Saturday, November 6, 2004

mEAG_REPORT
Nike is also currently running an anime advertising campaign, featuring Lebron James, called the Chamber of Fear. Studio 4°C produced animation for the ad, which was originally produced exclusively for the Japanese market but was so well liked by advertising agency Wieden + Kennedy and Nike that they decided to air it in North America as well. The entire ad can be seen online at Nike.com
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Megaman and Devil May Cry heading to the flicks, and movies heading to games too

Japanese publisher Capcom has announced that it is planning to forge ever closer ties with the movie business, with pre-production already underway on cinematic conversions of several of its key titles following the success of the Resident Evil movie.

Devil May Cry is the latest game franchise to be confirmed to be heading to the silver screen, and it joins properties including Onimusha, which is to come out as alive action movie in 2006, and Megaman (or rather, Rockman, to give it its Japanese title), which will spawn an animated feature shortly, having already been developed into an enormously successful anime TV show.

On the flipside, the company is also planning to engage with movie producers who are seeking original games based on their properties, with the firm hoping to create titles which continue the universes of popular films rather than simply creating licensed tie-ins.

A good example is Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas: Oogie's Revenge, which Capcom launched in Japan to a decent commercial response a couple of weeks ago, and which will arrive in the west in the near future.
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Vultures closing in as one of Japan's finest scales back operations

New guidance for the financial year ended March 2003 has been released by Capcom, showing the company posting a loss of 12.7 billion Yen (€106m) - a massive swing from previous estimates, which had anticipated a profit of around 3.8 billion Yen (€31.7m).

The difficult financial status of the company - which is also thought to have significant debts - has caused widespread rumours that it may now be an acquisition target for more cash-rich companies seeking to expand their development base in Japan. Capcom is an attractive target, particularly for platform holders, due to its extensive range of popular franchises such as Resident Evil, Onimusha and Streetfighter.

As ever, the main predator is thought to be Microsoft - who has reportedly sent a team over to Japan for discussions with Capcom's senior management. However, Nintendo is also thought to be in the frame, with the Kyoto-based company keen to continue its newly forged development relationship with Capcom, whose Resident Evil titles have given the GameCube much-needed credibility in the adult market.

Both companies could certainly afford to bail Capcom out without being in any danger of breaking the bank - and certainly, the money Microsoft has just paid Nintendo for its stake in Rare would be considered well spent on a venture like this. Nintendo is not traditionally acquisitive, but much has changed at the company since Satoru Iwata took the reins from long-serving president Hiroshi Yamauchi earlier this year, so the possibility cannot be discounted. Microsoft, meanwhile, certainly has the resources to swallow Capcom, and the desire to break into the Japanese market in a big way; however, the company has had no success in convincing Japanese publishers to sell in the past, despite highly publicised approaches to the likes of Sega and Square.

The drastic reversal of Capcom's fortunes is thought to be mostly due to some very bad investments in the Japanese property market on the part of the company. Japan's economy is intrinsically linked to the value of property, and the downturn experienced by the country in recent years has depreciated property massively, especially in the Tokyo area.

It's probably wise to consider any rumour of a buy-out in this instance with a hefty pinch of salt. Microsoft's name is generally associated with any company that underperforms in the games industry at the moment, but in fact, the Seattle-based giant has only acquired successful companies such as Rare, sensibly leaving those in dire financial straits aside. While Capcom would certainly be an attractive prospect for MS, and it is no doubt making investigations into the possibility of a purchase, it's far too early to seriously consider the prospect of a Microsoft-owned Capcom.
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Strong yen hurts Nintendo's financial forecasts


Currency fluctuations cause share price decline at NCL

Mario and Link have a new task, and it's a quest which few of the millions of fans of the fat plumber and the elven boy could have anticipated; forget Peach and Zelda, this time the two plucky heroes must rescue Nintendo from the clutches of the unsteady global currency markets and the strengthening yen.

Shares in the giant Japanese publisher fell steadily last week, dropping below 15,000 yen on several occasions - the first time that Nintendo shares have done so since the September 11 attacks - as some analysts predicted that the company may realise less than half of its forecasted 90 billion yen (£500m) profit forecast for the year, and may even slip into the red for the first half of fiscal 2002/03.

Over two thirds of Nintendo's sales come from outside Japan, and the company holds billions of dollars worth of assets in Europe and the USA. Last year, the weak yen and strong dollar added a massive bonus to Nintendo's annual figures; the reversal of that situation this year has seen the share price of the company drop 35 per cent since January and may well damage the company's short-term finances seriously. Nintendo's estimates for the year are based on an exchange rate of 130 yen to the dollar; this is currently trading at around 115 yen to the dollar.

However, the trump card held by Nintendo in the face of such currency-related difficulties is, as ever, its strong software line-up. Last Friday saw the release of Mario Sunshine on the GameCube in Japan, supported by an aggressive marketing strategy. A similar set of promotions will accompany Legend of Zelda in December, which will be launched in the USA in February - just in time for US sales to figure in the company's 2002/03 figures. Meanwhile, Pokemon Ruby and Pokemon Sapphire on the GBA will arrive in Japan in November.

All of these titles are expected to sell extremely well, and although the success of such software has been factored into the share price of the company and into its financials, such high-profile launches and visible demand for the titles will undoubtedly bolster stock market confidence in Nintendo.

Following in Nintendo's footsteps, Capcom is to release a free demo disc of Resident Evil 0 on the GameCube, which will be distributed to everyone who pre-orders the title as well as through other outlets. The game is the first of two totally original Resident Evil titles which will appear on the Cube. It follows the success of the remake of the first Resident Evil game, which will be launched in Europe in September. No word has yet been forthcoming about the possibility of a GameCube demo disc strategy in Europe.
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Right hobby, right time.
A fan of Japanese animation created a multimillion-dollar business that is one of the nation's top online retailers.WESTCHASE - On screen, red-haired Tiara and her pet ferret, Japolo, seek to find and return the stolen source of power to the Guardian World.

Inside AnimeNation, Morgan Canaday embarks upon a less ambitious but, to her, equally serious task. She's on the hunt for new Japanese animation to devour.

Keychains with some of her favorite characters jangle from her purse strap as she peruses the new release rack. The 22-year-old Publix cashier speaks in detail about the voice actors who perform on obscure titles.

The theme song from a new disc blasts over the speakers. Canaday names the tune just notes into it, dancing to the beat she calls addictive. "I really want this," she announces to no one in particular.

Canaday is an otaku, the Japanese word that many hardcore U.S. fans of Japanese animation and graphic novels have adopted to describe themselves. Her rental list is 20 DVDs long and growing. She buys what is "cool" or "rocks," and already has more than 150 discs and hundreds of books.

And she has been getting her fix from AnimeNation, just outside Westchase, at least twice a week "forever."

"They get stuff faster than Waldenbooks," Canaday explained. "They have more of a selection. The problem with Best Buy is, you never know if you'll get them all (the discs in a series). Here, you know they have it."

As the sign on the shop wall says, if you can't find an item on the shelf, just ask. The store keeps more than 8,000 items in stock. They have it because AnimeNation has quietly become one of the country's top two online retailers specializing in Japanese animation.

* * *
Owner Gene Field considers himself lucky to have stumbled into success.

After graduating from Clearwater Central Catholic High, Field, now 37, knocked around at odd jobs for a year, never finding anything that suited him.

He joined the Coast Guard, his father's profession, for an eight-year stint. Then he returned to an eclectic collection of jobs - clerk at CompUSA, airplane mechanic and guitarist among them - rarely holding a post for more than a month.

Nothing seemed to fit.

It was his hobby, of all things, that became his multimillion-dollar business.

The Internet as we know it didn't really exist in 1995. But Field enjoyed tinkering with the system, creating a fan site - really a single-page computerized bulletin board - featuring pictures from Japanese animated movies and television shows that he enjoyed as a kid.

Web page owners were charged by the visit at the time, and the site got so many hits that he couldn't afford the bill. But the people who saw the artwork began clamoring for more, asking Field to sell the movies they came from.

"I decided to take a chance," he said.

Thinking ahead, Field bought two copies for each title someone requested, and began creating a stockpile. When cash ran low, he sold the Volkswagen minibus he once had driven to and from Alaska, leaving him with just a bicycle to take orders to the post office.

"Anime was always an interest, kind of a hobby," he explained, sitting in his office filled with character art, figurines and other collectibles. "It just grew by itself once I put it online."

* * *
As it turned out, Field could not have had better timing.

Internet use was growing, along with interest in anime. He lucked into the business version of a perfect storm.

Animation was part of the Japanese film industry before World War II, with artists consciously moving to color animated movies for the international market in the 1950s.

By the 1960s, television became the medium of choice and some of the more notable characters such as Astro Boy and Speed Racer made their way to the United States. American fans were largely aware they were watching Japanese shows, as they had been culturally stripped in translation.

But they made the connection in the late 1970s, said anime historian Fred Patten. "Cult fandom" grew, Patten said, as people traded videotapes of shows they recorded off the Japanese stations in New York, Los Angeles and, sometimes, with friends in Japan.

Science fiction buffs, in particular, preferred the stylized art and mature themes of the Japanese shows over the more childish fare of American animation.

"Fans were always asking for Japanese animation to be made commercially available in the United States," Patten said.

The Star Wars generation warmed up to the Japanese Robotech, but anime was still far from the mainstream.

"The professional companies putting out videotapes in the 1980s said, "Nobody in the U.S. is really interested in that, except you freaks,' " Patten said.

By the late 1980s, some early anime fans were making money and starting companies to bring the films and programs to the U.S. market. The 1988 release of Akira, an apocalyptic animated movie, pushed the genre to a new level.

"With the film Akira, you really had not only a kind of cult boom in Japanese animation, but something that really stood out as distinct," Yale University film expert Aaron Gerow said. "It wowed people."

The next three years saw the first round of startup companies licensing more and more titles for U.S. distribution, Patten said.

Mainstream chains saw there was money to be made. The SciFi Channel aired some of the most popular animes, and the industry got another boost.

So by 1995 - the year Field started his fan page and the for-girls action anime Sailor Moon premiered in the United States - the pump was primed for success.

* * *
At first, Field ran AnimeNation on a shoestring.

He had a small warehouse in Clearwater with a small staff, and barely scraped together enough money to print a 12-page catalog. He never intended to have even a walk-in store.

Then fans started dropping by and "we had to start a retail shop just to keep people out of the warehouse."

Within a year, his 12-page catalog had grown to 100 pages and 22,000 copies. The privately held company now has a mailing list of more than 70,000, and its Web site - www.animenation.com - has more links in the anime world than any other.

Field won't reveal actual sales because of competition, but says business is in the multimillions.

Sensing its growth might be big, Field and his business partner-wife, Connie, built a 15,000-square-foot warehouse five years ago in a light industrial park at Race Track Road and Countryway Boulevard. The company fits there comfortably with room to expand, and it's just a short commute from their Safety Harbor home.

"We're not small, but at the same time we try to market ourselves and separate ourselves from the Best Buys and the Amazons," Connie Field said. "When you call us, we are all fans."

As AnimeNation experienced success, general entertainment retailers also found their way to anime.

"We've really seen explosive growth over the last four years," said Beth Bingham, spokeswoman for Borders Books, whose outlets have expanded their anime and graphic novel sections exponentially to meet demand.

Disney recently started releasing the critically acclaimed work of Hayao Miyazaki, with Spirited Away - the tale of a young girl trapped in a spirit world who must find the courage to save her parents - winning an Academy Award in 2002.

The Cartoon Network airs anime during its afternoon Toonami programming and its after-hours Adult Swim. The latter slots were No. 1 in the September ratings for basic cable among 18- to 34-year-olds.

The network plans to debut two hot titles - the long awaited Fullmetal Alchemist and Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex - in November.

"I think anime has been around enough now that it has penetrated a broad mindset," said Terry Kalagian, the network's vice president for acquisitions and coproduction. "We see that evidenced by the success of Pokemon and the success of Yu-Gi-Oh!"

Mainstreaming is a double-edged sword, said John Oppinger, AnimeNation's resident anime expert. It makes the art form he and others obsess over more recognized. It also exposes viewers to "Americanized" anime.

One thing is certain, though.

It forced AnimeNation to rethink its future.

* * *
The ability to rent or buy Japanese anime at Blockbuster excited fans.

"But we knew it was a scary thing," Connie Field said. AnimeNation did not want to go the way of the mom-and-pop store.

"We had to compete with the mass merchants," Gene Field added, nodding.

That meant moving in new directions.

Already, AnimeNation had branded itself. Fans would use its Web site to buy products, and also to discuss the latest news and rumors about shows and characters. Oppinger had become a semi-celebrity at anime conventions because of his knowledgeable "Ask John" column.

The company name regularly came up - usually positively - in online chatter.

The next logical step, Gene Field said, was to license and distribute titles. After lengthy negotiations, the newly formed AN Entertainment released its first DVD, Risky Safety, to generally positive reviews in 2003. To see the first episode, visit www.animenation.net/anent/riskysafety/funbox.php?v=risky

AN Entertainment issued its second series, a more violent and risque Miami Guns, this year, and announced its acquisition of the hip cult series Hare+Guu for release in 2005.

AnimeNation also launched an online rental division, Rentanime.com. Customers can rent up to three titles at a time, with no set return date, for $19.95 monthly. When the DVDs become less popular, or have been circulated enough, they go into the company's used sale bin for half price.

* * *
Next year, AnimeNation celebrates its 10th anniversary, and the Fields are confident that success will continue.

"I saw the numbers in an article of what the industry is projected," Gene Field said. "Maybe $1-billion. It wasn't a small amount. I read Dragon Ball Z alone sold $100-million."

They plan to issue a full-color glossy collector catalog, propel Hare+Guu into the market and grow Rentanime.com, while also keeping an eye out for the next set of titles to license.

"We're trying to do it right, and not get ahead of ourselves," Gene Field said.

That's something Chris Maas of Town 'N Country expects.

Maas, 24, is such a fan that he named his son, Krylin, after a Dragon Ball Z character, and he's now trying to collect all the DVDs that feature the character for his son. He said he got into anime as a way to stay out of trouble, and quickly became an AnimeNation regular.

And though he could do all his shopping online, he comes to the warehouse and store instead, because of the personal touch.

"I use the online to find stuff, but I like to come in because I like the people," Maas said.

He headed off to rent some videos for the weekend that he hadn't already seen.

Luckily, he said, many on his list were available.
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ok i tyeped alot. i was off-line for 3 days writing all of this. anyway for all you guys that read gamefaqs boards it said "Apparently, an unnamed 4kids source has mentioned it on the gamefaqs boards, Studio Pierrot has mentioned a NA company has it, and it goes on and on....

Viz has said that the title is too expensive at this time to license.

Bandai has stated that the US fans have shot themselves in the foot with this title and that the Japanese company is now asking a large amount of money.

Funimation has denied having the license to Naruto.

ADV has denied having the license to Naruto.
my friend Tempest from the forums posted a statement that 4kids does not have Naruto followed by an "Oops, did I say that."
anyway Rumors are wrong 99% of the time.
Message boards where the administrators can't even monitor every board are not a great source of information. Anyone can lie and pretend to be anyone they want, and there's almost no accountability.

Furthermore, even if GameFAQs was well-staffed, 4Kids is not a gaming company; it is unlikely that an administrator would be inclined to recognize their status as an employee of 4Kids (or somehow lend credibility to that person's posts). You'll notice that we DO offer special titles to representatives.. but only of certain companies (specifically, anime-licensing or manga-licensing companies. Don't expect John Carmack from iD to get recognition unless he were working on an anime project). I don't believe GameFAQs does this for anime companies.

Finally, not all employees know everything about a company; a sorter in the mail room or a middleman paper shuffler might be a "company employee" but they're certainly not in the important decision-making processes. Even if someone works in licensing, it might be toy licensing or other products unrelated to the anime itself.

The result is that basically anyone can pretend to be an employee and, for a period of time, get away with that lie. Even if the employee is telling the truth, there's no guarantee that said employee holds any influence within the company, or is privvy to high-level business decisions.

IOW, only when the source is verifiable, trustworthy and reliable can their information be trusted. Use discretion before believing rumors; look for collaborating information.

And never, never, assume that what is written means anything more than what was written, even from a verified and trustworthy source. :)


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