Anime [Anime Blog Muyo!] More Licensing of the Unlicensable

It's over. The ultimate theoretically unlicensable show has been licensed. Yes, let's give it up for FUNimation who announced today that they've acquired Kodomo no Omocha.

Let's all pause dramatically.

...

As far as I'm concerned, we've reached a new plateau in licensing tradition. Kodocha was the final high water mark on the licensing levee - I can't think of anything (other than shows tied up in legal wranglings) that can't be licensed anymore. Of course, for anime observers, this is really nothing surprising - we've watched more and more shows we thought would never be licensed be picked up one after another.

By extension, one thing I'm noticing (and you probably have, too) is a lot of what I'm now dubbing "pocket licenses." That is, licenses that aren't announced publicly until they show up in the Japanese credits because some of the funding came from the American corporations (usually Geneon USA right now, although I imagine other companies will soon follow suit). A growing number of shows are now like this, including Paranoia Agent and Tenjou Tenge.

It's an interesting phase in anime history - popular shows in legit fansub markets may be going the way of the dodo soon. I'm curious about the future possibilities.

Oh, and on a somewhat related note, Geneon also announced licenses for Uchuu no Stellvia and Dokkoider - two of the best shows from last year. Yay!

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