A short article on Crunchyroll’s early simulcasts.
Via Anime Insider: Gonzo-Crunchyroll Simulcasting (June 2008)
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Tag Archives: Studio Gonzo
Via Anime Insider: Various Gonzo Shows (June 2005)
Contains one Gonzo-related poor business practices tidbit: Trinity Blood was rejected multiple times as a ‘mission impossible’ type of project, per director Tomohiro Hirata.
Via Anime Insider: Matt Hawkins (December 2004)
Top Cow President Matt Hawkins talks about why they decided to make a Witchblade anime with studio Gonzo.
Via Anime Insider: Chrono Crusade Sales Totals (June 2004)
In a very interesting claim, Gonzo Marketing Manager Kanna Tamada-Nielsen mentions that the first volume of the Chrono Crusade anime sold in excess of 20,000 copies (well in excess – her claim was that it reached that figure in preorders a month before the April release of the Japanese v1). This is *way* off from the 4332 volumes the Japanese sales wiki says it sold.
This is perhaps a typo or a mistranslation, but it seems odd that Tamada Nielsen would proudly claim a preorder total of, say, 2000 – that’s not something you boast about, even back then. Something’s list of contrasting claims pegs the biggest Oricon-distributer discrepancies at >45% for known cases. If accurate, this number would represent an Oricon ranking that only covered about ~22% of total sales for that volume at best. That’s a *huge* underestimation.
I’m not sure what to make of this from just the one statement, but I’ll be looking into this some more, and will definitely post if I find anything.
Via Anime Insider: Shoji Murahama on Samurai 7 (June 2004)
Gonzo President Shoji Murahama talks about getting the somewhat clandestine call to anime Samurai 7, other creative decisions regarding the show, and shopping it in the US.
Via Newtype USA: [inside] Gonzo (March 2003)
Along with an understanding of the broader context of the subject, the most vital ingredient to good anime coverage is a reliable source. So when US journalists actually interview people on the production side in Japan, it’s generally worth noting unless the interview consists entirely of fluff. This is the latest of what will hopefully be a couple more posts archiving articles from Newtype USA’s [inside] series of articles written by Amos Wong. This one talks about what-if superstar studio gonzo, years before bankruptcy filings forced their biggest talents to split off into David Production and Studio Sanzigen.
Note: Pictures are scans of the article made on my crappy scanner, which cover the article text but not the entire page. They’re also in greyscale, because I’m interested in archiving interview text and color scans make the process more of a headache than it needs to be. Apologies for that. Scans after the jump, along with comments on the contents of the article.
Fun With Numbers: Adaptations of Award-Winning Manga and the Myth of Madhouse
It’s fairly frequent among people who have started to get interested in anime enough to start knowing things about the people who make it find themselves encountering the names of certain directors and studios over and over. Kasai Kenichi excels at college life stories. Hiroshi Nagahama was the bold visionary who directed Mushishi. Perhaps one of the more preeminent studios in that regard are Madhouse and Gonzo, the studios behind Death Note and Gankutsou, respectively. They can flash those series names on “from the studio that brought you” title cards of the trailer for anything else they make, despite the fact that Madhouse made the Marvel anime and Gonzo hasn’t been run by the people who made Gankutsuou since 2008. I’m here to make the case for why Madhouse’s reputation, along with a number of others, may be a bit overblown. It’s not that they’re not making awesome anime, but they are picking source material that gives them a lot of help.
This situation with directors can sometimes be a bit like that of the quarterback in American football; they get too much credit when things go well, and too much blame when things go wrong. In reality, lots of factors beyond the men at the top contribute to an anime’s success. I’m here today to take a look at one in particular; the pre-production choice of high-quality of source material. What follows is a look at anime adaptations of Shogakukan/Kodansha Award-Winning manga, including observations based on both their relative frequency over the years, their strength as a function of which studio makes them, and their performance in the marketplace.
Final Review: Solty Rei (9/10)
When I set out to watch anime from the glorious annals of history, there are three general lines of attack I follow. First, I look for agreed-upon classics, shows everyone agrees are great and influential. Second, I look at catalogs, shows made by directors, writers, or studios that have a bunch of other impressive tics on their resume. Third, I listen to recommendations when people make them. Solty Rei, a 2005 sci-fi show about bounty hunter/parent Roy Revant and his two daughters, found its way to me via the second and third channels. The show ended up being a wholly worthwhile experience, an easy marathon that rightfully belongs in the early Gonzo catalog with its host of impressive titles.
Sell Me in 20 Minutes: Love Lab, Symphogear G, and C3-Bu
Woop, it’s Thursday, the day of massive-impact airing!* We’ll have to wait a week for Silver Spoon, but there’s a six-shooter’s worth of ammo to chew on in the meantime.
Sell Me in 20 Minutes: Dog and Scissors
Since declaring bankruptcy, Studio Gonzo’s spent years in the proverbial doghouse. What better way to celebrate that status than to produce an anime about dogs and sadism?
Animetics 