Well, that’s disappointing.
Manglobe (マングローブ), the anime studio behind such hits as Samurai Champloo, The World God Only Knows series, and this past season’s hit, GANGSTA. is kaput.
According to a report from animeanime.biz, Manglobe had started procedures for bankruptcy on the 29th after being in a state of insolvency for some time.
Apparently this was not common knowledge when the news broke yesterday evening, much to the surprise and chagrin of many contractors involved who had no idea their livelihood had just gone tits up.
An animator, Toshio Kobayashi, aka SNIPES, tweeted last night, “[Urgent] Please give me work.” Followed by the tweet, “[Breaking news] I’m unemployed.”
Hideo Komori, the director of the Hayate no Gotoku! movie tweeted, “My salary hasn’t been wired?…”
Manglobe has had a reputation for high quality anime that express individual creators’ uniqueness.
At the time of bankruptcy, the studio was working on the anime movie Genocidal Organ, the second in a series of highly anticipated anime movies based on the works of the late novelist Keikaku Itoh. Production of the movie will likely be taken over by a different company.
Genocidal Organ was scheduled for release on November 13th, but with the current situation it’s likely that the release date will be delayed.
Manglobe was founded in 2002 and took off with a bang with its first series, Samurai Champloo.
It will be missed.
Comments
3 responses to “The Anime Studio That Made Samurai Champloo And Gangsta. Is No More”
nooooo not gangsta :(! i really hope someone picks up the IP.
This is the end of my love of anime as I know it. Samurai Champloo. We’ll never see it’s like again.
Dammit no! Their stuff was great. Add to the list of timeless classics they created: Michiko & Hatchin and Ergo Proxy.
This is really depressing. Basically means that you cannot create deep, mature anime and sustain a livelihood if you are not catering to either (or both) the moe and the ero demographics.
I’m wondering though: what happens to all the IP they have? Like, royalties and such? Their own works?
Who has bought them up, or who owns what, now? If a copy of Ergo Proxy gets sold, where does the money go to?