by Reymundo Salao
Bad news for the fans of Rurouni Kenshin a.k.a. Samurai X. It looks like the highly-anticipated film adaptation of the anime/manga series RUROUNI KENSHIN (popularly known in the Philippines as SAMURAI X) will not be having a theatrical release here in the Philippines after all.
The negative buzz came out just this weekend when Warner Bros. Pictures Philippines, via their facebook page stated that they have no rights to release the highly anticipated movie. This is their statement:
"...to the numerous folks asking. We just learned this morning that we do not have rights to release Rurouni Kenshin here in the Philippines."
(here is the link to that statement)
This is such a wrong move for the higher bosses of Warner Bros. considering the massive fanbase of this anime character here in the Philippines. Massive and rabidly solid fanbase. Most especially that most of its original fanbase (as far as timeline is based) are already professionals, but still young enough to cash in on their love for what they still geekily worship. And most of their youngest fanbase are teenagers who would surely come running to theaters immediately as the film version would be released. The bigger mistake of Warner's move is that if they do not cash in on the Samurai X popularity, the pirates will.
I am sure that the ardent fanbase was not going to settle with a grainy pirated copy of the movie (I am sure that they will not even settle for something that will have the slightest visual flaw, and will want the original), but the events leave them no choice. They will not wait for home video, they will go to torrents, go to pirated stalls, and they will get their Samurai X, be it legal or not.
Time is running out for Warner Bros. August 25 is the official release date. Granted Warner Bros. Philippines does get to release it; will it be early enough for fans before they can get copies from shadowy sources? This really is Warner's loss, if you ask me.
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