Rom-coms… Feelings appear to be mixed by you all. Some of you are interested in such things. Which is cool. Others are saying we should strictly do alt comics and leave the rom-coms to Seven Seas. And that is also an idea.

However, as we have said, without mainstream works we will eventually close shop. And with yet another year in the red (in debt) our new owners are asking for changes.

So while the changes will not occur in 2013 cause we licensed all those books in 2012, 2014 will look increasingly different. Keep that in mind when you request books in the future. And keep series short. We want strong mainstream titles, period. Whether they are rom-coms or sci-fi works send them to us. And while we will occasionally look at an alternative comic, it better be a one-shot.

Vertical Inc. recently underwent a shift in terms of what it was willing to license in the past 18-24 months, owing to the need for successful titles with mass appeal in order to at least break even and get out of making losses.  Vertical has also not been shy about the need for getting out of the red in recent months, especially as its current owners are more demanding regarding financial results and its marketing director in Ed Chavez is usually quite blunt about what does and doesn’t work in terms of sales.

Currently, the publisher is on a big push with Utsubora, Kyoko Okazaki’s Helter Skelter, Satoshi Kon’s Tropic of the Sea, and Summer Wars coming later this year, pushing the Flowers of Evil manga while the anime adaptation is still running for maximum sales and pushing Gundam The Origin simultaneously along with Knights of Sidonia.

Industry Panel: Digital Manga and eManga.com
Join our panelists as they demonstrate eManga.com, the digital, download-to-own manga bookstore and highlight the newest features and releases. Print book announcements, giveaways, and a crowd-pleasing announcement about Yaoi-Con are also headed your way at Fanime, so don’t miss out! You can catch the panel Saturday at 12PM in Panels 2.

Industry Panel: Hentai by Project-H
Get a jump on Fanime’s late night hentai antics with Project-H, the quality hentai imprint for the discerning fan. Ever wonder what’s up with all the blurred out bits? We’re here to answer all your hentai questions, talk about today’s American hentai market, give you a sneak peek at the Project-H licensing process, and give away some free swag! Come prepared – Fanime will be checking IDs, since this panel is very 18+. You’ll find us in Panels 2, Saturday at 9PM.

Specifications

TigerDirect – Seagate 750GB Momentus Mobile Hard Drive

(via NeoGAF)

Unlike Nihei’s past works, this one is set in a far future where humanity’s existence as we know it is dead and gone, replaced by a race of evolved humans which can do neat things we currently can’t, like photosynthesize light, eat once a week and generally are stronger. That is until we’re put in the shoes of one Nagate Tanikaze, a normal human being who has spent his entire life in the underground levels of a spacefaring ship in the Sidonia.

Life on the Sidonia for Nagate is hard, what with struggling to find enough food for himself and his elderly grandfather while always being curious about what life on the upper levels of the Sidonia is like.

His grandfather warns him never to take the left-hand path outside of the underground level when foraging for food before he dies, but in a stroke of bullheadedness, Nagate takes the path which leads him to a food storage facility stocked with rice, only to drop into a previously unknown to him residence district which features the more advanced humans after being caught stealing rice for himself.

It’s at this point where the story really begins to get moving, when he’s discovered by one of the more advanced residents and is sponsored for residency, which comes with its own set of rules and responsibilities, which include becoming a part of the ship’s defense force against the alien race antagonists in the series, known as the Gauna.

The Gauna have essentially destroyed the human race and ships like the Sidonia house the last vestiges while fighting against them. The alien beings themselves resemble a cross between a Gradius/R-Type mid-boss and a xenomorph while attacking the Sidonia’s defense forces by devouring them whole and assimilating them in order to fool the rest, in an impressively detailed, yet gruesome display of violence. Nagate is thrust head first into fighting the Gauna while struggling to adapt to his new home, but the overall pacing of the story doesn’t get bogged down with overly expository dialogue or breaking apart the action into segments with flashbacks.

The action scenes themselves are the real meat of the first volume as the are detailed in Nihei’s unique style, with sparse sound effects for the scenes in space really setting the mood of desolation, only to be interrupted by the destructive force of the Gauna, as they take one of Nagate’s companions for themselves and subsequently devour her and assimilate her whole in gruesome detail, with slight nods to Urotsukidoji for the more experienced readers and just as graphic in terms of sheer violence, all of which leads into Nagate’s first experience with the death of a comrade in battle, even though he used an old combat simulator during his underground dweller days as a means to pass the time.

Knights of Sidonia has the advantage of being a currently serialized title, so this one will continue for awhile. Publisher Vertical Inc. also did a great job with the treatment of the first volume by including color insert pages at the beginning of the book which heighten the sense of scale and desolation in the Sidonia’s seemingly never ending battle against the Gauna while foreshadowing the events in the book itself. Knights of Sidonia is Nihei at his best visually while offering up a tighter narrative compared to his previous works.

If he can keep the narrative this coherent and avoid getting sidetracked, Knights of Sidonia is another hit for Vertical while continuing its pattern of releasing riskier fare compared to other publishers. Let’s just hope it isn’t doomed to obscurity due to lower than expected sales.

Knights of Sidonia is published by Vertical Inc. The first volume was released on February 5th and a review copy was provided by the publisher for the purposes of this review. The book can be purchased through the following storefronts: Amazon|RightStuf|

Digital Manga Publishing has announced via PR and a message posted on its Digital Manga Distribution page that it has shut down its own internal wholesale distribution division in Digital Manga Direct as of January 17th with the last retailer orders being fulfilled until February 28th on a first-come first-serve basis and contingent upon availability of requested titles. Heavy discounting of ordered titles is also being done for those who place orders until the end of next month as the warehouses for the wholesale direct order operation are being cleared out.

The division was responsible for fulfilling both wholesale and retailer orders of Digital Manga Publishing titles, as the publisher initially did not go through more conventional wholesale channels for fulfillment of retailer orders and opted to fulfill such orders directly through its own wholesale distribution channel.

From now on, Digital Manga Publishing will fulfill all wholesale/retailer orders via Diamond Distribution’s Diamond Comics division while continuing to operate its Akadot Retail online storefront and eManga/Project-H portal for digital manga sales, with no further changes to the publisher’s business organization. Since the publisher is now relying solely on Diamond Distribution for retailer and wholesale order fulfillment of titles, Digital Manga Direct was likely seen as a redundant division and unnecessary for continued operation.

That the publisher is shutting down its own wholesale distribution channel shouldn’t be seen as a complete surprise, as DMP has been expanding its relationship with Diamond Distribution over the years to fulfill retailer and wholesale orders where its own distribution channel couldn’t handle the increased demand. Now that the transition is complete, retailers should have a much easier time with order fulfillment and management of DMP titles, especially for pre-orders of new titles and faster replacement stock of older catalog titles.

In December of 2011, I wrote an editorial on Aniplex’s angle on official imports after the first Fate/Zero Blu-Ray boxset was solicited at $399 after a 20% discount from Japanese MSRP.

At the time the editorial focused on how the initial reaction to the boxset and Aniplex in general leaned towards a general misunderstanding of how the company positioned its releases, as there was much complaining and overall petulant entitlement over the fact that the show was being sold for such a high price compared to domestic releases.

Now, with Friday night’s announcements of both the Nisemonogatari domestic limited edition Blu-Ray release being released almost simultaneously with the official import of the Japanese OreImo Blu-Ray boxset, we can see Aniplex’s strategy show itself in how it decides pricing for each release.

The Domestic Limited Edition: Nisemonogatari

Starting with Nisemonogatari, rather than taking a specific amount of Japanese inventory for itself and adding translation work for the pack ins and the series to release simultaneously with the Japanese version, Aniplex of America decided to produce its own version of the Japanese set (glaring error notwithstanding) in order to maintain the previous pricing floor with the previous Bakemonogatari set which was also produced domestically and identical to the Japanese set. This allows them to sell the Nisemonogatari set for $150 through RightStuf, albeit with significant distribution restrictions in order to avoid reverse importation to Japan. However, this still does not stop more savvy resellers from shipping copies to Japan completely.

In these examples, Aniplex of America has clearly decided that producing both series domestically with identical treatments to the Japanese version for identical pricing would be the best way to drive sales of both series, as the series have a wider audience and demand thanks in part to being made available to stream online legally before either series was officially slated for home video within the past year, reviving demand for Bakemonogatari in one case, and driving initial demand for Nisemonogatari in the other case.

While not as expensive as the Japanese boxsets even with the customary Amazon discounts and expected exchange rate fluctuations, there is still much hand wringing from the majority of fandom due to the timing of the release, as the Bakemonogatari boxset was recently released in November and Nisemonogatari is being released next month, with barely a three month gap between releases, making budgets for anime harder to manage for many, but not impossible to find the funds to do so.

Since it was expected that Nisemonogatari was to be solicited for release much later in the year due to the Japanese release schedule for the series being very recent, the fact that Aniplex announced it so soon also plays into their oft-repeated refrain of figuring out how to release series in a more timely manner.

Since Aniplex of America is a direct subsidiary, they have more leverage on what series to release and when as opposed to a domestic distributor operating at the mercy of master licensors with little recourse on what is decided without extensive negotiations, again tilted toward the master licensor and to the detriment of the licensee.

This is where AoA makes the most of its position in the domestic industry and puts pressure on everyone else in terms of licenses and releases despite a lower volume of new releases per year. The lower volume of releases and sales works in their favor since there’s more profit per unit sold, making the strategy viable despite its many detractors.

However, as I’ll attempt to explain below, the official import model that it relies on to sway importers faces its first real test with next month’s official import of the Japanese OreImo Blu-Ray boxset.

The Official Import: OreImo

Where as the above releases are a reflection of Aniplex’s seeming ability to tailor their release strategy to better take advantage of the demand for two popular and evergreen shows, their choice to directly import the existing limited edition OreImo Blu-Ray boxset and using current Japanese inventory with a set number of copies being set aside to have translated materials packaged inside them seems like a rare misstep in the execution of their usual official import strategy.

To begin with, OreImo has already received two previous releases in the US, one was an extremely limited Limited Edition DVD boxset in 2011 which sold quickly to fans of the show and those that made the best of the fact that there was no Blu-Ray release of the series.

As expected, the release completely sold through and more fans of the show popped up clamoring for the series to become available again in a cheaper version. Their wishes were granted last year when Aniplex released a barebones version of the series in a new set which was much cheaper than the collectors set but still did not satiate those that wanted a Blu-Ray version.

The long awaited OreImo Blu-Ray boxset was announced last night during Aniplex’s Live Panel, although after the initial excitement of the release wore off an hour later, more astute observers noted that the official pricing for the Blu-Ray box was $40 more expensive than ordering the boxset directly from Amazon Japan with the current exchange rate taken into account, with the set currently priced at $237.45 after conversion.

The boxset will be posted for pre-order on Monday the 21st for $278.98 after a ~15% discount from the $330 MSRP from RightStuf, which is leading many to question whether the boxsets were priced before the recent decline in the strength of the yen as a result of new fiscal policies going into effect in Japan, which is a theory gaining traction with many importers.

However, outside of the pricing issue for the boxset, the biggest question is the availability of the market for this version of the series after two previous DVD releases.Since the series is now two years old on home video in the US after experiencing a bumpy start as a simulcast in 2010, who is Aniplex targeting with the Blu-Ray box at this point?

The series was more polarizing than popular in the US and the only people that stepped up to buy the series on DVD were the most intense fans of the show lacking an alternative on Blu-Ray, while the more casual fans of the series were simply satisfied with having a streaming option available.

Unless the listings on the 21st reveal additional details that aren’t immediately known now, there’s no incentive for anyone to double dip for more than ~$240 from Japan despite English subs not being officially listed on the Japanese box set, and even less with the official import at ~$280, unless Aniplex of America is treating the extra $40 as a kind of convenience fee.

I can’t imagine Aniplex of America operating under the mentality that people are blind to Amazon/HMV discount pricing in Japan, unless this was a case of being caught out by exchange rates when setting pricing, which I’m inclined to believe.

I’d normally have no issue with Aniplex of America’s pricing for the set, if this was the first release for OreImo on home video in the US to begin with, but it faces an uphill battle with this release because unlike Fate/Zero, it has a cheaper version already available and the potential market is substantially smaller than the market for Fate/Zero.

If it works out for them, their model still shows viability and is proof that it still works, two years on. If it doesn’t, then it can be chalked up to a lack of attention to both local market demands and Japanese discount pricing. That’s not to say the official import model doesn’t work at all if this release doesn’t do well, it demonstrates that the strategy requires more attention to fine details than lower-priced domestic releases.

Conclusion: On the Incessant Complaints Over Pricing

As I addressed in the previous editorial, Aniplex were well on their way to establishing themselves as a collector oriented distributor and two years on, it seems that the majority of the fanbase still refuses to understand that fact. In fact, the complaints have only grown more pronounced and dare I say it, more entitled to the conventional inexpensive R1 release.

Unfortunately, nothing I can say will make these people understand that because they refuse to listen to reasoned explanations and dig their feet in, petulantly clamoring for cheap anime from Aniplex, reason be damned. The constant noise does tend to wear me out to the point where I’ve resorted to tuning it out as of late.

That said, I would like Aniplex of America to consider another label or brand for cheap collections of anime in order to get these people to both stop their incessant complaints and petulance about its anime releases being too expensive and to open up a wider market for its titles for those that aren’t dedicated collectors. Note that I am asking for consideration, I’m not telling Aniplex of America what to do.

As an idea, since it has such a publicly apparent better than average relationship with Funimation, it could consider sublicensing its directly held titles for a sublabel dedicated to budget releases while keeping the Aniplex side dedicated to limited editions, since Funimation seems to specialize in the budget area as of late. The sublabel could also open up multiple opportunities for expanded promotion between both companies outside of what is already being done across social media and other avenues.

With that, I leave it to you consider what I’ve written and form your own opinion.

A couple days ago, I got an email giving me the heads up on a new competitor to Anime-Planet and My Anime List and My Anime List, both being rather well-known anime cataloging sites meant to help people keep track of what shows they’re watching as well as providing a social component. Enter Hummingbird, a new anime cataloging site with what the founders hope to be the ace in the hole for the site in a user-powered aggregated recommendation engine.

According to the founders Josh Fabian and Ralph Wintle,  the idea for the site came about due to the founders struggling to figure out what anime to watch and changes the rating system with a simple binary Yes/No rating system for titles. Since the binary rating system is supposed to simplify things and is meant to take the guesswork out of the difference between a more conventional 3.5 and 4 star rating for a particular show, the founders are betting that the simplified system will make for a better recommendation engine overall than relying solely on multiple star ratings and reviews.

The site is currently invite-only (I’ve already requested an invite) and the site is a few months away from launching. Ostensibly, to emphasize that Hummingbird’s biggest competitor is MyAnimeList, it wants users from that site to be able to easily import their ratings and reviews and has implemented a MAL account import option for interested users.

Click for full-size

I hope to have an interview with the founders of the site soon so I can get a better sense of what they want to accomplish with Hummingbird, as MAL and Anime-Planet are pretty entrenched in fandom. This looks like a decent alternative, but there’s a reason I don’t personally use either Anime-Planet or MAL and Hummingbird would have to offer something more compelling for me to start using it over the others.

Project – H 2014 License List by Humberto Saabedra

This is a review I’ve wanted to write for awhile but commitments outside of the site kept pushing it off. Originally I had reviewed the first version of Starship Troopers: Mobile Infantry on iOS with the goal of praising the teams at Spectre Media LLC /Indestructible Cannon for developing such a fast-paced and difficult game that was actually fun to play and a challenge, unlike the vast majority of action/adventure games on the platform.

Then the updates to the original version hit late last month, which significantly made the game easier to play after taking player feedback into account, with the majority of users complaining that the game was too fast and too hard to beat. So, taking into account the newest updates and realizing that my initial review was essentially outdated, I set out to borrow an iPod Touch to review the game again and did so taking into account the changes in the latest updates.

In the game, you take the role of the Runner, generally chasing down bugs and killing them while managing your weapons and items and rushing through multiple stages.  While the initial release of the game had me on the edge of my seat as I hustled frantically to keep up with the game, the latest updates made it much easier to dispatch enemies and earn powerups/drops/credits to buy more powerful weapons, including a set of lead boots that make the player character react even slower to ease the speed of play in the game, a nice touch for complete novices who may not be able to handle such an initially fast-moving game, but it makes the game too easy for an experienced player like myself.

On top of the running mechanics the game also features cover fire mechanics similar to Gears of War for select stages and even quick time events, should a bug happen to grab your character from behind as you’re trying to kill them all.

Fortunately the controls for the above situations are very responsive, with the QTE  swiping elements being easy to control and swiping for both aiming and shooting being accurate, though some have complained that just pointing at the bug enemies automatically triggers fire without much effort, something I didn’t notice in playing the game.

For $1.99, you could do much worse for gaming apps on iPhone and Starship Troopers Mobile Infantry is one of the better examples of an above average action game on iOS, especially for the price. It’s not as polished as some of the more well-known iOS games in the graphics department, but with such a high level of play and enjoyment on tap, being shiny is the least of my concerns when playing mobile games, what matters to me is that it plays well above all else and it justifies its reason for being outside of being just another tie-in. Mobile Infantry succeeds on both fronts and the teams at Spectre Media LLC/Indestructible Cannon should be proud of the work they did.

With the game also serving as the tie-in to the Starship Troopers Invasion film directed by Shinji Aramaki, the game also serves as a great example of the tie-in doing justice to its source material, even if the source material itself is a bit flawed.

Starship Troopers Mobile Invasion is on iTunes for $1.99. This review was conducted using a purchased copy of the game (version 1.2) and a borrowed 5th Gen iPod Touch.