The company's principal business is the sale of anime Movies and TV Series on DVD , but Manga Entertainment have also released some of their titles in cinemas. '' Ghost In The Shell '', '' Perfect Blue '' and '' Ninja Scroll '' have all had a theatrical release. Despite their name, the company does not sell Manga .
Manga Entertainment is owned by Anchor Bay Entertainment , part of IDT Corporation .
As Of 2005 , Manga Entertainment owns the English rights to 57 anime titles. Their UK arm, Manga Entertainment UK, also sublicenses a number of titles such as '' Akira '' and '' Patlabor '' from American companies who do not have a UK division.
Notable titles released by Manga Entertainment include:
See also: List of anime licensed by Manga Entertainment .
As of Jan 31, 2006, Manga Entertainment has dropped the following licenses:
Guyver (OAV), Fist of the North Star (TV), Patlabor 1: The Movie, Patlabor 2: The Movie, New Dominion Tank Police, Red Hawk, Dark Myth, Black Magic M-66, Wings of Honneamise and Gunbuster.
Both Patlabor Movies are already licensed by Bandai Visual and will be released on April 25, 2006.
See also: Bandai Visual's American Website
Over the years, Manga Entertainment has been the subject of many complaints from western anime fans.
- A frequent complaint is that their name is inaccurate and possibly even ignorant of Japanese culture. '' Manga '' technically refers to printed Japanese Comics rather than animation. However, even in Japanese , the word is often used to refer to both printed and animated material, in the same way as the English word " Cartoon ."
- Some have accused Manga of trying to market anime as Exploitation Movies by focusing on pornography and ultra-violence. Many of their releases have become infamous for their content, such as '' Legend Of The Overfiend '' (a Hentai series). More vocal critics even blame Manga for giving Japanese animation a bad reputation in certain parts of the west. In the mid 1990s , media controversy over ''Overfiend'' (particularly in the '' Daily Mail '' Newspaper ) caused a crash in the UK anime market leading to companies such as Pioneer Entertainment (now Geneon) pulling out of the UK market.
- The company have often been accused of tampering with the material they distribute. Changes have included replacing the original Japanese soundtrack with Rock Music , dumbing down translated dialogue and creating dubs with added Profanity . This has declined over time, but re-releases of older shows still contain edits.
- Their DVD releases have often contained errors - for example, the audio track of ''Ghost in the Shell'' was not properly synchronized, their UK ''Macross Plus'' discs were mislabelled, and their release of ''The End of Evangelion'' contained bugs that made it incompatible with some DVD players.
- They frequently make mistakes with releases, such as forgetting to add english subtitles to go with Japanese dialogue. Notable on all the Region 2 UK releases of '' Akira '' that only include hard of hearing English subtitles which makes it impossible to watch the film with the original Japanese dialogue.
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