What will happen to Tenchi Muyo and Fushigi Yugi in U.S.?

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bragor

New member
Funimation didn't pick up Tenchi Muyo or Fushigi Yugi from Genon, which were 2 of the anime television shows/ova's that got me into anime.

Will they end up like Sailor Moon in U.S.?

They arn't my genre of anime anymore but they still were big parts of me getting into anime when I was younger.
 
It is believed that FUNi will eventually get Tenchi Muyo!'s first three series. Remeraber they just picked up 7 new Geneon titles, and they've said they are still interested in getting more. I don't know about Fushigi Yugi solely because I've never even heard of it.
 
Yeah, I hope Funi gets Fushigi Yugi sooner or later. Since it was one of Pioneer's more popular titles. And the dvRAB are harder then heck to find.
 
A really good new DVD re-issue of Fushigi Yuugi would be fantastic. I seem to recall both Tenchi and Foogey Yoogey cresting popularity at the tail end of the VHS era of DVD fandom, and while the shows were issued on DVD, it ended up being in the very early days of anime existing on DVD at all. As such, I think both sets ended up being pretty drastically under-produced relative to their overall popularity.
 
Honestly, I couldn't get into Fushigi Yugi, mostly because of certain main character, but I would still like it to be here

Not to mention Tasuki may as well be Lina Inverse's twin brother, because they act so alike


As for Tenchi, I would hate to see it go!!
 
I would have thought Tenchi would have been one of the first series of Geneon's that FUNi would pick up, given that FUNi licensed the later parts of Tenchi. It is a surprise that they have not picked up the whole series yet.
 
Really? You've never heard of Fushigi Yugi? That used to be my favorite anime. Man, I feel really old knowing that younger fans haven't even heard of it.

Edit: Oh wait, you're older than me...
 
Guys, give Funi a break. There must be a limit on how many titles they can pick up at any given time without the bubble bursting over, if you catch my drift.

Anyway, if they even picked Zero 'Overrated is my Name' no Tsukaima, they will pick a true classic like Tenchi eventually, as well.
 
Zero no Tsukaima is new and is an easy sell. The older an anime series is, the harder it is to sell it successfully on R1 DVD. Both the original Tenchi and FY series are going on fifteen years old now. Reissues would probably only be bought by die-hard fans.

ZnT is crappy and all, but if I was the license-buying guy at FUNi I would've picked it first, too.
 
Given her behavior for a good portion of the first half of the series, I can definitely understand that.



That's a good point. I never noticed it before, but Tasuki does act a lot like Lina Inverse. They both even have orange hair. That would explain part of the reason why Tasuki's my favorite character in the series.



I'm sure that the DVRAB are seriously hard to find in a store, but I found the two box sets for the series and the sets for the OVAs on Amazon easily. I bought most of them used though to save on money since the prices for new sets were ridiculously high. Even then it was kind of costly, especially since I bought the last half of the series and the OVAs when I heard that Genon was closing down so that I wouldn't miss the chance to get those DVRAB. Still, it was worth it since I got into a really great series. One advantage of Fushigi Yugi getting a re-release would be that it would probably be cheaper than the Pioneer sets. That and having them in more stores would make it easier for people to find them.

Considering that they have the OVA's to Tenchi Muyo and I think that the series did pretty well on Toonami, though I don't know that for a fact, I'm sure that the FUNimation will eventually pick up the rest of the series. They couldn't rescue all of Genon's titles at once and I'm sure that they would still be interested in picking up some more of their titles.

As for Fushigi Yugi, I'm not sure when or if they would pick it up. I love the series and I think that it would be great if it was released so more people could enjoy it too. I'm just not sure how well it was received before, but since it was one of Pioneer's more popular titles, I'm sure that it will eventually be released. Besides, the fact that they were able to dub and release the whole series and all three OVAs before must mean that they sold well enough before.
 
Fushigi Yuugi was really popular when it first hit, because it was exactly what a lot of younger fans who cut their teeth on Sailor Moon wanted to see: something darker that had a lot of the same shoujo elements and less formulaic writing. I'm not sure how it would go over now, given that the last big shoujo hit was Fruits Basket.
 
Not only did they get the third OVA, which they called Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki and released over 3 DVD's, but they got as many of the original VA's back as possible. The one person they were unable to get out of the original cast was Ryoko's VA, so they had Mona Marshall do the part because Marshall did Ryoko in GXP.
 
I can't speak to Fushigi Yugi, but Geneon Japan recently announced that they were releasing the three Tenchi movies on Blu-Ray in Japan. Not only that, but their release of the movies would include both the English dub and English sub. Considering that for Blu-Ray, Japan and the U.S. are in the same region, I think it is pretty clear that FUNimation will NOT be licenses the Tenchi movies.

Why?

Well, FUNimation's licenses today are for all forms of distribution from what I understand, including Blu-Ray. If Geneon Japan is releasing the movies on Blu-Ray w/ English dubs and subs, then that suggests they are hoping any U.S. fans wanting a Blu-Ray release of the movies will pay the outrageous Japanese prices and just import it. It also could suggest that Geneon Japan may be considering selling in the U.S. directly, though they'd have a problem seeing as how they bend over otaku fans in Japan with high prices that U.S. fans won't stand for.

I suppose if the price were right, FUNimation might agree to a distribution-only DVD release of the Tenchi titles, but when it comes to the canon OVA series (which Geneon named "Tenchi Muyo" for the U.S. release and corabined OVA 1, Night Before Carnival, and OVA 2 into a single entity), that would do this fan no good. If FUNimation isn't allowed to redo the subtitles from scratch and get the suckers right for once, then there's no reason for me to buy it. It would be a buy for those who continue to come into Tenchi fandom through GXP or OVA 3 from FUNimation though.
 
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