Bodysuit 23 #793

Sony's finally consolidating Right Stuf into the Crunchyroll store, killing the branding and what not. The warehouse and staff will be around, but I fear what the long term is going to be. 35 years of history, known in the anime scene as one of the best places to purchase anime and manga, with the best packaging that blows places like Amazon out of the water, getting killed off so Sony can have everything under the Crunchyroll umbrella. I've had a long history with Right Stuf. Before learning about their store I learned about them through their anime licenses. KO Beast, His and Her Circumstances, Comic Party, and Shingu: Secret of the Interstellar War to name a few. They got their shows onto Anime OnDemand back when I was in high school and didn't have much in the ways of funds. His and Her Circumstance's soundtrack has become my official soundtrack for spring due to my listening to it on my walk home from school daily during spring 2006. It wasn't until I got a bank account when I turned 18 in 2008 when I could finally start ordering from there. First thing I bought was the first Gurren Lagann sub-only set Bandai put out. Since then I spent probably thousands of dollars there, always excited by the Summer and Winter sale. I loved diving into their clearance section and snap up the cheap $1-2 DVDs. That's how I got all of Diebuster for $6! I got the third Patlabor movie for $0.25!!! They were my go to place to buy anime and manga. I'd get stuff from elsewhere too, of course, but if I wanted something that I knew wasn't going to get destroyed in transit, I knew to go there. Sony has said they plan to keep the winter sale, but I can't imagine them keeping the huge discounts Right Stuf provided. There's no real reason for them to do so. Maybe for this holiday season they will, but it'll slowly get enshittified like most things do when they're bought out by a larger conglomerate. They claim Nozomi will still be around, but I see them shuttering that effort once their last license lapses. It'll be a few years, but either Sony will let the licenses lapse and not renew them, or instead have them go under the Crunchyroll banner. Lord knows what's going to happen to all of Right Stuf's Gundam releases. Will Sony be able to keep that going? I need to start looking into getting a couple series on the off chance they'll disappear. Not just Gundam, but a few other series as well. Finally grabbed El Hazard because of all this as I worried about its longevity. The writing was on the wall, of course. It's been there since Sony bought them out a year ago. They already meddled in Right Stuf's affairs by removing all of their adult content. You literally couldn't by the anime release of Interspecies Reviewers on Right Stuf despite the fact they put it out on bluray! You instead have to go to amazon and pay full MSRP instead of the discounted price. I'm happy that Shawne Kleckner got his payday and could finally retire after working for 35 years. He totally deserved it. Best fucking dude. One holiday season I jokingly asked for him to autograph my package in the customer request box, and he did it! I still have that portion of the package all these years later! A remind of damn good customer service. It's just a shame that the legacy and brand recognition is being thrown in the trash. I did a quick purchase shortly after the announcement, but I might do one last order at the start of next month shortly before Right Stuf is shut down and everything is moved over to Crunchyroll. There's a couple Nozomi titles I'm worried about and want to have on my shelf just in case. Couple years back I was planning on doing a webcomic series about two 30-something female anime fans, and several of the scripts and storyboards involved Right Stuf and Shawne as part of a series of gags involving a bunch of VHS tapes. Ultimately I didn't go down that route as I worried about the difficulty of doing a webcomic about current events in the anime industry. In a way I'm glad I didn't because I'm sure I would've burned out pretty quickly. Hell, I barely watched anything seasonal this year! But at the same time I'm sad that I won't be able to tell that fun little series of comic strips anymore because it will no longer make sense. Here's to you, Right Stuf. God speed.