RightStuf Pulls Urban Vision Titles from Inventory, Urban Vision Responds

The online retailer RightStuf has taken the drastic step of delisting all of Urban Vision’s current anime titles from its inventory after repeated attempts to acquire stock from the licensor and distributor were met without success.  When asked by ANN regarding the initial delisting on Tuesday, this was the retailer’s response:

"We have chosen to remove products from this vendor because, despite repeated requests, shipments have not been forthcoming for some time. It’s not fair to our customers to accept orders for product that we can’t obtain."

Urban Vision then responded to the delisting with its own statement, although it was tinged with a defensive tone as its rep (Rhona Medina) went all the way back to the Musicland bankruptcy to explain its current situation, which really doesn’t explain much:

Right now Urban Vision Entertainment has been going through restructuring our business model and operations. Given today’s economic climate, physical distribution of goods has become riskier — just look at the companies that were devastated when Musicland threw it in. Thus, we’ve been working more towards broadcasting and online avenues of distribution — such as Amazon on Demand, Netflix, and YouTube.

While our DVDs may be harder to find right now, we’re working on ways to improve our distribution.

It’s important to note that Urban Vision resurfaced in 2009 with a new website and promises of new and exciting plans from the then dormant distributor of such titles as Tekkaman Blade II, Vampire Hunter D and Wicked City, but nothing actually came of it.  For the company to pipe up after two years of near inactivity and only after being delisted by a major online retailer doesn’t bode well at all.