"Babylon" DVD on indefinite hold.

[Jd-]

Our only hope is Reed, really. It will take a lot of shipped copies to recoup their investment on any Lupin title and while buying Fuma is a great idea (do it), we still have to hope Reed can prove to them there is interest in the product. Without that assurance, there's no motivation for releasing it on a business side.

[RedTail]

Our only hope is Reed, really. It will take a lot of shipped copies to recoup their investment on any Lupin title and while buying Fuma is a great idea (do it), we still have to hope Reed can prove to them there is interest in the product. Without that assurance, there's no motivation for releasing it on a business side.

I think you're under the impression that Reed has way more influence then he actually does.  At the end of the day, it's money that talks.  Let's face it, Lupin has bombed time and time again under various formats, and now Discotek has personally felt the sting.  The words of some fanboy with a website (no offense, man) aren't even close to being enough to overturn that track record.

[GATSU]

"Bomb" is kind of a harsh term. "Underperformed" is a little more appropriate. Bombing would be like what happened with the Geneon and Illumitoon Toei shows. All things considered, five years is a pretty good run for a franchise which was had to compete with stuff which is three decades more recent than it. The fact that it could hold its own against updated versions of Astroboy and Cyborg 009, for example, says a lot about its appeal. (Not to mention its fanbase...)  Yeah, Lupin could've done better here, but we've seen more of it released than most people would have imagined. So just be glad it's not as niche a show as it could be. 

[Jd-]

As Reed suggested earlier, a pre-order program wouldn't be a bad idea. The DVD, should it lack a dub, would probably run at a reasonable MSRP as well ($14.99?).

[Gozar]

Damn I was really hoping for that Babylon release.

[GATSU]

Pre-ordering's not a bad idea, but the problem is getting enough signatures. For now, you really need to support what's out from Discotek and get others to check it out for themselves. For example, some guy on AWO didn't even know that Fuma was out. There's got to be similar hold-outs, because Geneon wouldn't continue a show like this as long as it did at such a huge loss. Another suggestion: Companies like Home Vision and Criterion seem to like Suzuki's stuff, so how about letting them manufacture the Babylon and splitting the profits?

[GATSU]

AOD finally chimed in on the issue.

[Jd-]

Unfortunate, indeed. *tears up*

[Zoo Station]

For now, you really need to support what's out from Discotek and get others to check it out for themselves.

This is definatley a great idea; however, distribution has always been a big problem with Lupin and it's hard for people to support something that they can't even find. Every time I go into a place like Best Buy I only see the two Funimation sets and nothing else; no Cagliostro, Fuma, or Second Series DVDs. I'm glad that at least SOMETHING Lupin-related is in stores but even a lot of the recent releases aren't being carried. I really wish there were some way have the DVDs more readily available to the public.

[GATSU]

There's always Amazon...But maybe they'll be bold enough to do the iPod thing like CPM.

[Nick Loc]

lol
honestley im not suprized at all that they canned babylon 

unfortunate ... but common , it's old as hell , has crappy animation , and nobody has heard of it .... even lupin fans might not know of it



did they ever release Fuma ? i checked around and i haven't seen it anywhere

[Zoo Station]

did they ever release Fuma ? i checked around and i haven't seen it anywhere

Fuma came out a month ago but so far it appears to only be available online. I haven't seen any stores carrying it yet.

[Kukki]

That's too bad, I kinda liked that movie xP
Lupin has it pretty bad in the US, [as] had it at such a bad schedule, and it doesn't really get advertised or anything, how can they expect it to be successful? =/

I wonder why nobody's gotten First Contact yet. Well, I know it's still pretty new, but it seems to be the most popular among existing fans, and it would be the easiest to get to new fans because of the newer look, more people will give it a chance. Of course, if they don't advertise, that wouldn't work either. Ugh.

[Area88]

Any word from Discotek about releasing this since they placed it on indefinite hold?

Has Fuma done enough sales to make a profit?

[Lupin the Third]

To be honest, last I tried to email him about Babylon, I didn't get a response. Of course, its not like that's the first time that happened (send unresponded-to emails all during Fuma's development), so I'm not worried about it so much. The big deal about Babylon isn't just a concern about being able to sell enough copies to justify its release, but also to dub it from scratch and afford licensing fees, which as I understand are still quite inflated across the board at the moment.

So in other words, still nothing to report.