Recent News Thoughts

Instead of the usual separate posts about different news articles, I am going to combine this time.

Akimbo Goes out of Business
hurt the industry for this service to be shut down, it will certainly effect other companies who are doing the same thing. With major Cable/With all my recent interest in streaming anime, this one caught my interest. While Akimbo didn’t provide services similar to Crunchy-Roll, that is web based streaming of content, it was a service to let viewers pick and choose what shows they wanted to watch, and get them on demand. I think while it wont necessarily hurt the Industry, it may effect providers of simular services, good and bad. With the already many Cable/Satellite carriers offering there own on demand services (including the one I use myself), it’s hard to be a small company that wants to find a niche market. Akimbo did sign contracts with various anime licencing companies to make their content available to there users. One of these companies was ADV, a subsidiary of AD Vision who also happens to own the Anime Network. The Anime Network is available on quite a few major cable services; so while the thought of a service that provides anime to the mass market sounds like a good idea. Consumers will opt for the same service included in a package deal.

Vertigo Entertainment Developing U.S. Death Note Remake
Vertigo Entertainment has plans to develop a Death Note Remake for America. Vertigo who has worked on many of the Japanese-to-America horror films has set its sight on this animated series. After reading the article it is unclear if they plan on remaking the show, or if they plan on making a movie out of the show. I am split on how I feel about this. For the most part I appreciate the effects that go into American remakes, the stories tend to loose something in translation. If anything I hope that its going to be made into a movie, and not a TV show. This will allow for a higher budget for the film, (much higher then the average Japanese film) and for the most part be less of a risk then trying to make a television series. Viewers are fickle, and for the most part I don’t think that the average viewer will stay tuned to a Death Note remake week after week.