A weekly look into American otaku culture

So ADV finally got the call from legal, so here comes some major announcements. The first new title is Jinki Extend, and we were treated to a screening of the first episode. It’s the story of a normal Japanese school girl who somehow stumbles upon battling giant robots. While the main girl is pretty cute, and there were a couple of funny bits here and there, there was nothing that really set this series apart from all the other mech series out there.

They did announce a new direct order service they will be offering on their website for custom made anime t-shirt. You pick the image, size, and color, and they’ll print it and ship it to you. Cool idea. Maybe I’ll give it a try when they put it up.

The 10th Anniversary Edition of Evangelion will include a limited edition jacket with a black-on-black Eva image on the back. I guess when you hold it up to the light, it looks cool. But other then that, it just looks like a plain black jacket.

They finally got the rights for the Elfed Lied OVA episode. Since they have already put out the entire series, so they are unsure as to how to release it.

Once again, ADV is stressing the possibility of having downloadable content in the near future for them. They really think that will solve a lot of the problems with DVDs not being so profitable for most of the series that are imported here. As far as pricing goes, it would be depending on the resolution. They are currently offering downloads on cell phones for $3 / episode.

But the biggest remark came about when the CPM bankruptcy came up. Dave got really angry over the idea, and has very strongly declared “We have been spending the past two years positioning ourselves to come out on top.” I don’t doubt them for one second. I really think they are going to the company what will keep the industry alive.

One thing that Dave stressed is that the reason why ADV has been so quite lately is that they are working on some major, ground-breaking stuff. These innovated ideas like the custom made t-shirts and downloads may be hit-or-miss, but if something hits, it will create something big. So not only will they stay on top, I predict that they will the force behind whatever the next stage of anime in the USA.