As previously reported, Avex Pictures put a restriction in place that bans the sale of all the products they publish outside of Japan. Many anime fans in particular were not happy with this decision, seeing as Avex pictures is responsible for publishing tons of popular and well known titles which include YURI!!! on ICE, ONE PIECE, and Mr. Osomatsu.

A user on twitter reached out to Avex Pictures hoping to get a formal response on why they implemented this ban, shortly after the inquiring fan received a reply from their content sales and marketing department. According to the representative, due to unspecified problems with license rights these items were never supposed to be sold to people outside of Japan in the first place. The representative did note however, that they will try to acquire more rights to enable oversea sales again.

Fans who are still interested in obtaining products effected by this restriction can still purchase them through various proxy and middlemen services. The full statement from the Avex Pictures representative can be seen below.

 

Thank you for your continued support. Regarding the matter you have submitted, we provide the following response.

Due to the issue of license rights, the company [Avex Pictures] must make a distinction between products which can be sold overseas and those which cannot. We provide this information to retailers and e-commerce website operators, but there may be misunderstandings in classification among some outlets. Whenever such cases arise, we instruct them to make the necessary corrections.

We infer that the product that you have indicated is not able to be sold overseas because of this correction. This is not a case that the product is suddenly prohibited from being sold overseas, and we hope you will understand that it was never meant to be available, and that the dealer has only recently made this correction.

However, we appreciate the need for anime content overseas and will make an effort to be able to acquire more rights for overseas sales. We look forward to your continued support of our products.

Avex Pictures

 

(via MyAnimeList)