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Big West trademarks Macross in the UK


Marzan

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So there’s this news floating around that Big West  recently got the trademark for Macross in the UK. I did some checking and found out it’s true.

https://trademarks.ipo.gov.uk/ipo-tmcase/page/Results/1/UK00003235006

Interesting times indeed. I wonder what they’ll do with it. HG’s stranglehold is slipping.

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16 minutes ago, Marzan said:

Interesting times indeed. I wonder what they’ll do with it. HG’s stranglehold is slipping.

Probably laying the groundwork for 2021.

Mind you, as much of a coup as it is, the actual impact of obtaining the trademark over Harmony Gold's objections is fairly minimal given that most of the distributors producing English translations of anime and manga are based in the United States and distribute in Europe and Australia through partners and affiliates.

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8 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Probably laying the groundwork for 2021.

Mind you, as much of a coup as it is, the actual impact of obtaining the trademark over Harmony Gold's objections is fairly minimal given that most of the distributors producing English translations of anime and manga are based in the United States and distribute in Europe and Australia through partners and affiliates.

Absolutely. I cannot imagine BW partnering up with a British distributor and doing a Europe only release, considering the modest size of the English language market in Europe.

Unless funimation which just purchased Manga Entertainment gets creative and cooks something up.

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I can hardly wait for 2021, when I might be able to walk into my local Barnes and Noble and pick up a Bandai Macross kit as easily as I could walk in there and buy gunpla right now.

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1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

I can hardly wait for 2021, when I might be able to walk into my local Barnes and Noble and pick up a Bandai Macross kit as easily as I could walk in there and buy gunpla right now.

Yeah, it would bring some much needed diversity to my local anime/manga store. Most of its stock of models are Gundams, with the occasional Full Metal Panic model to break it up. That, and a tonne of Kantai Collection figures back from when it was still wildly popular.

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18 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

I can hardly wait for 2021, when I might be able to walk into my local Barnes and Noble and pick up a Bandai Macross kit as easily as I could walk in there and buy gunpla right now.

It will be surreal when that happens. Crazy.

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21 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

I can hardly wait for 2021, when I might be able to walk into my local Barnes and Noble and pick up a Bandai Macross kit as easily as I could walk in there and buy gunpla right now.

You and I both my friend. I think that year will be a Macross celebration for a great many fans (and a day of weeping and gnashing of teeth for Disharmony Gold).

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22 minutes ago, pengbuzz said:

You and I both my friend. I think that year will be a Macross celebration for a great many fans (and a day of weeping and gnashing of teeth for Disharmony Gold).

Seriously when that happens the member of this group need to do some serious, possibly public celebrating!

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52 minutes ago, Mazinger said:

Seriously when that happens the member of this group need to do some serious, possibly public celebrating!

That year, I'll throw a freaking party the night before (or maybe of) Super Dimension Con so we can drink to the downfall of HG.

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1 hour ago, Mazinger said:

Seriously when that happens the member of this group need to do some serious, possibly public celebrating!

 

46 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

That year, I'll throw a freaking party the night before (or maybe of) Super Dimension Con so we can drink to the downfall of HG.

Definitely to both!!! And of course, post this pic somewhere that HG can see:

1937095452_HarmonyGoldsEndviaMacrossFInal.thumb.jpg.b28c45e8c5aa52f5fe343a9804e08ba1.jpg

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3 hours ago, Mazinger said:

Seriously when that happens the member of this group need to do some serious, possibly public celebrating!

We already have an Event planned for the Spanish community on Facebook in March 21 2021

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Edited by Gerli
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2 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

That year, I'll throw a freaking party the night before (or maybe of) Super Dimension Con so we can drink to the downfall of HG.

I'll join ya for that! It'd be worth an overnight stay in LA to celebrate that (I live only 3 hours away).

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On 6/4/2019 at 10:50 PM, AN/ALQ128 said:

Yeah, it would bring some much needed diversity to my local anime/manga store. Most of its stock of models are Gundams, with the occasional Full Metal Panic model to break it up. That, and a tonne of Kantai Collection figures back from when it was still wildly popular.

Kantai was in B&N? Still is?

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Aside from official English-language Blu-rays, I'd also like books--art books, master files, etc to be available in English once HG's stranglehold is over. I'm kind of not worried about kits since I can already buy them from online stores. Those P-Bandai HMRs however...

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1 hour ago, hachi said:

Aside from official English-language Blu-rays, I'd also like books--art books, master files, etc to be available in English once HG's stranglehold is over. I'm kind of not worried about kits since I can already buy them from online stores. Those P-Bandai HMRs however...

Home video, toys, and kits are probably going to be most of what we'll see in the first few years once Harmony Gold's stranglehold is finally broken.

Art books and other print media like that are a much harder sell in the West because they require a non-trivial investment of money to translate into English and are guaranteed to not be as widely consumed as the series itself.  I've seen a few translated art books make their way to US booksellers in the last decade or so, but they're mostly more literal applications of "art book" in the form of manga illustration collections from the various high-profile shonen manga like BleachNaruto, and One Piece.  Some are just the Japanese books reprinted for sale in the west like the Bleach art book All Colour but the Black, while others are condensations of multiple illustration collections.  I've only seen two that really buck the trend.  One is the The Complete Art of Fullmetal Alchemist book that Viz Media published, which is mostly (but not entirely) a condensation of several illustration collection books garnished with the contents of one of the concept art books.  The other is a Neon Genesis Evangelion art book that is an illustration collection... of original illustrations made for Evangelion Chronicle.  The kind of book we think of when we think "art book" is a much tougher sell, in part because there's not as much call for it among casual fans and also because there's a lot more text that needs translating.

Out of curiosity, I actually went and had several different professional translation services put together quotes on what it would cost to do a professional translation of Variable Fighter Master File: VF-1 Valkyrie Vol.1 a while back.  The lowballed estimates based on page count rather than word count fell around $25K and three to four months.  You'd have to move at least a thousand copies after you'd broke even on printing costs just to break even on the cost of translation.

(My group is working on full translations of the Master File books and other publications for the site we're building, but those books are long enough that we're looking at more like six months to a year apiece.)

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40 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Out of curiosity, I actually went and had several different professional translation services put together quotes on what it would cost to do a professional translation of Variable Fighter Master File: VF-1 Valkyrie Vol.1 a while back.  The lowballed estimates based on page count rather than word count fell around $25K and three to four months.  You'd have to move at least a thousand copies after you'd broke even on printing costs just to break even on the cost of translation.

So once HG's grip is gone, why not do a Kickstarter for the translated versions like how Antarctic Press does with the Gold Brick editions? Set a goal that covers the cost of the translation and basic printing then make that the goal, even have a few editions signed by the designers for like 4x the cost of the base book to drive up backing. 

Then just do that for each Master File until the series is done or they have the proof that these things will pay for them selves if sold outright.

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46 minutes ago, Focslain said:

So once HG's grip is gone, why not do a Kickstarter for the translated versions like how Antarctic Press does with the Gold Brick editions? Set a goal that covers the cost of the translation and basic printing then make that the goal, even have a few editions signed by the designers for like 4x the cost of the base book to drive up backing. 

Then just do that for each Master File until the series is done or they have the proof that these things will pay for them selves if sold outright.

I'd definitely back that.

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1 hour ago, Focslain said:

So once HG's grip is gone, why not do a Kickstarter for the translated versions like how Antarctic Press does with the Gold Brick editions? Set a goal that covers the cost of the translation and basic printing then make that the goal, even have a few editions signed by the designers for like 4x the cost of the base book to drive up backing. 

Then just do that for each Master File until the series is done or they have the proof that these things will pay for them selves if sold outright.

That'd be one way to do it, yeah... though that's an avenue that's only become available recently and doesn't seem to be the kind of thing a lot of the larger publishers and distributors are considering.

 

(Kickstarter is, after all, mostly seen as a place for new companies and indie outfits to launch products.)

Edited by Seto Kaiba
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2 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Home video, toys, and kits are probably going to be most of what we'll see in the first few years once Harmony Gold's stranglehold is finally broken.

Even with small merchandising, manga or a couple of toys... with HG out of the picture maybe we can see some Macross products being sold locally in the small markets. South america is a growing market for manga/anime, hell, we even had a "The Promised Neverland" Manga release with a freaking Termo and Mate for the Argentinian market...!

56539224_10157076528059246_6553389309305

 

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8 minutes ago, Gerli said:

Even with small merchandising, manga or a couple of toys... with HG out of the picture maybe we can see some Macross products being sold locally in the small markets. South america is a growing market for manga/anime, hell, we even had a "The Promised Neverland" Manga release with a freaking Termo and Mate for the Argentinian market...!

From what I've heard, "growing market" doesn't quite cover it... I've heard South America has proven to be an unusually receptive market for anime and manga in general.

It'd probably be an especially fertile ground for Macross eventually, given that it's basically the last bastion of the Robotech franchise currently.

 

I wonder what implications Big West's new trademark are going to have for Titan Publishing Group and their current (awful) Robotech comic.  They're based in the UK, and that comic is making fairly liberal use of the Macross name.

Edited by Seto Kaiba
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8 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

From what I've heard, "growing market" doesn't quite cover it... I've heard South America has proven to be an unusually receptive market for anime and manga in general.

It'd probably be an especially fertile ground for Macross eventually, given that it's basically the last bastion of the Robotech franchise currently.

 

I wonder what implications Big West's new trademark are going to have for Titan Publishing Group and their current (awful) Robotech comic.  They're based in the UK, and that comic is making fairly liberal use of the Macross name.

Perhaps they are unaware... perhaps someone should tell them about it?

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12 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

I wonder what implications Big West's new trademark are going to have for Titan Publishing Group and their current (awful) Robotech comic.  They're based in the UK, and that comic is making fairly liberal use of the Macross name.

If UK trademark law is similar to ours, then it's business as usual for Titan while the appeal process plays out. But when Harmony Gold loses the appeal, I can see Titan renaming everything "Macross" to something else, or even just referring to it as "the city" or "the ship." It'll be a bit embarrassing, but nothing they're already used to, considering the comic's content. Take this with a grain of salt as I'm not familiar with UK law.

To Macross fans in the UK, if Big West releases Macross Blu-ray discs and books over there, please buy them. If fans just download torrents and call it a day, Big West may wonder if their legal expenses are worth the trouble.

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9 hours ago, TheLoneWolf said:

If UK trademark law is similar to ours, then it's business as usual for Titan while the appeal process plays out. But when Harmony Gold loses the appeal, [...]

Harmony Gold already lost the appeal.

Big West's Class 41 trademark on Macross is registered.  Registration of a trademark is only granted after the trademark application has been reviewed, approved, published, and is not successfully appealed during the appeal period.

 

6 hours ago, Chronocidal said:

Heck, if any English-speaking regions get any sort of officially subtitled release, I'm going to be importing them from there anyway.  No reason to wait for a US version. :p 

Unless they're region-coded... the Americas, Japan, and Southeast Asia are Region A, while Western Europe (including the UK) are Region B.

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39 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Unless they're region-coded... the Americas, Japan, and Southeast Asia are Region A, while Western Europe (including the UK) are Region B.

IIRC, most BDs are region-free. I don't know how/if that applies to anime distro companies, though. Let's hope that's the case.

Edited by kajnrig
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I’m trying to imagine Macross no longer being an obscure franchise no ones heard about..

And is HG part of the reason Macross hasn’t (yet) gone full saturation bombing lame anime , sell,sell,sell models.. 

Like that other long time franchise we all love...

Are we gonna regret our big ape finally getting off skull island..?

If anything, easy access to everything Macross that’s come before, and nice subs , will be much welcomed.

But how much is this ( hg stranglehold finally falling off) going to change the shape of Macross to come..?

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10 hours ago, Chronocidal said:

Heck, if any English-speaking regions get any sort of officially subtitled release, I'm going to be importing them from there anyway.  No reason to wait for a US version. :p 

This.

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53 minutes ago, Bolt said:

I’m trying to imagine Macross no longer being an obscure franchise no ones heard about..

And is HG part of the reason Macross hasn’t (yet) gone full saturation bombing lame anime , sell,sell,sell models.. 

Like that other long time franchise we all love...

Are we gonna regret our big ape finally getting off skull island..?

If anything, easy access to everything Macross that’s come before, and nice subs , will be much welcomed.

But how much is this ( hg stranglehold finally falling off) going to change the shape of Macross to come..?

I don't see Macross turning into another Gundam yet, since its still primarily under the stewardship of Kawamori.

 

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