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Monday, December 6, 2004


In their first month on Adult Swim, Fullmetal Alchemist and Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex showed an impressive average growth of 92% and 79% respectively over the same time slot last year among adults 18-34. With men 18-34 increasing 72% and 44%, the bulk of the growth came in the form of newfound female viewers, increasing 130% during Fullmetal Alchemists time slot and 168% during Stand Alone Complex's time slot.

Overall, Fullmetal Alchemist averaged 492,000 adult 18-34 viewers while Stand Alone Complex averaged 428,000.

Adult Swim continued to be the number 1 programming block on basic cable for adults 18-34 in November and grew its audience in that demographic by 24% overall compared to a year ago, with the 18-34 female audience increasing by 88%.
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Go Fish pictures recently reported that Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence recently passed $1 million in box office sales in North America. Innocence now ranks as the ninth highest grossing anime released theatrically in North America.
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UK tabloid, the Daily Mail, recently published an editorial reaction to a report of a list of manga that the UK Reading Society is making for consideration in UK schools to encourage more reading. The article is entitled "Child murder, incest and rape... is this really how our schools should be encouraging boys to read?"

The article starts out with the quote, "GRAPHIC Japanese comic book, infamous for the violent and pornographic content of their adult version, are being sent to schools by a government-funded agency."

The UK Reading Soceity states that it has screened the manga to make sure that the content of the recommended titles is appropriate for 13-to-16-year-olds, but the Daily Mail goes on to suggest that the children will become hooked on manga and go on to seek more violent and pornographic manga.

The article appears on page 49 of the November 21st edition of The Mail on Sunday.
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Websunday reports (Japanese) that "Detective Conan - Conspiracy Above the Horizon" will be released in Japanese thaters on April 9th, 2005. A poster for the new movie is available in the current (January) issue of Shonen Sunday
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Urban Vision has solicited a pair of Ninja Scroll boxed sets for may 10th, UV's first release since the June release of Ninja Scroll TV volume 3. The regular box set will retail for $59.95, while the Tin set with action figure will retail for $69.95.
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Bandai's Mobile Suit Gundam Movie Collection and Geneon's Requiem from the Darkness DVD 1 + Artbox have been discontinued. The companies will no longer be manufactuing / distributing these releases, although they may still be available in some stores.
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Tales of Phantasia Licensed?
The recently released Tales of Phantasia OAV, based on the popular Namco console game, lists Geneon Entertainment (USA) Inc.
[Kidotaku]:This was known ever since the trailer was released about 3 months ago.
It's being Co-Produced by Geneon USA.
IOW, you can go ahead and assume it's licensed in the credits. BTW. It starts out like the game, but it skips straight to the battle against Dhaos' minions in the snowfield.(back to the news)Presented by Chad Kime, the Pioneer panel started off with a brief explanation on why they changed their name to Geneon, and how the name was chosen. This helped alleviate some confusion amongst fans as to why the name change was necessary.

Shortly afterwards, he named some of the upcoming Geneon releases, such as the Snow Fairy Sugar Special, which would be packaged with shampoo bottles. The Mahoromatic Summer Special would also be released, along with a Mahoro action figure and an optional empty box for the first and second seasons. The boxes would also be sold separately to consumers.

An outline of Geneon’s release schedule for the upcoming months was also given, along with details about some of the releases. Of particular note, Geneon has licensed Hajime no Ippo / Fighting Spirit and will release it on DVD in July. Geneon will also release Gungrave in a seven volume set with the original Nightow art that was one the Japanese box set. Gungrave will include a Dolby Digital 5.1 mix for the English track and a DTS 5.1 mix for the Japanese track. The R.O.D. the TV releases will also feature DD 5.1 mixes for both languages. Ai Yori Aoshi ~ Enishi ~ volume 1 special edition is to be released in July and will include an artbox, and a capsule figurine, the remaining SE volumes will also include the figurines.

In August Geneon will release a 2-disc Memories soundtrack that will include several tracks that were left off the original release. They will also be releasing Dokkoider and Ikki Tosen (which they will not be calling Battle Vixens).

In September Geneon will release a title called "The Gregory Horror Show," a non-anime CG that Kime referred to as "really weird". The first volume of Stellvia will also be released in September.

October will hail the release of Satoshi Kon’s Paranoia Agent, and the live action Omniyoji 2.

During the question and answer session, Kime gave more information about Geneon’s current plans. There are tentatively 15 volumes planned for the Hajime no Ippo TV series. Nothing is currently known about Hajime no Ippo properties other than the TV series. Also, more Lupin III TV episodes have been licensed, but it is unsure of how many more were acquired.

Geneon has no current plans to release any more Japanese artist CDs (like Yuki Kajiura's Fiction and Yoko Ishida's Sweets). Kime cited Tofu’s current release plans and inherent competition as a possible deterrent, but said that it was not a definite decision. There are no planned game soundtracks at the moment, as the .Hack CD was just an experiment.

When asked about the Geneon acquisition process, Kime said that oftentimes, the company didn’t get to preview the series before the parent company told them what to license.

Regarding Sailor Moon, Kime confirmed that their Sailor Moon licenses would also be expiring soon and that they were not renewable. The movie licenses will expire late this year, and the TV series will expire sometime sometimes afterward.

Responding to another question regarding licensing, Kime stated that it was not always 100% certain that Geneon Entertainment (USA) would distribute titles that it co-produced.


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