Maiden Japan Acquires Ray the Animation

by Naruleach
Jul 12, 2011 2:58 AM | 17 Comments

Maiden Japan has acquired the Spring 2006 TV anime Ray the Animation. The 13 episode series will be released with English subtitles on DVD and through digital means but no release date has been announced yet.

Source: Press release on ANN

17 Comments Recent Comments

This needs some clearing up, Maiden Japan is NOT a new licensing company, it's just a new division from Sentai Flimworks.

Jul 13, 2011 11:56 AM by artist-retired

Ray was rather nice - it wouldn't surprise me if they are way more successful than most people here think

Jul 13, 2011 10:27 AM by chriskin

At some point they should consider licensing stuff that people actually heard about. Or at least a single person.

Jul 12, 2011 10:31 AM by Kvakond

Gogetters said:

FOE-tan said:
Seriously, they have licensed 4 anime, and none of them have a rating above 7.

MALs rating system is broken, and since when did it start playing a role in licensing anime?

It's a good judge for how popular an anime is, and how likely people are to buy it, at least in terms of percentage.

Fewer than 5000 members on this site are planning on watching Ray, so that's going against them as well. Compare to School Days, which, while only availible on simulcast and scoring 0.04 points higher, has over 58,000 members. So School Days makes for a much better acquisition, no matter which way you look at it.

The most popular unlicensed anime is Nodame Cantbile, which only has an Animax license at the moment.

Even if they couldn't afford either of those (they only seem to be going for cheap licences), I'm sure they would make more money by licensing things like Gundoh Musashi and Mars of Destruction and getting the sales off people wanting to see how awful they are.

Jul 12, 2011 10:00 AM by Rosa_FOEtida

ADV dropped the Ray manga, after three volumes or so. Out of light interest in Black Jack, I won those volumes on eBay, but why would anyone license the show when it's obvious no-one would buy it?

When MAL rate titles below 7/10 - most people being mentally underdeveloped and 10/10ing EVERYTHING as a consequence - it usually isn't a good sign. ADV licensed better shitty shows x10, and they still went under.

Jul 12, 2011 9:14 AM by AironicallyHuman

FOE-tan said:
Seriously, they have licensed 4 anime, and none of them have a rating above 7.

MALs rating system is broken, and since when did it start playing a role in licensing anime?

Jul 12, 2011 8:25 AM by Gogetters

Haha.....What is Ray the Animation?

Jul 12, 2011 8:21 AM by Sanguis

Roloko said:
Who the hell is Maiden Japan? I just hope they will dub their stuff in the future or at least get some old classics that have been abandoned by other companies. Also it looks like they are picking up stuff from 2008 and earlier.

Also even though I despise subbed only DVDs I doubt this series would get a dub so I might pick it up since I remember enjoying the first episode on CR back in 08 before they went legal.

i though it had a dubed alredy i rember watching some online

Jul 12, 2011 7:47 AM by imperlast

eh....Tifa from FF7 has better hairstyle than her. I don't like long hairs with a split in the middle like that.

Jul 12, 2011 7:13 AM by Mika_Inamori

ray is anime cool

Jul 12, 2011 6:05 AM by Aniulka1126

is this anime even good

Jul 12, 2011 5:48 AM by Mr_Gutts

Why do I have the feeling that this company will go under pretty quickly?

Seriously, they have licensed 4 anime, and none of them have a rating above 7. I mean, even if Ray is a spinoff of the Tezuka classic Black Jack, I still don't think it's going to do so well.

They might as well get the LoGH license. Even if it would most likely flop, it's not like it's going to sell much worse than what they already have and there be many a happy fan out there, which there isn't with their current licenses.

Jul 12, 2011 5:42 AM by Rosa_FOEtida

I'm confused as to who the licensing company is, what the anime is, who will buy it, and why you would watch this.

Jul 12, 2011 5:38 AM by Detective

Who the hell is Maiden Japan? I just hope they will dub their stuff in the future or at least get some old classics that have been abandoned by other companies. Also it looks like they are picking up stuff from 2008 and earlier.

Also even though I despise subbed only DVDs I doubt this series would get a dub so I might pick it up since I remember enjoying the first episode on CR back in 08 before they went legal.

Jul 12, 2011 5:21 AM by Roloko

Who licensed what?

Jul 12, 2011 4:51 AM by no-thanks

Old forgotten anime is old and forgotten. Good luck trying to sell that.

Jul 12, 2011 4:26 AM by Ocean_Horizon

Siing said:
Another bankruptcy in the making.

Jul 12, 2011 3:45 AM by Siing