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AD Vision had the most elaborate booth of the anime companies at A-Kon
9, including a live camera linked to their web site. When (left to right)
Dave Williams, Matt Greenfield and John Ledford hosted their Saturday panel,
they also had the largest release schedule of the anime companies to announce. |
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Greenfield did most of the talking about the series AD Vision will
release. The second Neon Genesis Evangelion laser disc is headed for the
stores, with volume 3 in production; volume 12 of the Eva tapes has been
shipped, with volume 13 to follow in July as released in Japan, and not
the revised version; a live-action Tokyo the Last Megalopolis is set for
release; more Go Nagai animated series will follow, including Black Line,
Delinquents in Drag and My Dear Marie; another TTS Airbats series is on
the way; an unusual new series called Chameleon; the creators of Dragon
Half have another series in production; they will have a Japanese version
of Sonic the Hedgehog; the company will release the anime of the Sakura
Taisen game; and AD Vision has the rights to Legend of Chrystianna and
the Slayers movies and OVA's. |
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As AD Vision voice actor Doug Smith taped the panel, Greenfield announced
two acquisions that had the fans applauding. One was "a story of how the
earth is defended from an alien invasion by a spaceship filled with anime
fans," the Martian Successor Nadesico series. The other big announcement
was the entire 140-episode City Hunter series, "one of the series that
is ideally suited for American television," Greenfield said. "We think
it could be the breakthrough series for anime in this country." |
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Many of these series are announced in the new AD Vision catalog distributed
at A-Kon. "The biggest problem we have as a company is that we're fans,"
said Greenfield. "We have to choose titles so we have a positive cash flow.
The competition for these titles can get pretty vicious." |
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John Sirabella of the competing Software Sculptors company was an interested
spectator in the back of the room, listening as Greenfield said that AD
Vision is not going to make a big move toward the DVD format for their
releases. "They're new and embryonic formats and we're looking at something
that isn't established yet," said Greenfield. "Rather than commit to a
disc format that we're not sure of, we decided to commit that effort into
getting titles like Nadesico and City Hunter." |
