Threeboot is now slightly more marginally possible than previously.

[STMPD]

AIC Rights, the holding company with the rights to BGC, now has 'joint ownership' of the IP with anime megajuggernaut Toei.

- Joint ownership my ass. AIC hasn't had the money to do anything but half-assed Tenchi since 2015. This is Toei basically buying the IPs they wanted (Tenchi, Megazone, Zeorymer, BGC).

- They didn't take everything. El-Hazard was part of an AIC crowdfunding proposition, maybe a reboot could slosh around in the Big Isekai Money Pool for a time - but they didn't take that. Then again, more money probably went to the Megazone continuation than that, and they bought Megazone, so I assume they grabbed these IP's explicitly with rebooting them in mind. I doubt AIC is really in a position to negotiate terms and demand they take joint ownership of truly stupid properties AIC has, right? (Or maybe they did, Dangaioh is in there for some reason.)

- 2040 began and ended, and was co-produced with the now defunct ADV films, so a continuation of 2040 is out I think (thank GOD). And a continuation of 2032 would be difficult to say the least. Toshimichi Suzuki's dead; Shinji Aramaki's Production IG elite; Kenichi Sonoda's juggling time between running his family candy business and polishing up his Riding Bean OVA; Michie Tomizawa couldn't even be pried out of retirement to re-voice Rei in Sailor Moon Crystal so there's no chance in hell they could get her back for a continuation... and does anyone in Japan actually have any idea how 2032 was supposed to end? Or are those records lost to time, like tears in rain?

-So: Toei has money, has the rights to BGC, probably snatched the rights up with an eye toward an out-and-out threeboot. It's not impossible in light of various cyberpunk anime being planned: Blade Runner Black Lotus, Trigger's CP2077 anime, Ghost in the Shell 2045... but, wait, that last one wasn't actually good.

- Oh god. Given the present state of anime nowadays, the odds are that this hypothetical threeboot could be bad. Think: The last licensed BGC product was that fucking light novel where it rebooted the Sabers as schoolgirls. They could do that, in some blind effort to pursue the popularity of other LN franchises or whatever. Questions about whether cyberpunk is still a good backdrop to chart new worlds in sci-fi are irrelevant, BGC never aspired to that. So it could fail either for slavishly adoring the most boring parts of cyberpunk-y stuff, or for ignoring cyberpunk stuff in favor of, I dunno, doing isekai? Or making Priss a contemporary idoru? Oh god. Love Live Crisis. Love Live Crisis: The Gacha Game.

I don't know what to think anymore. I'm freaking out here. My mind is awash with rainbow iridescent possibilities or whatever the hell the guy said in Blazing Saddles.

[classicdrogn]

... I know my mind immediately went to an issekai about four schoolgirls from the Visual Media Research Club taking the excuse of needing to fight the Demon Lord Largo to make their dreams of sleek, stylish mecha-styled power armor into reality with magic to get around those pesky physical laws that make things difficult in our world, from which they (nominally) came. In this version, Mackie is the older sibling, the upperclassman advisor for the club, and most certainly the teen male audience identification character who gets into "hilarious" misunderstood situations with all of them. Archmage "Don't call me Wiz!" Raven is the endearingly quirky old wizard who serves as their instructor by order of the crown, under more or less token irritable protest.

edit: Or, wait, the upperclassman should be Leon, while Mackie is the freshman who just joined! Daley can be a local guy in the new world, maybe the desk attendant for the Adventurer's Guild. Because of course there is one, as well as an MMO style class and level system, at least as interpreted by some sixty-mumble producer who never uses a computer for more than spreadsheets, MyTwitFace, and email, but has heard things from his nephew.

[AnimeJanai]

Toei Animation is part of a set of vertically-oriented marketing companies.  So it will be the merchandising aspects that dictate if a threeboot occurs or not.

[ckosacranoid]

The sad thing is I really have not even kept up with much less watched an anime in ages. I think it was a couple of years ago I finished a box set that was on myself for ages. I have a few other I need to watch and one that has sat unwatched since I bought it from sun coast video...sigh

[STMPD]

Signs of Life?

Yeah, looks like someone in Toei decided to milk BGC's 35th anniversary, so now they're releasing a vinyl set for the OST and a boxed set for the anime. Okay. Fine. Fair enough. Cheap to produce something like this, I imagine.

But I guess it's cause for optimism? A belated acknowledgement that they own the anime and can do things with it? Woo. One wonders if they're still gonna bother.

Also, some further notes I made and sort of forgot about:

1. Rereading the article, I see now that AIC wanted to not only continue Megazone, but remake parts 1 and 2. Apparently the press release had new artwork compared to when AIC had announced the plan back when they were still going it alone, so one assumes they got somewhere with that, are still working on it. So that's probably first priorty. Which is a shame, because Megazone always struck me as aggressively okay.

2. When I brought the link up on reddit, someone noted that the plan is probably to accumulate retro anime like AIC's catalog in a streaming service and reboot whatever was popular, market whatever merchandise would sell. That makes sense, actually. I mean, This is a thing. So there's a good chance, I think, that Toei is making a bunch of moves along the lines of Western media conglomerates to advance its own interests, expand its cultural power.

3. But I keep thinking what AIC has that's reboot-worthy in anyone's eyes. Tenchi will keep chugging forward, I imagine. That was probably part of the deal, to just fund Kajishima's endless parade of weird horny shit. And we did get a Battle Athletes anime last year.

On the other hand, the Battle Athletes Manga was a megacrossover with a whole bunch of really obscure OVA characters wedged into it. Was that a joke? Or does AIC want to revive Dangaioh and Genocyber and all the rest that most of us would rather forget? Wouldn't that be funny, a Shin Japan Heroes Universe where Blue Gender or Armitage has moments. It'd be like the "metaverse" for ageing otaku.

Edit 6/20: Several Youtube channels which kept up BGC vocal tracks have had those tracks removed, all from the first 4 OVAs. Mad Machine, for instance. I’m not sure why Toei decided to remove the specific tracks they did, and not just bring the hammer down on every track.

[STMPD]

AIC Rights has a new CEO, namely the actor behind Kamen Rider Decade.

Presumably the passing of the torch from Miura to Inoue means AIC Rights, flush with Toei's money, is ready to start spinning up new projects. And look, there, right on cue: They're adapting Kajishima's GXP novels into anime.

I'm not surprised that Tenchi's still happening, but I have no goddamn idea what the nomination of Kamen Rider Decade to head honcho means. I wonder - would this rising corporate creature be interested in making the Bean Bandit anime Sonoda wanted to do, whose kickstarted produced naught but an appetite-whetting short? More Sonoda stuff in this late era would be cool as fuck.

[classicdrogn]

Well for one thing, it means you can use "Onore Dickaido" Kamen Rider memes to complain about the projects or lack of them. Hurrah?

[AnimeJanai]

If they can reboot Legend of the Galactic Heroes with updated animation techniques, then they could try that with the original Bubblegum Crisis. The OVA episode content is long enough that it could be subdivided into 12 episodes that fit into TV slots. But I bet Toei won't do anything that could cannibalize the audience of its existing anime lineup. Since Toei has right of first refusal with Sailor Moon, they really should make a "crossover reboot" or would that be more accurately a "reboot crossover" between BGC and Sailor Moon sans the Sailor Loon? Could a crossover survive without the Loon?

[STMPD]

Fairly big update note - this is AIC-R's website.

And they're not working on new BGC material, they're doing that Megazone 23 reboot. Good? Bad? You decide.

[classicdrogn]

If it meant I could get a MODAT or Bahanmut toy at a reasonable price I'd be over the moon, but they tend to cater more to the "collectors with six digit (USD) income" market even when it's not hunting for something last produced over a decade ago and prone to breakage.

[classicdrogn]

I played around with the URLs a bit since the link to the purple Bahamut on that page doesn't work right, and found both it, a lightweight/feminine styled one more similar to the original BGC Motorslave than the classic MZ23 bikes, and what appears to be the military hoverbike version, though with no bike mode. The thruster vents in the armpits, butt, and backpack are pretty clear, though.

Links:
* black/purple:
https://aic-r.com/2021/01-4
https://aic-r.com/2021/02-4
https://aic-r.com/2021/03-3
* fem:
https://aic-r.com/1958/01-3
https://aic-r.com/1958/02-3
https://aic-r.com/1958/03-2
* hover?:
https://aic-r.com/1951/01-2
https://aic-r.com/1951/02-2

I'll also note that the starship design looks A LOT like the New Macross class from 7 and Frontier, if with a pair of Garland leg pods on the sides rather than the more integrated ones on the New Macross, so lots of cross-pollination going on all over.

Also, if you right-click and "open image (or link) in new tab" then go to the URL bar and delete the "-(pixels H x Y)" or "-scaled" just before the file type extension from the images that have them, most of them will give you between 4x-10x higher resolution.

[Bob Schroeck]

...and from another page on the site, Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki Season five? Did I miss something, or is that just a Japan-specific numbering for something I've probably already seen?

[robkelk]

...and from another page on the site, Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki Season five?  Did I miss something, or is that just a Japan-specific numbering for something I've probably already seen?

You missed something. TM! Season Four was released in 2016, has been translated, and has run on Crunchyroll. Most of the original cast from Ryo-Ohki and GXP returned, with only the late Yūko Mizutani unable to reprise her role as Mihoshi. (Michie Tomizawa takes over her roles, which means she's un-retired again.)


OAV 4 trailer (home release of the fourth Blu-ray)




OAV 5 was released in 2020. My, but there's a lot of new characters. OTOH, Sasami and Ryo-ohki are teenagers now.

OAV 5 trailer (home release of the third Blu-ray)

[STMPD]

...and from another page on the site, Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki Season five?  Did I miss something, or is that just a Japan-specific numbering for something I've probably already seen?

You missed something. TM! Season Four was released in 2016, has been translated, and has run on Crunchyroll. Most of the original cast from Ryo-Ohki and GXP returned, with only the late Yūko Mizutani unable to reprise her role as Mihoshi. (Michie Tomizawa takes over her roles, which means she's un-retired again.)


OAV 4 trailer (home release of the fourth Blu-ray)




OAV 5 was released in 2020. My, but there's a lot of new characters. OTOH, Sasami and Ryo-ohki are teenagers now.

OAV 5 trailer (home release of the third Blu-ray)

Oh! Right! Yeah! It seems to have been made before the Toei Agency deal, though. Moreover, that 'Paradise Starting' thing I mentioned earlier in this thread apparently had no ties to AIC / Toei, according to the Tenchi wiki. I guess the GXP novels are copyrighted directly by Kajishima and so he got another studio to do most of the work there? So I guess AIC Rights is less hooked into Kajishima's mad mad mad plans, which is good.

Michie Tomizawa coming out of retirement for another role like that feels like some sort of surreal joke about action movies with One Last Job, too...