Posts Tagged ‘4kids’

First announced on the ANNCast podcast a few weeks ago, 4Kids Entertainment has opened their new streaming portal today and they call it Toonzaki. In their initial announcement, the site was labeled as a place where fans could go to enjoy series licensed by 4Kids in their original uncut format which will hopefully eliminate complaints about the edits that series have to go through in order to be broadcast on American TV.

In the initial launch, 72 series have been added to the site (most of which are hosted via Hulu) though what I find interesting is that only a small percentage of them “belong” to 4Kids (Sonic X, Yu-Gi-Oh, etc). Instead most of the series available at launch have actually been licensed by Funimation (including most of their recent simulcasts) with a few Right Stuf/Nozomi Entertainment series thrown in for good measure.

Eh, it’s still another streaming portal though so yay for another place to go in order to watch free, legal streaming anime. Now give me a nudge when they can add all of the uncut Shaman King episodes so that I can finally finish that one… they still have that right? Because that’s like the only 4Kids license left that I actually have any shred of interest in anymore.

A little bit of interesting got mixed in with a little bit of exciting today while I was away. But here is what happened today wrapped up as neatly as I can get it.

Clannad Dub Premieres NEXT WEEK: When Sentai announced that they were going to dub Clannad I didn’t actually translate that into ‘we’ve actually already done it and now we’re going to blindside you with it so enjoy!’ I’m not complaining, I’m just saying this has been an incredibly fast rollout.

The press release went out this morning and has confirmed that the new dubbed version of Clannad will gets its first premiere on March 25th on The Anime Network’s Video on Demand. On March 26th, the series will become available via The Anime Network’s Online Player.

I admit that I do want to watch this. I saw the entire first season in its original Japanese and had a very lukewarm reaction by the end. Maybe a new dub track will help me take it a bit more seriously and not laugh at inappropriate times? (Full press release after the cut)

4Kids Strikes Back: 4Kids hasn’t been doing too well lately. It was recently reported that in the last quarter they posted a $21.3M loss (that figure was only $19.6M a year earlier) but when the going gets tough, the tough… um, license stuff. In a conference call with investors, Chairman and CEO Al Kahn assured investors that things are moving in a new direction, “The business reverses in the past few years have caused 4Kids to basically return to the very successfully business model that was used for 20 years prior to the launch of Chaotic. We have decided that 4Kids needs to return to its roots as a licensing and merchandising company that specializes in bringing wonderful Japanese programming and merchandizing to the rest of the world.”

Ready for the really good news though?

“We signed yesterday a very important Japanese property that we will be announcing in the next couple of days.”

And start speculating………… now!

Quick Durarara Update: In a quick update to something I mentioned earlier this week, VP of Licensing at Crunchyroll Rob Pereyda has mentioned on Twitter that Crunchyroll will be streaming the final two episodes of Durarara (episodes 25-26) and Sora no Woto (episodes 13-14) on the same day that they are released on DVD in Japan.

So yeah, that is mostly great news and I’m not looking a gift horse in the mouth… but in 3 days, episode 12 of Sora no Woto airs. Volume 7 is set to street September 22nd. Durarara will finish streaming around June and there’s not even a date set for the final volume of that one. This is going to be a loooong wait.

Ikkitousen Adds Additional OVAs: Moving into spring premiere news, Ikkitousen can’t cram all of the breasts that it wants to into the third season, Xtreme Xecutor, so the staff is creating additional OVAs. That’s not quite a direct quote but it seems close enough to me. Each of the six DVDs will be released with an additional original OVA attached to them.

MM! Light Novels Get Anime: Finally, the light novel series MM! will be getting an anime adaptation in the future (all the usual stipulations apply; announcement only, no details). From what I have gathered, the series is an ecchi school comedy about a boy who is secretly a masochist when it comes to abuse from girls but is ashamed of it. Now in high school, he wants to confess to a girl but is afraid of his masochism freaking her out. Seeking a solution, he joins the 2nd Volunteer Club after the president decides that she can fix him.

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NEW YORK–4Kids Entertainment, Inc. (NYSE: KDE – News), the global children’s entertainment and merchandise licensing organization, today announced that it has implemented certain cost-cutting initiatives designed to better align its organization and overall cost structure in the current challenging economic environment. The Company has implemented a workforce reduction of approximately 15% across all subsidiaries and divisions. As a result of the staff cuts, the Company will be incurring severance costs of approximately $375,000 in the fourth quarter of 2008. The Company has also completed a comprehensive review of its operations and will be taking steps intended to reduce operating expenses by an additional $4 – $5 million in 2009.

These staff reductions and projected cuts in operating expenses, together with the early termination of the 4Kids/ Fox Broadcasting Company Agreement effective December 31, 2008 which was previously announced on November 10, 2008, are expected to result in pretax savings of $15 – $18 million in 2009.

“We have taken some critical steps to respond to the litany of challenges presented by the worldwide economic crisis,” said Alfred R. Kahn, Chairman and CEO of 4Kids Entertainment. “The streamlining of our organization and further reduction in operating expenses will better position the Company to ride out the current economic storm”.

About 4Kids Entertainment, Inc.

With U.S. headquarters in New York City, regional offices for its trading card business in San Diego, California and international offices in London, 4Kids Entertainment, Inc. (NYSE: KDE – News) is a global organization devoted to the creation, development, production, broadcasting, distribution, licensing and manufacturing of children’s entertainment products.

Through its subsidiaries, 4Kids produces animated television series and films, distributes 4Kids’ produced or licensed animated television series for the domestic and international television and home video markets, licenses merchandising rights worldwide to 4Kids’ owned or represented properties, operates Web sites to support 4Kids’ owned or represented properties, and produces and markets collectible trading card games. Additionally, the Company programs and sells the national advertising time in a four-hour “4KidsTV” block which airs on nearly 200 affiliated FOX television stations Saturday mornings, as well as the national advertising time in “TheCW4Kids” five-hour Saturday morning block on The CW television network.

Additional information is available on the www.4KidsEntertainment.com corporate web site and at the www.4Kids.tv game station site.

The information contained in this press release, other than historical information, consists of forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act and Section 21E of the Exchange Act. These statements may involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in such statements. Although the Company believes that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are reasonable, it can give no assurance that such expectations will prove to have been correct. Important factors beyond the Company’s control, including general economic conditions, consumer spending levels, competition from toy companies, motion picture studios and other licensing companies, the uncertainty of public response to the Company’s properties and other factors could cause actual results to differ materially from the Company’s expectations.

ICv2 reported today that 4Kids Entertainment has let their license of anme series ‘Pretty Cure’ lapse back to Toei. The series was originally licensed by 4Kids Entertainment back in 2006 but the series never got a dub track and never found it’s way onto American television.

Toei now has the series again already having made episodes available to fans. The first two episodes of the series are now available in their original Japanese with subtitles on IGN’s Direct2Drive.

ICv2 is reporting today that Adness Entertainment has acquired the 50 episode live action series ‘Kamen Rider Ryuki’ which originally aired in 2002. The series is live action and in the American version, the hero will be named Kit Taylor and follow his adventures after he finds one of the 13 advent cards which grants him the power to control a creature from the mirror world. But there can be only one and he is forced to fight against the other owners of the Advent Cards.

The series is set to run during the 2008-2009 season on CW Network during what used to be the Kids WB block.