AIC Rights, the holding company with the rights to BGC, now has 'joint ownership' of the IP with anime megajuggernaut Toei.
- Joint ownership my ass. AIC hasn't had the money to do anything but half-assed Tenchi since 2015. This is Toei basically buying the IPs they wanted (Tenchi, Megazone, Zeorymer, BGC).
- They didn't take everything. El-Hazard was part of an AIC crowdfunding proposition, maybe a reboot could slosh around in the Big Isekai Money Pool for a time - but they didn't take that. Then again, more money probably went to the Megazone continuation than that, and they bought Megazone, so I assume they grabbed these IP's explicitly with rebooting them in mind. I doubt AIC is really in a position to negotiate terms and demand they take joint ownership of truly stupid properties AIC has, right? (Or maybe they did, Dangaioh is in there for some reason.)
- 2040 began and ended, and was co-produced with the now defunct ADV films, so a continuation of 2040 is out I think (thank GOD). And a continuation of 2032 would be difficult to say the least. Toshimichi Suzuki's dead; Shinji Aramaki's Production IG elite; Kenichi Sonoda's juggling time between running his family candy business and polishing up his Riding Bean OVA; Michie Tomizawa couldn't even be pried out of retirement to re-voice Rei in Sailor Moon Crystal so there's no chance in hell they could get her back for a continuation... and does anyone in Japan actually have any idea how 2032 was supposed to end? Or are those records lost to time, like tears in rain?
-So: Toei has money, has the rights to BGC, probably snatched the rights up with an eye toward an out-and-out threeboot. It's not impossible in light of various cyberpunk anime being planned: Blade Runner Black Lotus, Trigger's CP2077 anime, Ghost in the Shell 2045... but, wait, that last one wasn't actually good.
- Oh god. Given the present state of anime nowadays, the odds are that this hypothetical threeboot could be bad. Think: The last licensed BGC product was that fucking light novel where it rebooted the Sabers as schoolgirls. They could do that, in some blind effort to pursue the popularity of other LN franchises or whatever. Questions about whether cyberpunk is still a good backdrop to chart new worlds in sci-fi are irrelevant, BGC never aspired to that. So it could fail either for slavishly adoring the most boring parts of cyberpunk-y stuff, or for ignoring cyberpunk stuff in favor of, I dunno, doing isekai? Or making Priss a contemporary idoru? Oh god. Love Live Crisis. Love Live Crisis: The Gacha Game.
I don't know what to think anymore. I'm freaking out here. My mind is awash with rainbow iridescent possibilities or whatever the hell the guy said in Blazing Saddles.
- Joint ownership my ass. AIC hasn't had the money to do anything but half-assed Tenchi since 2015. This is Toei basically buying the IPs they wanted (Tenchi, Megazone, Zeorymer, BGC).
- They didn't take everything. El-Hazard was part of an AIC crowdfunding proposition, maybe a reboot could slosh around in the Big Isekai Money Pool for a time - but they didn't take that. Then again, more money probably went to the Megazone continuation than that, and they bought Megazone, so I assume they grabbed these IP's explicitly with rebooting them in mind. I doubt AIC is really in a position to negotiate terms and demand they take joint ownership of truly stupid properties AIC has, right? (Or maybe they did, Dangaioh is in there for some reason.)
- 2040 began and ended, and was co-produced with the now defunct ADV films, so a continuation of 2040 is out I think (thank GOD). And a continuation of 2032 would be difficult to say the least. Toshimichi Suzuki's dead; Shinji Aramaki's Production IG elite; Kenichi Sonoda's juggling time between running his family candy business and polishing up his Riding Bean OVA; Michie Tomizawa couldn't even be pried out of retirement to re-voice Rei in Sailor Moon Crystal so there's no chance in hell they could get her back for a continuation... and does anyone in Japan actually have any idea how 2032 was supposed to end? Or are those records lost to time, like tears in rain?
-So: Toei has money, has the rights to BGC, probably snatched the rights up with an eye toward an out-and-out threeboot. It's not impossible in light of various cyberpunk anime being planned: Blade Runner Black Lotus, Trigger's CP2077 anime, Ghost in the Shell 2045... but, wait, that last one wasn't actually good.
- Oh god. Given the present state of anime nowadays, the odds are that this hypothetical threeboot could be bad. Think: The last licensed BGC product was that fucking light novel where it rebooted the Sabers as schoolgirls. They could do that, in some blind effort to pursue the popularity of other LN franchises or whatever. Questions about whether cyberpunk is still a good backdrop to chart new worlds in sci-fi are irrelevant, BGC never aspired to that. So it could fail either for slavishly adoring the most boring parts of cyberpunk-y stuff, or for ignoring cyberpunk stuff in favor of, I dunno, doing isekai? Or making Priss a contemporary idoru? Oh god. Love Live Crisis. Love Live Crisis: The Gacha Game.
I don't know what to think anymore. I'm freaking out here. My mind is awash with rainbow iridescent possibilities or whatever the hell the guy said in Blazing Saddles.