Last month, Bandai Entertainment closed its online store and only has a select few anime series for sale. Today it was announced that Bandai would stop releasing any new anime series on DVD or Blu-ray. Bandai Entertainment announced they will be changing their focus from releasing series to licensing all their rights to other companies for them to release. Bandai Entertainment will now be moving into digital distribution. With it, quite a few jobs will be lost and the anime community will lose one of its biggest anime release companies that helped bring over animes to the West, like Suzumiya Haruhi, K-on, Gurren Laggan, and Gundam series, which is only a very small portion of the library of available series. Current and earlier released series will be available via distributors for an unknown amount of time.
Any current mangas being released by Bandai will also be affected, and Bandai has already confirmed that a few titles have already been canceled:
Code Geass: Renya
Gurren Lagann volume 7 and beyond
Kannagi volumes 4-6
Lucky Star Boo Boo Kagaboo
Mobile Suit Gundam 00I
Tales of the Abyss: Jade’s Secret Memories
It’s a pretty sad day indeed. Voice actresses Cristina Vee and Stephanie Sheh have posted their sadness with this news and how this will affect the anime industry as a whole in the coming future. This will affect North America, so anime fans should really push and support their favorite series to existing anime companies like Viz, NIS America, Aniplex USA so that future releases are possible.