.:My 2 Yen:.
Tuesday, MAY 18, 2004
Anime Central – Geneon License Announcements
Maybe Geneon is getting revenge on ADV for getting "Nurse Witch Komugi" (the "SoulTaker" spin-off)? While I suppose it's a possibility, Pioneer will not likely have the balls to use the original Dub cast like ADV did for Komugi.
Does anyone else find it odd that Geneon licensed the Saiyuki sequel when ADV has its predecessor? Funimation did the same thing to both Geneon and ADV. How they did this to Geneon was, they took one of the Tenchi Muyo series (Tenchi Muyo GXP), and they saved DBZ from Geneon “butchering” it (because Pioneer just started dubbing at the time), and they stole from ADV by taking the Sakura Wars OVA (ADV Owns Sakura Wars TV). But jeez, can’t DBZ get a break. First people say Funimation butchered it, now it's Geneon. Regarding Tenchi Muyo, I don't think Geneon was interested in licensing it. Regarding Sakura Taisen, don't forget that Geneon has the movie. Multiple companies licensing the same property is nothing new. Geneon messed up DBZ more then FUNI. Funimation at least didn't combine episodes and never gave us an uncut version where you get the original version with extreme violence, nudity, original music, and middle fingers. But I’m not that mad at Geneon because they were just getting started. Geneon (then Pioneer) was a distributor. They had no control over the content of the tapes (other than, possibly, the box artwork). FUNimation did the dubbing and editing, but they had to appeal to a higher power: Saban Entertainment. Saban held the final say as to what could be and what could not be shown on TV. If you have any gripes about the 1st or 2nd seasons of DBZ, with respect to the quality of production, it's Saban Entertainment who you want to gripe about. Furthermore, Saban isn't even in the TV syndication business anymore; they sold that division off to ABC/Disney.
It not as odd as Disney funding part of Innocence then letting Dreamworks get the license, stupid Eisner. Wait… Disney had no hand in the production of Innocence. Ghibli was contracted out by Production I.G. to handle some of the animation production, but otherwise Disney has no connection. Be glad, had Disney got it without a no-edit clause Miramax may have done Shaolin Soccer on it.
Anyway, Geneon was simply their distributor for the DVDs, and they handled movies 1-3 (which were done bilingual and uncut). Blame Saban for cutting so much out of the dub that putting a subtitle track on the DVDs would have been impossible. And as for those first 3 movies, that's the best dub you'll ever see of DBZ.