GKids releasing NGE Blu-Ray in North America 2021

[dvdmovies123]

I'm ready to start an online riot to get King Records to pay Claire for unauthorized use of her recording of FMTTM for all these years. If they make it right maybe we'll have a real international release of Evangelion one day.

why dont you just do it then? maybe on change.org or some other petition website

[GentlemanX]

The problem I have with the theory it has to do with not paying Claire royalties is it doesn't explain why all the other versions have to be removed. In the pre-Renewal releases, Claire's version was used for episodes 1-4, 11, and 18-19. For the Renewal version, her version was only used in episodes 1 and 2. She obviously isn't singing in the instrumental versions used within the show itself. If this had to do with Claire's version, they'd replace her version in those episodes and leave everything else alone.

To put it another way; if every version of the song from the original production of NGE was a problem and they all had to be replaced, but they could still use Fly Me to the Moon, it would make sense to just utilize one of the more recent covers by Utada Hikaru or Yoko Takahashi, or even produce a new version as the replacement. There are various ways around this if the issue had to do with the versions used in the original show.

The problem has to do with the song itself, Fly Me to the Moon, not the issues with one particular artist's version. It's just too expensive to license the song for every time Anno and Gainax used it back in 1995 and 1997.

[penguintruth]

I have said several times, I'm happy both dubs are included. Although I'll always regret the new divide caused in the Fandom by the redub when its clear by later backtracking by them on it that it wasn't the most thought out decision.

I'm glad the people who got what they wanted from an Evangelion dub with it and that both are included. I just hope if we ever see another project it's Spike Spencer and the gang exclusively and the Netflix dub cast is never used again.

You act as though everybody loved the Eva dub to begin with, and the new dub wasn't an outlet for people who were dissatisfied with the original dub to begin with.

I grew up with the old dub. But then when I started watching the Japanese version, I realized how lacking the dub was. The new dub feels like an enormous improvement on that. Whether that's a majority or minority opinion is irrelevant, and it's not selfish for me to want what I like, regardless of what other people like.

[JupiterCallisto]

Again, I’m guilty of this in the past, and I apologize for that. It’s just strange to me that you call people like me weird/selfish for liking the VSI dub when it all comes down to personally preference.

Yeah, I was being silly. You're right my bad.

You act as though everybody loved the Eva dub to begin with, and the new dub wasn't an outlet for people who were dissatisfied with the original dub to begin with.

I grew up with the old dub. But then when I started watching the Japanese version, I realized how lacking the dub was. The new dub feels like an enormous improvement on that. Whether that's a majority or minority opinion is irrelevant, and it's not selfish for me to want what I like, regardless of what other people like.

I think you're forgetting that everyone wanted a redub of the show back in 2019. They just did it in a way that divided the Fandom more than brought it together.

If you like the VSI dub that's fine. We did need a redub and a new script. I just wish they hit that balance between translation and localization that is needed.

I'm just glad Khara backtracked on many decisions regarding it later on. This is after personally chosing the new voice cast too so that's all I have to say on that matter.

[eldomtom2]

If you actually read those articles, they don't really have anything to do with his claim.

His claim: licensing FMttM is expensive.
The articles: licensing is expensive because more deep-pocketed players are getting in the game, treating music rights as an investment, driving up demand, and thus driving up the price.

Can't see how they can't be unrelated, unless you actually have an argument to make.

The articles do not say that at all. They are entirely silent on the subject of how much it costs to license a song.

[evaunit13]

The articles do not say that at all. They are entirely silent on the subject of how much it costs to license a song.

Buying price goes up -> selling (licensing) price goes up.

Here are some examples of how expensive licensing these songs can get.

[Blockio]

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— twitter-user (@username) date

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— twitter-user (@username) date

"The rights to 'Fly Me To The Moon" cost as much as a house now, per episode."
"Where it used to cost at most, $500-1000 per song to license for a TV show, or even lower, the new industry controlled clearing houses are asking 10-50x more, because of the increased demand from licensing."
Calling this "staying entirely silent on the subject" is simply incorrect.

[Axx°N N.]

Outside of the drama over prejudice against minorities and song-rights racketeering by third-party rights holders in this thread (which seems to indicate the licenser is not at fault over FMTTM's disinclusion), I'm just over here impressed GKids clearly did their research enough on past home video releases, that the set is nearly authentic to the initial Japanese laserdisc packaging, and that we're getting what I consider all the significant special features only Japan has had until this point, which (unless I'm wrong) they seem to be subtitling for the first time. Yes, I would've liked historical versions of 21-24 and Rebirth too, but I concede to the inclusion of the dubs as something more people would have wanted. I'm most impressed by what seems to be a near-replication of the book that was in the Japanese BD Box, with what I assume are translations of some of the text materials.

It's not perfect, but I never dreamed I would be typing any of the above when considering what a modern western BD release may look like. I came in with what I thought were strict expectations and they still got well met.

[pwhodges]

I thought a major aspect of the FMTTM problem is that Gainax only ever had rights for Japan anyway. The series then got sent all around the world through agreements made by Gainax, and FMTTM has been used worldwide for twenty years without any rights other than for Japan. It's not surprising then that the licensors might be cheesed off. Perhaps the cost of using FMTTM would have included an up-front payment of twenty years arrears of worldwide licensing costs due.

[FreakyFilmFan4ever]

^ The license to FMTTM was affordable to ADV way back in the past. I’m gonna have to dig around in audio commentaries, but I vaguely remember Matt Greenfield saying something about ADV having to fit the bill for licensing FMTTM in their release.

The cost of licensing the song has simply skyrocketed in the past decade or so, due to companies buying the rights to music libraries as a form of financial investment. Now it’s to the point where GKIDS can’t even afford it. (And they could outbid Disney on Ghibli licenses, apparently.)

[cyharding]

A few days ago, I e-mailed GKIDS inquiring whether people could be informed if there are any cancelations so they could try to buy them (this was before I purchased the AllTheAnime version). I heard back from them today, and I'm sharing their answer for everyone's benefit.

We are in the process of reviewing cancellation requests and fraudulent/duplicate orders, and may have additional quantities to release at a later point.

Once we have a handle on how many are available, any stock updates will be posted on @GKIDSFilms with 24 hours notice given ahead of additional stock releases.

[GentlemanX]

So here's something I've been thinking about - obviously I'd say we can assume for now that the Japanese 5.1 track and VSI 5.1 track will be identical to the Netflix release with Fly Me to the Moon removed from the scenes it's present in from episodes like 15 and 21, but what do you think will happen with the ADV/Manga 5.1 and Japanese 2.0 tracks? Theoretically you can mix the song out of those versions too if you have access to the clean recordings of those lines, but its unclear if Khara or GKids/All the Anime would have access to those files for the ADV and Manga dubs or if they'd do a new mix in 2.0 for that track.

For the Japanese 2.0 audio, one obvious solution to me is to mix in the clean versions of those scenes from the 5.1 track. I don't really know enough about sound mixing to know if that would sound natural or make sense, but there at least exists a clean version of those actors' performances they might be able to utilize. For the ADV/Manga dub, assuming they don't have clean recordings, it gets trickier. One solution could be to do pick up lines for those scenes where a short new recording is mixed in with the original audio. But while that would be relatively easy for Spencer or Keith, the key scenes in 15 and 21 also feature a lot of dialogue from Kaji and Aaron Krohn seems to have essentially left the business - we know they didn't get him back with other ADV and Manga cast members for the redub of NTE. So if they went that route, they might have a replacement Kaji for select, and unfortunately important, scenes. The nuclear option that I hope doesn't happen is that the audio track for those scenes goes entirely silent or switches to a source without the music, like switching to the VSI dub for those particular scenes.

I don't really know much about sound mixing, so if there's another possible solution someone more knowledgeable weighing in would be appreciated. Obviously what would be best is if the original recordings were persevered and could mixed in without any changes - whether Khara or Gainax were sent them at some point or if ADV/Sentai Filmworks/Manga/Gaijin Productions had them archived and GKids/All the Anime got in touch with them that way. With how high a profile a show like Eva was and is, I'd say it's certainly a possibility that might be the case. But anyway, what do you all of you think?

[pwhodges]

It's likely that in the English 5.1 tracks the dialogue is in the C channel and the music in L and R - so the music alone can be removed or replaced without having access to more original mixing materials. Indeed, I have edited FMTTM into the Netflix tracks.

[FreakyFilmFan4ever]

Indeed, I have edited FMTTM into the Netflix tracks.

Doing the Lord’s work there, I see.

[HARVEST]

I think khara is the one forbidding GKIDS, Netflix and others from using Fly Me to the Moon internationally.
It would cost about $1.65M at most ($50K x 26 TV episodes + 4 Director's Cut episodes + 3 versions of Death, possibly even cheaper than that) to license the song for every episode (OA and DC) and three different versions of Death.
GKIDS purchased huge licences like Weathering With You and the Ghibli films, plus said Ghibli films make tons of money from both theatrical and home video releases. Weathering With You also broke the bank at the US box office, even beating The Rise of Skywalker for a few weeks.
Netflix has seemingly infinite money that they mostly spend on producing and marketing the hell out of crap films like The Kissing Booth and Tall Girl. Then again, they bury and cancel actually good shows like Altered Carbon and The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance so they prioritise crap movies over making actually good stuff.

GKIDS and Netflix can easily afford to license Fly Me to the Moon but there are two hurdles:
1. They think it would just be diminishing returns over the already high price to license the show and movies in the first place.
2. khara forbade it from happening so they can spend less and out of fears of reverse importation.

If it's the latter case, then it's also baffling since khara makes billions of dollars out of Evangelion and they never had a problem with Fly Me to the Moon in international releases during the VHS and DVD days.

If I got the licence to release Eva on home video and/or streaming internationally, I would spend that extra $1.65M to license Fly Me to the Moon so I would not disappoint fans.
This really disappoints me since GKIDS is one of the best animation distributors out there and they probably would've licensed Fly Me to the Moon if they had the money (which they most likely have) so it is very likely that khara is the roadblock there.

[Blockio]

uh... the last number I got for the lisensing cost was 300k per episode, which would leave them at just shy of 8 million for the 26 episode run, without any special versions

[HARVEST]

uh... the last number I got for the lisensing cost was 300k per episode, which would leave them at just shy of 8 million for the 26 episode run, without any special versions

Even 8 million would cost Netflix less than a crappy film and its marketing.
GKIDS is also breaking the bank with their Ghibli films and they even outbid Disney for said Ghibli films, so $8M is okay for them.

The real issue here is probably due to Studio Khara.

[TMBounty_Hunter]

Literally the only full English sentences on the whole packaging of the Japanese BD box are:

FLY ME TO THE MOON Words & Music by Bart Howard TRO - © Copyright 1954 by Palm Valley Music, LLC. Rights for Japan controlled by TRO Essex Japan Ltd., Tokyo
Authorized for sale in Japan only.

That should tell you pretty clearly who the problem is.

khara is only a licensee for the song in Japan, not the owner. They have no control over who gets licenses outside of Japan. The owners do.

And they have an extremely robust presence all over the world to ensure they retain that control everywhere on their own terms.

http://www.troessexmusic.com/globalcontacts

[gatotsu911]

I wonder if Palm Valley Music is more or less tyrannical about licensing than whoever owns the “Happy Birthday” song.

[TMBounty_Hunter]

Palm Valley Music was rolled into TRO long ago and no longer exists.

If you look on their Song Catalogue page, Fly Me To The Moon is consistently near the top of the most searched songs

http://www.troessexmusic.com/song/catalogue

They know what they have and will milk it to the end of time. Or at least the end of capitalism.