Bandai Entertainment will stop shipping anime to retailers in November

Vash1306

Vash1306

CAGiversary!
To all anime fans who haven't bought all that they want from Bandai, get on it now before its to late!

Credit to WTK
Bandai Will Stop Shipping Anime to Retailers In November
Ken Iyodomi, who is the president of Bandai Entertainment, sent us over a letter this morning to give us a heads up on what we've known has been coming and just never had a date for.

He writes:
"I am writing to inform you that Bandai Entertainment Inc in discontinuing its home video publishing and distribution business effective March 1, 2013.

As we methodically wind down the business, the last day that Bandai will be accepting any purchase orders is November 15, 2012, with our last shipments occurring on November 30th, 2012.

On Behalf of Bandai Entertainment Inc, I want to express our gratitude for the opportunity we've had to do business with your company, and I think you in advance for your understanding and assistance during this period."
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Well, we all knew this was coming up. While Bandai's remaining catalog of Anime release will 'officially' go out of print in November, I just want to remind everyone that quite a few of their SKU's have already stocked out and others will probably sell out prior to the Nov cutoff, so if you need to pull the trigger on any of their stuff, don't wait too much longer.

This also means that current backorders for existing products are less likely to be filled, but we will do whatever we can to bring in as much Bandai stock as we can afford to between now and November.
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via RACS
Several people have written in a little confused about Bandai's announcement last week that they will stop shipping to retailers in November. Most people want to know "what's going to happen to all their titles"? We'll here's the deal - effective Nov of this year everything in Bandai's DVD and BD catalog will officially go out of print (as will their entire selection of manga in October). Bandai has said they intend to shop some of these licenses out, but that process is likely to be slow and their back-catalog is just way to big to be absorbed into the market by the rest of the industry as it stands, so while it's likely that a few of the premium licenses will eventually end up getting re-released by someone else (hey Sentai, please pick up K-On season 1, OK?), I imagine most of their catalog will simply go dark. Now that doesn't mean that all their releases will just vaporize in November - retailers like us are currently scrapping together as much money as we can find to do big final buy-ins on Bandai's remaining stock, and at least for us, we're hoping to stock some of their titles pretty deep assuming we can get them. Over the next 6-12 months I would expect prices to rise for OOP Bandai titles that end up getting bought up quickly and become a little harder to find. This will, of course, result in the same bitching and moaning characterizing any price increases as greed and averice from the usual suspects who couldn't be bothered to pull the trigger on these titles for the many years they were available at the regular prices. Oh joy, I can't wait to read those people comments! :) But I also expect prices to decrease for a time on the titles that retailers choose poorly on and end up bringing in too much stock.

And before you ask, I have no idea what will become of Gundam - that series is an awfully big bite for another studio to try to take on. I fear the chances now that we'll ever see ZZ, Victory, or Turn a Gundam released in R1 are now pretty slim. ~sigh~

Anyway, we're going to go through the site during for the next couple of weeks and mark all Bandai releases as 'discontinued - limited to stock on hand' and also we'll be publishing a list shortly of all in stock Bandai titles so that you can see if there is anything you need before the lights go out in November.
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I was at Best Buy last night picking up Clone Wars: Season 4 on Blu-Ray, and noticed that they had both seasons of Code Geass, Anime Legends boxsets for $30 each. I went ahead and picked them up.

I'm missing G Gundam, Gundam Wing, Gundam Seed, and the two OVAs from My Otome. Aside from that I believe I have all of the Bandai titles I wanted.

I never watched any of the .Hack series, were they any good?
 
[quote name='Richard Kain']I was at Best Buy last night picking up Clone Wars: Season 4 on Blu-Ray, and noticed that they had both seasons of Code Geass, Anime Legends boxsets for $30 each. I went ahead and picked them up.

I'm missing G Gundam, Gundam Wing, Gundam Seed, and the two OVAs from My Otome. Aside from that I believe I have all of the Bandai titles I wanted.

I never watched any of the .Hack series, were they any good?[/QUOTE]

Thought .hack//Sign was decent the rest were awful.
 
Damn. I guess I have to pick up the Bandai Titles at my Best Buys before anyone else gets them. :lol: I hope no one in my area buys them. Since they've practically been there since forever.
 
Raided RightStuf's clearence bin and picked up Volumes 1 and 4 of Bebop Remix, Volumes 1 and 5 of Ghost Stories, Volume 1, 6, and 7 of Gundam Wing, Volume 6 of s-CRY-ed, Volume 6 of Panda-Z, and volume 3 of Infinite Ryvius. Had to put the Romeo x Juliet set on there to get above $50.

Also, if you are collecting Infinite Ryvius, get the last few copies of Volume 3 when you can. Amazon and eBay's copies are twice as much and more.
 
A couple box sets arrived today along with some other non-Bandai anime.

photoepq.jpg
 
Nice... Betterman is freaking amazing.

I hope to maybe find Hayate the Combat Butler & Tales of the Abyss before they start getting rare cause i bet they wont get relicensed. Tales might but Hayate probably wont.
 
[quote name='Olengie']Volume 8 is 40 at my local anime store. :lol:[/QUOTE]

The question is why is it still there? ^_-

That volume has been this expensive well before Bandai announced anything about discontinuation, so the insane value hasn't gone up because of that and has been that value for awhile. But it will probably be up even more now, so let me ask again. Why is it still there? >: (
 
I got lucky and scored a copy of Scrapped Princess Vol. 5 for $6 and FLAG Vol. 2 for $2.50 at a local used DVD/game/music shop a couple days ago. I picked up the rest of the volumes on the cheap from amazon and gohastings. I wasn't planning on getting anymore Bandai sutff but I couldn't pass them up when it cost about $20 for each series.
 
BTW, in case you don't know, the second Big O box sets (the ones with the Japanese logo) have changed theme songs from the older releases. There was some sort of lawsuit so the original opening theme (seen on the TV airings and Toonami promos) was replaced. So if you want people chanting "Big O! Big O, Big O! Big OOOOOO!" then get the older sets.
 
[quote name='DNukem170']BTW, in case you don't know, the second Big O box sets (the ones with the Japanese logo) have changed theme songs from the older releases. There was some sort of lawsuit so the original opening theme (seen on the TV airings and Toonami promos) was replaced. So if you want people chanting "Big O! Big O, Big O! Big OOOOOO!" then get the older sets.[/QUOTE]

That drove me crazy when I first started watching the dvds.
 
Broke down and ordered GITS SAC on DVD after seeing an episode on Adult Swim for the 123435325 time. I realized as I was trying to fall asleep that I couldn't stop watching and needed this set, regardless of format. If it gets picked up for BD, I'll be pissed but I'd be more sad if I never ended up owning it.
 
Welp I bit the bullet and ordered Eureka Seven Collection 2 and Tenchi Universe (why not, it was $24).

Not a whole lot left I need to get, I guess that's a good thing...

Gundam 0080 and Big O season 2 are the next on my list.
 
[quote name='ProtoEXE88']I wish I could find a copy of Ronin Warriors for not $400... I don't think I'm destined to own the series sadly. [/QUOTE]

Just FYI, Ronin Warriors has been out of print for a LONG time - pretty sure it's been off shelves since 2006/2007.
 
Hey if anyone is looking for Scrapped Princess the complete set there are two auctions on eBay where the current bid is $15. One of them is in collectibles for some reason, though.
 
The only thing I have left is haruhi season 2. Still not sure if I should pick it up or not, since it had that whole endless 8 thing. Any advice?
 
The Endless Eight eps pissed me off, tbqh. I would've liked it a lot more if they had different gimmicks every episode like the English VAs wanted. With that said, you should get it for collection purposes, if nothing else. You wouldn't want an incomplete series, would ya?
 
I ordered the two My Otome OVAs in a recent visit to Right Stuf. They weren't on sale, so they were a bit more expensive than I would prefer. But they are also Bandai, and I already have the complete collection of the rest of the series. I threw Gundam F91 and Char's Counterattack on the pile while I was at it.

I looked around for Scrapped Princess, but apparently that series went out of print several years ago, and it's already quite rare. Missed the boat there, I'll just have to keep my eyes peeled.
 
[quote name='Richard Kain']
I looked around for Scrapped Princess, but apparently that series went out of print several years ago, and it's already quite rare. Missed the boat there, I'll just have to keep my eyes peeled.[/QUOTE]

There is a complete set for $15 ($7 shipping) and Vol 5 for $19.99 on eBay. The other 5 volumes are relatively easy to find.
 
[quote name='Doomstink']Just FYI, Ronin Warriors has been out of print for a LONG time - pretty sure it's been off shelves since 2006/2007.[/QUOTE]

I am aware of that, it never even crossed my mind to look for it until recently... this may be a series where I may have to buy the bootleg on ebay for $30 D:
 
my copy of escaflowne just came in the other day, was looking at betterman. Was also thinking of hording some of the popular ones, Code geass, Eureka Seven, Cowboy Bebop. Seems like a pretty safe investment.
 
Found a copy of Cowboy Bebop at BB the other day for $35, which is surprisingly way lower than Amazon and slightly cheaper than RS. Snatched it up and I think I'm good on Bandai titles that are must own for me.
 
So, I am currently clearing out my Gundam DVD bag (Yes, I have a DVD bag dedicated to Gundam. Harriet Carter has decent things every once in a while) when I found Gundam SEED Destiny Final Plus. At first I was going to save it for the next Best Buy Upgrade & Save promo, but then I decided to look it up on eBay for the hell of it.

Cheapest price: $34.99

Yea....not going to be recycled yet.
 
Best Buy sells the Final Plus OVA for $5. If you're lucky enough, you can find them at your local store. If you wish, you can stock up on them and sell it for a profit, if anyone was willing to buy them. (I reckon now they should)

Amazon has it for 35.90 new and 23.94 used.
 
[quote name='Jodou']Found a copy of Cowboy Bebop at BB the other day for $35, which is surprisingly way lower than Amazon and slightly cheaper than RS. Snatched it up and I think I'm good on Bandai titles that are must own for me.[/QUOTE]
Amazon had it at $35 for quite a while until a few weeks ago. No idea why they went and bumped it up to $50.
 
Hasn't really affected any of their other Bandai DVDs except for when they go OoS with Amazon and it switches to a 3rd party seller.
 
[quote name='Tsukento']Amazon had it at $35 for quite a while until a few weeks ago. No idea why they went and bumped it up to $50.[/QUOTE]

because God forbid OOS anime doesnt skyrocket in price. not to get into the whole flipping argument here but this is one example of why i hate the flipping concept as i am sure people have bought like 10 copies of stuff solely to sell it at a overpriced profit margin. and i think anime fans are taken the most advantage of when it comes to this just because anime will randomly go OoS with no warning at all half of the time. sure not in this case we all know about bandai but thats hardly the rule.

yes i understand capitalism so dont try and explain that to me and yes i am in fully support of capitalism but peoples greed gets to me sometimes.
 
That's why I usually try to get stuff within a few months of release date, so I don't have to pay those inflated prices.
 
[quote name='DNukem170']That's why I usually try to get stuff within a few months of release date, so I don't have to pay those inflated prices.[/QUOTE]

yea sadly though that is not always an option cause ya know my plan to have millions of dollars hasnt come to pass just yet
 
I barely have enough money to cover all my bills after buying DVDs/Blus. I never pay more than $35 for a release and I am perfectly fine waiting a few months for somebody to sell it for cheap at Amazon. Also never buy the Part 1/2 sets.
 
[quote name='kayne2000']because God forbid OOS anime doesnt skyrocket in price. not to get into the whole flipping argument here but this is one example of why i hate the flipping concept as i am sure people have bought like 10 copies of stuff solely to sell it at a overpriced profit margin. and i think anime fans are taken the most advantage of when it comes to this just because anime will randomly go OoS with no warning at all half of the time. sure not in this case we all know about bandai but thats hardly the rule.

yes i understand capitalism so dont try and explain that to me and yes i am in fully support of capitalism but peoples greed gets to me sometimes.[/QUOTE]
Definitely agree with you there. Just a few weeks ago, I was ready to buy Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team...only for it to quickly go OoS. New copies jumped from $23 to $70, while used jumped to $60. RightStuf ended up pulling it (along with some others, like Big O Season 1), while others such as Rob's Anime Corner turned around and slapped a "limited quantity" label and upped the price to $70.

It's horrible for those of us who genuinely wish to own the series' before they become impossible to own.
 
The OG 08th MS Team Anime Classics box set (which is much thicker but still had the same discs) is only $27 on Amazon.
 
[quote name='Tsukento']Amazon had it at $35 for quite a while until a few weeks ago. No idea why they went and bumped it up to $50.[/QUOTE]
I figured as much which is why I was happy with the purchase. Now I'm just nervous about my GITS order shipping because the estimated shipping is in December. :O
 
GitS is probably a danger anime since Bandai is dead and I am pretty sure Manga Entertainment hasn't really done anything in a few years. Not sure what it would mean for re-licensing (same with the first two Eva movies).
 
oh i thought funimation grabbed GiTS?

and the new eva movies i thought funimation was doing that?? that and they are still making the last two movies right??
 
[quote name='kayne2000']oh i thought funimation grabbed GiTS?

and the new eva movies i thought funimation was doing that?? that and they are still making the last two movies right??[/QUOTE]

Funimation does have the Eva movies, the third one hasn't even aired in Japan yet. ~ EDIT ~ 3.0 comes out November 17 in Japan.
 
[quote name='whippleman']Funimation does have the Eva movies, the third one hasn't even aired in Japan yet. ~ EDIT ~ 3.0 comes out November 17 in Japan.[/QUOTE]

sweet good to know. i love evangelion and the blu rays of the first two movies were amongst the best looking blu rays ive seen.
 
[quote name='kayne2000']oh i thought funimation grabbed GiTS?[/QUOTE]
As far as I know, the only Bandai title FUNi has ever picked up has been Love China, which was so long ago they've released two different sets of it. They may not even be able to get it even if they wanted to due to Manga Entertainment.

and the new eva movies i thought funimation was doing that?? that and they are still making the last two movies right??
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I was talking about Death & Rebirth and End of Evangelion.
 
ah well death and rebirth are the same thing arent they just death and rebirth is only 30 or 40 minutes of it? i know i bought that accidentally the first time i went to buy end of evangelion not knowing better lol

not that the GiTS bothers me as i am an avid GiTS(well i am a more avid evangelion fan so the old stuff doesnt bother me as i own it) fan and bought it all ages ago but so then who owns it manga or bandai or both?? and i'd like to think GITS is popular enough that funimation my try and grab it. i only wish i didnt have to resort to buying the blu ray of movie number 2 in the UK region

i though funi had bought bandai titles before at least i assumed so as i know theyve bought geneon titles.
 
In a recent ANNcast podcast a few people from Production IG (while plugging the "Kick Heart" Kickstarter) hinted pretty heavily at new GitS animated material toward the end of the episode. Take that for what you will about re-releases.
 
[quote name='kayne2000']so then who owns it manga or bandai or both?? and i'd like to think GITS is popular enough that funimation my try and grab it. [/QUOTE]
Both Manga and Bandai hold licensing rights. Manga has the movies wholesale, but the TV series (and Solid State Society) are co-licensed by Bandai and Manga, which will make things tricky when FUNi tries to pick up the license. This is also why a Platinum version of D&R and End of Eva were never released.
 
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