Manga UK Expo May 2010 Interview Video + Summary
A Summary of the recent MANGA UK interview
They currently believe SUB only release method is best used with downloads and streaming. But are considering sub-only DVDs if they think its financial feasible. They think its risk to release to release SUB only here as they haven’t got the several territories to sell too as BEEZ do. If they do release SUB only DVD release it would have to a be well known series already in the UK and have already sold well before in the UK.
Evangelion 1.11 sold 3000 in its first week with 60% of the sales on Blu-Ray.
They are unlikely to release upscaled Animes to Blu-Ray like Funimation are currently doing in the states.
They are trying to license Welcome to the Space Show Movie.
Eden of the East will probably use Madman master but as with all their Blu-Ray release they will be using Funimation masters as it works out cheaper. They don’t have the rights to the movies just yet but they hopefully will get them if the series sells well.
FMA: Brotherhood was licensed from Aniplex and not sub-licensed from Funimation. They currently use Funimation’s video for the streaming version.
Sub-licensing an Anime from Funimation or Viz is not as profitable than licensing the anime themselves.
