for English, mirror the content with only one to two episodes per volume (three at most), and price them the same way as the Japanese release only in US dollars. If you'd like, you can help me along with others to deny Bandai Visual USA any revenue for this disgusting practice so that they get the hint and leave R1 production and distribution to Bandai Entertainment instead. For Blu-ray releases, we're pretty much screwed as the US and Japan share the same region, "A".

Originally Posted by Cipher7

I'm not bashing, as I'm sure there is a valid reason for this, which is why it is in effect right now. I'm curious and upset thinking about it though.

Why upset? I'm more concerned, especially with the loss of Geneon as a distribution company.

[Synria_]

Wow... so when anime is released it is just plain voice only... dang! (Now I know where to focus my studies when learning Japanese).

Is there a place where I can learn about the term "R" when you say R1, R2, R3, etc. Frankly I am clueless when people say these terms. As far as I know these are just different stages of releases and i'm guessing the higher the number, the more features it has. Although I do think it means region, is it referring to an anime release in a certain region therefor it is expected to have certain feature that will allow that region to understand it?

I'm upset because Dubs ruin an anime IMHO. I'd prefer they focus on subtitles and forget about dubbing.

P.S. I don't quite get what you mean by "repackage."

[xris]

Please remember the topic of this thread is Claymore licensed by Funimation, not "How does licensing work".

If you want to know how licensing works, I suggest you have a read of threads in the General Anime forum or look it up in places like Wiki, AnimeOnDVD, ANN, etc., etc.

Originally Posted by Cipher7

I'm upset because Dubs ruin an anime IMHO.

Please, no on is forcing you to listen to the dubs. And R1 refers to Region 1, again, check out regional coding at somewhere like Wiki.

This thread is for specific discussion concerning the licensing of Claymore by Funimation.

[khryoleoz]

"R" would just be the acronym for "region". So the number that follows it is the actual numeric region designation. In case you don't know, the DVD market is divided by regions throughout the world. Players and discs are manufactured so that they work only in their region. Players you buy in the US can only play discs that are released for the US. This is overcome by either using region free players or buying region free discs (which are usually the format of knock-off DVDs). Because Japan belongs to region 2, we can't just buy Japanese discs and play it on our US players unless our player is a region free type or we buy an imported R2 player.

RE: repackage. One problem that Japanese studios run into when titles are acquired for distribution to other regions is that of reverse importation. Claymore R2 releases on average contain 3 episodes and cost 6,600 yen ($63+). Let's say Funimation sticks with the current R1 trend and releases each volume with an average episode count of 4 per DVD, priced at $29.99 per volume. You can see that the R1 release is a better deal than the R2.

With R1 releases being a far better value by having at least 1 more episode and costing less than half, the R1 release is now a viable product for competing with the R2 releases. R2 consumers who are able to get region free or R1 players for themselves could then buy an R1 import over the R2 domestic.

One company we've seen try to handle this issue is Bandai Visual. Bandai Visual set up a corporate arm in the US, Bandai Visual USA, and positioned themselves in such a way as to avoid losses through reverse importation by taking the same R2 releases of their titles, repackaging them for R1, and selling them with virtually little to no difference in price and media content as the R2.

On to hi-def. Blu-ray won the format war. The US and Japan share the same region, Region A. I'm not sure things are looking good if more Japanese studios are going to adopt the same or similar schemes in order to limit reverse importation effects.

Again, anyone who knows better than I, please, your input is highly welcome.

[lsley]

I have a little question since i don't get it. I hope it's not off topic...

Wiki sais that Funimation licenced Claymore for region1, so it's just north amerika, so in Europe, Asia, Australia and south America (region 2-6) it's not licenced and can freely be downloaded?

Does someone know if it is licenced in japan (region 2, same as europe), and if it is, by who?

sry didn't find anything about this on wiki or google and Cyphers question made me curious about it.

[xris]

Originally Posted by lsley

I have a little question since i don't get it. I hope it's not off topic...

The problem is, your question is actually off-topic to the purpose of this thread.

Originally Posted by xris

Please remember the topic of this thread is Claymore licensed by Funimation, not "How does licensing work".

If you want to know how licensing works, I suggest you have a read of threads in the General Anime forum or look it up in places like Wiki, AnimeOnDVD, ANN, etc., etc.

Originally Posted by lsley

Wiki sais that Funimation licenced Claymore for region1, so it's just north amerika, so in Europe, Asia, Australia and south America (region 2-6) it's not licenced and can freely be downloaded?

This is incorrect. Please have a read of the Licensed Anime page we have on AnimeSuki.

Distributing fansubs is illegal. It doesn't matter if they are licensed or not, it is illegal.

DVD Regional areas and licenses have nothing to do with each other. Just because Claymore has only been released in the U.S. and Japan doesn't mean it isn't licensed anywhere else. The Japanese company who produced the Claymore anime have worldwide licensing rights, so far they have sold the distributional rights to Funimation for a U.S. release. They have not sold the rights to anywhere else in the world but that doesn't mean it's not licensed elsewhere. It is not freely available to be downloaded, that is illegal.

Originally Posted by lsley

Does someone know if it is licenced in japan (region 2, same as europe), and if it is, by who?

sry didn't find anything about this on wiki or google and Cyphers question made me curious about it.

It is licensed in Japan. Just because Japan and Europe share the same DVD Regional area has nothing to do with the licensing / distributional rights.

@ khryoleoz
I undeleted your post above as the info you provided might be helpful to others but again I must ask posters such as lsley and Cipher7 that this thread is not about "How does licensing work".

[Arcananine77]

Is there any news already as to when it'll be released? And anyone got an idea of what a good dub-cast could be? (I myself am not familiar with Funi's 'inhouse' VAs)

[Bikerider]

From what I've learned. When a US company licenses anime, it's for ALL english markets regardless of regions. I may be incorrect.

As for Funimation. They did Full Metal Alchemist and Beck. Look for some of those VAs to be in Claymore.

I looked at their website. They have many recent anime series licensed. I'm sure they have the VAs to handle Claymore.

[khryoleoz]

Originally Posted by Bikerider

As for Funimation. They did Full Metal Alchemist and Beck. Look for some of those VAs to be in Claymore.

I sure hope not! Funimation has gone to other studios before with Tenchi GXP (which used a lot of the LA based talents) and FMP TSR (which had most of ADV's talents reprise their roles), both of which their dubs were far more pleasing than the remaining Funi catalog. So it's not like there isn't a precedent for them to go with a studio that enlists from a talent pool who are "better". Yeah, "better" according to my preference. If I'm gonna shell out some bucks, I might as well like the damn dub.

Originally Posted by Bikerider

I looked at their website. They have many recent anime series licensed. I'm sure they have the VAs to handle Claymore.

And I'm sure those VA's are ready. And they'll be consistent with their performance, and suck like they did in other titles in which they've performed.

[dutchman]

I always ignore the dub track. The problem is that some companies give the dub track 2 options , 2.0 + 5.1. And they give the japanese track only the 2.0 option.

This always annoys me because basically you want to listen to the japanese track but then you can't fully use your dolby surround since its only 2.0.

Some series (like NOIR, Madlax) have for both the dub and original track with multiple options so it is not as if it isn't possible. Lets hope Funimation will give Claymore the extensive treatment and does the same.

[khryoleoz]

If we're lucky, Funi will give Claymore the same high quality treatment as they did with FMP TSR, with 2.0 AND 5.1 Japanese AND English tracks. While they're at it, they should have ADV's IS&M staff to the ADR.

[Rowan]

Based on what we've seen of Funimation's work recently, they'll include both sub and dubbed tracks, and the translations will be pretty accurate on both. They've really improved since the early days of DBZ, back when 'never say die' was an iron-clad law. FMA alone should prove that.

And at the risk of drawing heat, Claymore is one series I want to hear the dubbed version of. I don't know what it is, but I honestly cannot stand 90% of the voicework in the japanese Claymore. I think it's the inflections they used.

R.

[khryoleoz]

I reserve skepticism. One, more recent example I can point to in questionable translation is the first episode of Sukuran. Harima Kenji is looking for what class he's in. Yoshidayama tells him he's in Class 2-D. But the joke is supposed to be that Yoshidayama misread the name Harry McKenzie. This joke was lost in the translation.

If FMA will be cited as the lone example of high quality production by Funi, well then I guess my standards are higher than others.