SHF Red Hawk in NA = Shout subbing Jetman?

Lynxara said:

I don't think this will happen, and I will tell you why.

The home video licensing rights for Super Sentai are extremely high, much higher than any typical anime's would be. The reason why has to do with the way actor's contracts are done in Japan. To do a home video release of Jetman in NA, the licensor would have to pay a licensing fee to each main performer in the series, though their agency. Typically, agencies demand high fees for foreign licensing, based on the size of the foreign market. NA fees would be astronomical.

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Wow. I did not know that before reading your post. I guess that explains why Toei doesn't make subbed toku DVD sets in North America.

Dr Kain said:

See, I don't get that. If they can release one of them outside of Japan, why can they not release them all? Is there some rule that says a company can only release one member of a team outisde of Japan? I mean, that is the reason I have not bought ShinkenRed. If I am going to buy a Sentai team, I want the entire team. It just drives me nuts when I have an incomplete team.

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I think with the Shinkengers, it's because the rest of the team besides Red and Gold were meant to be Tamshii exclusives. The only exclusive Figuarts they've managed to release in North America are Vegeta and SS3 Goku, but that's because Bandai had the US in mind as a target audience for Dragon ball characters.

kuroihikari said:

What's ironic is that I "typo'ed" myself by not typing out "fingers" .

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Maybe somebody read that as you telling him that his keyboard is fat.

What I want to know is..what hoops had to be jumped through?

I want to know who/what was involved with getting this done? My guess is that there are only certain types of stores in which these can be sold. You won't be seeing Red Hawk in the toy aisle next to Power Rangers. ShinkenRed was one thing..because of Samurai, but Jetman is something different.

My main point in wanting to know this, is finding out who theoretically holds the North Amercan distribution rights for Sentai. There's an incredibly strong story going around the fandom for years that Media Blaster actually approached Toei about releasing subbed Sentai and upon hearing this Disney panicked and swooped in to scoop up those rights to avoid brand confusion (this was when PR was doing well for them and they actually cared about it). This blocked it from happening. Nobody has any ideas where those rights lay now

^ That's weird, because the story I've always read is that after USA Network tried to use a Super Sentai for Tattooed Teenage Alien Fighters From Beverly Hills And Its Too Long Fookin' Title, that Saban bought the rights to all of the Sentai to prevent anyone else from attempting that, and Disney inherited those rights after buying PR from Saban...

:shrug:

I don't think it's too, too weird for a Red Hawk toy to be released. It looks Power Rangersy, it might look cool enough to appeal to people. It reminds me of how in the '80s, with the popularity of Transformers, Bandai released some of the DX '80s Sentai mechas in America to try to cash in. I doubt anybody at the time knew what shows these robots came from, Bandai was just counting on people thinking they were cool enough looking robots to buy. (It was weird to walk into a KB Toys and see a DX Bio Robo...)

Right, the adaptation rights..but aren't the distribution rights different? Nobody thought to license those as nobody would think to release a show like that over here.

Mr. Yellow said:

My main point in wanting to know this, is finding out who theoretically holds the North Amercan distribution rights for Sentai. There's an incredibly strong story going around the fandom for years that Media Blaster actually approached Toei about releasing subbed Sentai and upon hearing this Disney panicked and swooped in to scoop up those rights to avoid brand confusion (this was when PR was doing well for them and they actually cared about it). This blocked it from happening. Nobody has any ideas where those rights lay now

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That's interesting. I can see why releasing subbed DVD sets would be completely out of the question (demand just isn't there, past a handful of us fans), but how difficult would it be for TOEI to hire a couple of guys to sub the past Sentai seaons for an online site? It surely wouldn't cost them that much, and it'd make them money, at least from increased toy sales, if not from somewhere like Crunchyroll buying the rights.

Mr. Yellow said:

Right, the adaptation rights..but aren't the distribution rights different? Nobody thought to license those as nobody would think to release a show like that over here.

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I thought Saban snapped it all up? I'm not really sure, I just remember reading things like that's why there were never subbed Sentai released or why Hawaii couldn't release or rerun stuff like Battle Fever even though they still do Kikaida...

Man, Keith needs to open up the S.T.A.R. Chamber and get someone who knows the real story behind all this! :laugh:

Wow, I sorta forgot that USA also used Dynaman on Night Flight...and this Red Hawk thing, if Saban Brands were involved at all, might have something to do with the fact the Saban LOVES Jetman. Jetman was almost Power Rangers.

I don't think Saban had anything to do with this. I mean, Bluefin just go around selling Bandai stuff. Even the Megaman D-Arts or the Dragon Ball stuff. As the Bluefin guy said, what they sell isn't anything to do with the actual shows. Although, I could be wrong, and Saban suggested they bring over more Sentai stuff, despite Jetman not getting subbed yet..

Still, I wonder how true is it what Lynxara said, about how all the main actors need to be paid a licensing fee. Does this apply to all tokusatsu? Then how did anybody release those Ultraman Tiga DVDs back then? Tiga was also a 90s Tokusatsu, so shouldn't the licensor have had to go through all the same issues?