Angel's Egg streaming...by Tokyopop??

[usamimi]

So in a strange turn of events, it looks like Tokyopop is streaming Angel's Egg subtitled on their Youtube channel:

https://youtu.be/nzNwS8yTbeM

It's a little bizarre, though, because it's labeled a bit...oddly ("Anime Hidden Treasure - "Angel's Egg" english subtitle", which makes it sound like a fansub upload to me rather than an official release.)

Other odd bits: There's mistakes in the subtitles (I'm including a screencap I took of it)

angel egg.png (227.97 KiB) Viewed 3715 times

and there are no credits included at the end, no copyright info in the video description. It just seems pretty weird, if this was an official release. I've been wanting an official Angel's Egg release for ages, but not like this! I wonder what's going on...

[scriptweaver]

I absolutely love angel's egg. I wonder why Tokyopop would use fan subs...

This is very cool none the less

If they end up giving it a official release, I hope its a more proper one then this (I think they're sorta testing the waters which might explain the lackluster subbing, but I may be wrong, just throwing out my own guess at this lol)

[Akage]

Tokyopop announced at Anime Expo last year that they were planning on relaunching their company again in 2016. I'm guessing Angel's Egg is one of the few properties that they were unable to sell off to Funi during their 2008 restructuring, and still might have the rights to show today.

If you go to their Twitter account (@Tokyopop), there's a couple people calling them out for uploading a fansub, especially when, just tweets earlier, they mentioned that watching pirated anime only hurts yourself.

[usamimi]

So since Tokyopop never responded to my tweets, I outright tweeted to Stu Levy himself, and this is what he said:

stu levy.png (56.01 KiB) Viewed 3703 times

This is important, because while he didn't OUTRIGHT say no, he also didn't say "yes". He basically avoided the question, which doesn't sound good. But the phrasing here makes it sound like, no, Tokyopop doesn't own the rights to Angel's Egg.

Some friends of mine in other countries also noticed that there are no region blocks on the video, either, which is another red flag (region settings are usually put in place due to contracts on official videos--for example, they can't watch stuff on Nozomi's youtube account because it's blocked in their country, since they don't have the license for it there.)

The other thing about their upload is that it has ads on it. That means they've monetized this video, and will get ad revenue for hits on it. If they're really trying to "spread awareness" of the movie, why have ads on it, too? The whole thing is just really, really sketchy to me. Even if they were trying to see how many hits they'd get on it to show the owners "SEE? There's a market for releasing this movie! Please let us release it!!", they could've easily just pointed to the OTHER fansubs of Angel's Egg on Youtube that already have thousands of hits. I don't really understand what Levy's trying to accomplish here.

[scriptweaver]

Sounds like a desperate move to make a lucrative profit off of a anime they couldn't do much with (based on the idea that angels egg was one of the things they couldn't push on Funi like akage suggested).

[SteveH]

Not to be too horrible, but is ANYONE surprised that Levy would do something of questionable legal and ethical morality?

[usamimi]

Not to be too horrible, but is ANYONE surprised that Levy would do something of questionable legal and ethical morality?

I'm not THAT surprised, but at the same time I'm pretty amused that someone who often speaks up against manga piracy has no qualms with pirating anime on his company's YouTube channel.

And yes, Stu Levy finally admitted that no--Tokyopop does not own any rights whatsoever to Angel's Egg & never did. In fact, he admitted to me he took a fansub someone had ALREADY uploaded to YT and simply reuploaded it onto his channel....to "spread awareness" of the film.

When I pointed out that he was basically pirating anime & that, if he truly wanted to spread awareness, a written review or review video would've been fine, he finally seemed to realize what people were getting last & agreed to remove the video.

So...yeah, that was a thing. Tokyopop had a whole fansub on their channel for a while. Great idea for a comeback, huh?

[Char Aznable]

Tokyopop announced at Anime Expo last year that they were planning on relaunching their company again in 2016.

This will be very interesting. I've always been conflicted about Tokyopop because (while I do understand the criticism they get) they genuinely did contribute to the rise of manga being sold in the United States...at the very least, in the company's early years. And I did enjoy their translations of Battle Royale and Battle Vixens (Ikki Tousen), even if they did Westernize the slang and some dialogue. By the end though, the editing and print errors became extremely pronounced.

But this new streaming thing is just bizarre. I don't really see a way in which this benefits them, unless it's an attempt to gather youtube ad revenue for a show they don't own? So strange.

[llj]

I must confess that my experiences with Tokyopop as a consumer is very limited. I was never the target audience of their manga...and the only thing from them I really committed to was the GTO anime. I do remember a lot of interesting online back and forth between Levy and fans during the early 2000s though.

Honestly, Angel's Egg is something I'd prefer a non-anime distribution company to pick up. Like a Cinelicious Pics or Criterion release would be nice.

[scriptweaver]

But this new streaming thing is just bizarre. I don't really see a way in which this benefits them, unless it's an attempt to gather youtube ad revenue for a show they don't own? So strange.

At first I thought it was a money thing too, but after talking to him, he seems really sincere and enthusiastic for Angel's Egg. I love the energy he has for it, albeit it was a little misguided, but wholehearted none the less. I'm sure we all had that moment where we felt so good about a anime we just wanted to shove it in as many peoples faces as possible (probably could've worded that better, but eh, whatever). For me it was Serial Experiments: Lain. For him, it seems to be Angel's Egg.