Geneon USA going out of business DVD drive

In a letter to retailers that became public on September 26th, Geneon Entertainment (USA) Inc., one of the major distributors of anime in North America, announced its plans to stop selling DVDs. It stopped taking orders from retailers as of the 28th, and also stopped soliciting releases with street dates after November 6th. (ANN coverage). Though we continue to watch the situation, it looks unlikely, after the failure of their deal with ADV, that Geneon will be able to hand off their entire catalog to another US anime company. Instead, many industry observers are predicting that all of the company's titles will go out of print, with Geneon or the Japanese rights-holders renegotiating distribution licenses with other US companies on a title-by-title basis. Titles with poor prospects for future sales might not be relicensed at all.

We've had a long record of purchasing anime from Geneon (formerly Pioneer LDC) for showings and circulation in the library, and had a significant list of titles we hoped to purchase from them in the future. But because of this announcement, it appears we'll need to acquire any remaining titles we want on an accelerated schedule. In order to stretch our limited acquisitions budget, we're asking members of the club to help by "sponsoring" series. The table below contains a list of series we still need some or all of the discs of. If you recognize a good series other people should get the chance to see, you can help us by either donating a copy directly or donating funds for us to purchase a copy. Your donation can be recognized with a notation here and on the circulating DVDs, or if you prefer can be anonymous. In either case, donations to the club are tax-deductible.

If letting us do the purchasing, you can contact us for a more precise cost estimate, or let us apply any remaining funds to other priorities from this list. We'll take cash or a check made out to "MIT Anime Club".

If purchasing yourself, you might want to take a few minutes to find a good price; the estimates in the table are based on non-sale prices from RightStuf.com, which is just one of many online retailers. Anime on DVD has links to some of the best anime-specific ones, or you can use a price search engine like the one at DVDPriceSearch. We don't mind if you want to take a few weeks to watch the DVDs yourself before handing them over, but tell us what series you're buying first to avoid duplication.

To sign up to sponsor a series, or for corrections, additions, or comments about this drive, email , or talk to Stephen or Jennie at a showing or their office hours.

Key to notations: A "/" in the "Buy what?" column means we only need to get some of the discs in a series: if we already have volume 1, but need volumes 2 and 3, that's "2/3"; the next column will mention which specific ones we have. "box" indicates cases where it would be most cost effective to buy a boxed set: sometimes this can be cheaper even if we already own some of the discs. Parentheses in the "Buy what?" column represent series that look like they'll be left incomplete: the number in parentheses is how many volumes it would have been if the release finished as planned. "circ." is short for "circulated (in the library)"; a show we "sampled" is one for which we showed just a few episodes, often from the beginning. "LD" refers to Laserdiscs, an obsolete video format which has some archival value but is inconvenient for circulation or showing.

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