AnimEigo Unable to License Rest of Yawara! Anime

Still, since AnimEigo originally announced the Yawara license in 2006, one might have thought they'd have mentioned they only had 40 episodes rather sooner than now. A lot of people are saying that this is due to rights issues with Kitty Media since they sold off their anime catalog in 2007, but I don't buy this - especially when they were able to release those 40 episodes in 2008. When AnimEigo licensed Urusei Yatsura, it was many, many years before they finished releasing the series in it's entirety, spanning the VHS and DVD eras - but they did finish it, most likely since they simply originally licensed the entire series in one go.

When considering the Yawara announcement, it actually looks as if AnimEigo specifically only licensed the first 40 episodes back in 2006 rather than the entire series when they presumably had the chance to do so. It does therefore make their latest statement an effective smokescreen, but from a financial point-of-view, this makes perfect sense since the series was never destined to be a noteworthy seller, and AnimEigo probably wanted to hedge their bets. With this latest admission that they're not going to release the rest of Yawara, coupled with the multiple anime licenses they've not renewed or preserved on DVD in recent years, this sadly pretty much cements AnimEigo's place as a former anime licensing company.

Due to AnimEigo's foundation and early history there is a perception of them still being a viable anime licensing company, but the last 10 years tell a different story. There was the odd anime re-release throughout the last decade, but aside from the acquisition of (40 episodes of) Yawara in 2006, one of the last totally new anime licenses from them was the You're Under Arrest television series in 2000. AnimEigo largely switched to releasing live-action samurai films years ago, and at this point it's really only their name that points to their original remit. In fact I'm surprised they never changed their name years ago - I bet they've at least thought about it, if only to get disappointed anime fans off their backs!
 
I don't want to badmouth Robert Woodhead considering all the efforts and good PR his company had with the fans (Thanks for the Wizardry tips, Rob!) but news of this really makes me sad, not only as an anime fan but as a Yawara! fan considering how Yawara! is one of my favorite anime series ever. I was hoping that AnimEigo would release the entire series but if there is no financial return to be had and no demand even by fan standarRAB, then it is perfectly understandable from the company's perspective to do this. I'm just hoping that Rob will issue a notice apologizing for this inconvenience to the fans who really wanted to get Yawara! in its entirety.
 
Hopefully if this is licensed by someone else (doubt it) they won't simply re-license the first 40 episodes again. In fact, whatever company that ever tries to should just license the rest of the series and forget the first 40 episodes because all the fans of Yawara already have it.

Of course, it would be different if this is like 20 years from now.
 
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