Revived Geneon USA Licenses Everything

GRIMES, IA–The once moribund Geneon Entertainment (USA), its fortunes revived by an anonymous $5 billion bequest, has licensed all past, present, and future anime for North American release.

“This is a huge victory for the future of anime in America,” Eiji Orii, the CEO of Geneon USA. “Now there will be no more need for fansubs of any kind, ever again. We would like to thank our anonymous donor for his kindness and generosity in making this possible.” When asked for any clues to the identity of the donor, Mr. Orii smiled slyly. “Let’s just say that he is not Japanese and he runs a very large review site. That’s all I’ll say.”

Reaction from other American anime distributors–such as Funimation, RightStuf International, ADV Films, and Viz–was resigned, yet hopeful. “This means I’m out of a job,” Matt Greenfield, co-founder of ADV, said with a sigh. “But, it also means that no one has any more excuse to fansub. I think on the whole, it’s a step forward for the industry. The artists can finally get paid beyond the measly below-minimum wage that they get paid now.” Geneon USA has stated that they plan to leverage the distribution networks, sales staff, and dubbing studios of all the now-defunct companies and bring it all under its wing.

Meanwhile, the fansubbing community is an uproar. Many formerly “white-hat” fansubbers who previously stopped when shows were licensed have instead rebelled, vowing to continue their activities. The popular torrent site animesuki.com, which has a history of complying with industry requests, has agreed to shut down immediately. However, the other popular site, Tokyo Toshokan, has stated that it will continue. Speaking anonymously, the founder of Tokyo Toshokan said, “We plan to move our servers to Sweden to join our brothers, The Pirate Bay. Heck, if the RIAA, the MPAA, and the Swedes can’t shut them down, what makes Geneon think they get us?”

Mr. Orii was asked for his reaction to the above statements. He grinned malevolently and said, “Listen up, pirates: we have money now, beyotch! We can sue you farther than Naru can kick Keitaro’s butt into the sky! Plus,” he added, calming down, “we have also bought Crunchyroll from ‘Shinji’ for a considerable sum. You can watch every anime ever made and will be made, for just a low $100 per month for a total of 1 view for each file. The HD versions will cost $200 a month.”

Faced with this news, Anime Diet, along other anime blogs dependent on the watching of fansubs, has announced that they will thus be shutting down as well.

Author: gendomike

Michael lives in the Los Angeles area, and has been into anime since he saw Neon Genesis Evangelion in 1999. Some of his favorite shows include Full Metal Alchemist, Honey and Clover, and Welcome to the NHK!. Since 2003 he has gone to at least one anime convention every year. A public radio junkie, which naturally led to podcasting, he now holds a seminary degree and is looking to become Dr. Rev. Otaku Bible Man any day now. Michael can be reached at mike.huang@animediet.net. You can also find his Twitter account at @gendomike.

3 thoughts on “Revived Geneon USA Licenses Everything

  1. I don’t think they can stop the fansubs from coming out.

    Sure they can license everything, but many people would rather get things from FREE.

    So, let’s leave it as it is. And down with Geneon.

    PEACE THROUGH POWER!!!!!!!!

  2. This is, beyond a doubt, one of the more hilarious fake bits of news I’ve seen all day. Good job on this one. What this need next is a 1984-sque novel spinoff.

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