From Anime New Corporation –
Geneon Abruptly Exits Anime Industry
Today (Sept. 26) Geneon Entertainment notified retail customers of their decision to cease “the sales of DVDs and all related distribution and marketing operations as of 5 p.m. on Friday, September 28, 2007.” That marks the deadline for orders from their previously announced releases up through November 6. Anything after that date is expected to be canceled. This effectively marks the end of Geneon’s DVD distribution in North America.
Ray’s Take: no mockery from me this time. In some sense I feel a little guilty, because yeah, I bought anime titles but not a lot, and I think Mike gave me a legit copy of Castle of Cagliostro. I’m pretty sure I’ve never purchased anything from Geneon. Now it’s gone down for the count, the repercussion may very well be that the Japanese companies (animation studios, distributors, marketers and so son), will start trying to prosecute anime uploaders/downloaders. I doubt it’ll be effective against anyone outside of Japan. In any case, I really don’t think it should be a happy day for anime lovers in the US, because a nicer and less aggressive company who definitely helped the anime industry in US to grow, has gone down.
Geneon USA is not exactly down for the count, they are just getting out of the distribution side of the industry. They are going into the middle man, property management side of things.
yeah, but they often did issue great DVD packs, though…What a shame!