Year in Review: Manga Entertainment in 2003

By: Chris Beveridge
Date: Thursday, February 12, 2004





In 2003, Manga hit one or two high points but otherwise spent the bulk of the year under the radar of most fans. A good part of the year was spent with people waiting for releases that were announced but never came, only to be eventually canceled. Macross Plus and Evangelion movie collections were repeatedly sought after since their releases were finished in 2002 and announcements made, but after reschedulings for both of them, they were eventually canceled outright.



The big titles for Manga in 2003 was the unsurprising Read or Die OVA release and the 10th Anniversary Edition of Ninja Scroll. Read or Die was one of those releases that showed that Manga can do good when they put the effort into it, but the release was marred by a number of excessively poor translations on the subtitle track that showed a real lack of understanding of the property itself. The obvious re-release of the Ninja Scroll OVA was a no brainer due to the popularity and buzz of the new TV series airing in Japan and its imminent release in the US, but even as well as that turned out, there was a sizeable air of "why bother?" to part of it. While the OVA was one of the first anime released, a re-release wasn't an issue, particularly for an anniversary. What surprised and confounded people was that they were taking a full screen OVA and cropping it to make an anamorphic print, thereby taking the composition of the picture and distorting it beyond what was originally intended. Past examples of this from other releases in Japan have shown to not go over well, but those were sold separately later. With the Ninja Scroll release, the cropped atrocity (regardless of how good the transfer is) was on the reverse side. For fans of the show, the remastered full screen side came across very well and managed to outshine the original release from back in 1998.



Most of 2003 was spent going through their rapidly shrinking back catalog of titles, bring out older titles like the Guyver series from the US Rendition days, but with a subtitle track for the first time. The portion of the Fist of the North Star series that Manga retains also finally churned its way out and the classic Orguss 02 OVA sequel finally got its release. On the down side, Dangaioh finally came out of the woodwork, but an entire episode was lost in its arrival on DVD, making it easy for people to skip entirely.




One of the biggest things in 2002 for Manga was the release of Blood the Last Vampire. That success was attempted to be replicated with another partnership with Production IG to bring Kaidohmaru out, but the release seemed to fizzle out fairly fast. Their other new property, Virus, also fell pretty far under the radar, especially with its quarterly release schedule. The long awaited release of the Magic Knights Rayearth also ended up much the same way, mostly because every time a date was given, it was pushed back again. There are probably people who still believe it hasn't come out.



Manga's plans for 2004 are pretty vague even at this date. Their first quarter collections were canceled, one of their biggest properties in their back catalog (Giant Robo) has been lost and only Dead Leaves is on the horizon, and that has the potential to play out much like Kaidohmaru. The only big thing on their plate that was just revealed is the partnership with Bandai for the release of the Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex series in the second half of the year, but the majority of people have greeted the news with some anxiety, particularly after the rash of rumors that came out last year that Bandai only has the TV rights and that Manga would be handling all the DVD production on the release.



Much as it was going into 2003, fans are wary of what titles Manga has as well as how vague they are with all of their releases and that feeling does not seem to be changing.



2003 Release History:



01/28/2003 - Bounty Dog

01/28/2003 - Dangaioh

02/25/2003 - Guyver Vol. #1

02/25/2003 - Guyver Vol. #2

02/25/2003 - Virus Vol. #2

03/25/2003 - Fist of the Northstar Vol. #1

03/25/2003 - Fist of the Northstar Vol. #2

03/25/2003 - Street Fighter II Box Set

04/29/2003 - Magic Knight Rayearth OVA Collection

05/27/2003 - Read or Die

06/24/2003 - Kaidohmaru

06/24/2003 - Virus Vol. #3

07/29/2003 - Fist of the Northstar Vol. #3

07/29/2003 - Fist of the Northstar Vol. #4

08/26/2003 - New Dominion Tank Police Complete Collection

09/30/2003 - Dark Myth

09/30/2003 - Ninja Scroll 10th Anniversary Special Edition

10/28/2003 - Orguss 02

11/25/2003 - Fist of the Northstar Vol. #5