Kokoro Media -- Covering the Business of Asian Media: Anime Manga J-Pop J-Rock Licensing & Distribution

December 12, 2005

Re-Mixing J-Media, Part I: AMVs

Posted by Devin

As quoted before from several blogs, anime and J-media is over here at the heart of remix culture. Some fans are very much remix snobs, the core of them creating and submitting their MTV-styled music videos to their own website. Remixed entries between anime media and music/media from the US are often called AMVs. Such fan video remixes of the derivative works are usually tolerated by Japanese publishers and their US licensors, but its the US publishers who hold the music or movie rights (depending on what’s remixed) that will eventually cause problems for AMV’s and their related websites.

Edit: It seems about 2,000 AMV’s have been removed from AMV.org in the last year, including most recently the label for Evanescence, Creed, and Seether, Wind-Up Records.

Tags: Remixing, Licensing, Music, AMV, AMVs

Filed To: Distribution / Digital / Licensing
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December 3, 2005

Catching up with Mobile Anime Gaming

Posted by Devin

Several anime distributors and license holders have been able to distribute their content on mobile platforms. Manga publishing in Japan has been around for quite some time and has progressed rapidly. Here’s a little recap of what’s happened in the market in the last few 6-12 months.

On the mobile gaming some, VIZ Media linked up with Sorrent Networks (now Glu mobile) produced an Inuyasha game, one of the first mobile anime titles released as a mobile game off a license. How well its suceeded is undocumented at this time.

Other licensers in the US now distribute wallpapers and other related images via aggragrators. If you’re just selling manga, then why not distribute it on the the phone?

The most recent news in Japan is manga-ka are starting to bypass publishing houses by sending their work directly to cellphone carriers and aggigrators. This cuts out another rights-holder and gives the creators a greater cuts of the profits. The popularity of manga on the phone has been maddening as teens now read them on the trains every morning.