FUNimation has made some licensing and dub casting announcements over the past week. During their Katsucon panel on Saturday, the studio made public their licenses of Bamboo Blade, Dragonaut, Blassreiter, and The Tower of Druaga (the press release implicitly indicates both the Aegis of Uruk and Sword of Uruk seasons). Three of those – the ones that aren’t Bamboo Blade – are Gonzo titles (continuing their existing relationship) and two have previously been digitally distributed online.
In fact, Blassreiter and Tower of Druaga can still be seen through Crunchyroll. They have already received English subtitles through that process but I figure that FUNimation will want to compose their own translations, which is probably a smart thing as their staff should have more familiarity with English flow and those results would help in the dubbing process. It’d be nice if two subtitle tracks (Gonzo’s and their own) were included in the sets but I can understand if doing the timing for both would be too time-consuming.
In D.Gray-Man news, CJ reports that the series’ website has been updated with an auto-playing (!) trailer and release dates for all four box sets. It was already known that the first will be released on March 31st so the new dates are set #2 on June 23rd, set #3 on October 6th, and the fourth and final one on January 5th, 2010. Initial English casting has been confirmed over the past few weeks with Todd Haberkorn voicing Allen Walker (and also directing ADR), Travis Willingham playing Yuu Kanda, Luci Christian as Lenalee Lee, Jason Liebrecht as Lavi AND the Millennium Earl, and J. Michael Tatum as Komui Lee. Other less core roles are Cherami Leigh (Mai in Ghost Hunt) as Road Camelot (come on! spell it with a K!), Wendy Powell as Hevlaska (the Innocence assessor), and Chris Sabat as Marion Cross (Allen’s mentor). [ALSO: Katsura Hoshino will be resuming the manga's serialization in Shonen Jump on March 9th.]
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Will Thirteen Be A Lucky Number for Funimation?
May 14, 2008 in Commentary, Licenses by Tom Langston (calaggie) | No comments
This week Funimation has been announcing licenses and so far all of them have involved 13-episode sets. On Monday, it was Save Me, Lollipop (aka Mamotte! Lollipop) that will come out as a 13-episode set in December and Tuesday they announced plans to release the first 26 episodes of Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple in two 13-episode box sets in 2009 without specification on the second set of twenty-six (meaning they may not have those yet). The latest was Gunslinger Girl -Il Teatrino-, the second anime season of the female cyborg assassin series, and those 13 episodes are going to be released as, you guessed it, a box set sometime in 2009. (Funi had put out the first season as singles in 2005 and repackaged it into a complete collection in 2006.)
It seems that they are certainly living up their plan toward more initial season sets but they are still releasing single volumes for new series like Shuffle! and xxxHOLiC, likely due to agreements with the Japanese owners. I wish I had access to sales numbers to see if this bulk packaging is actually working…
Just to give you an update on some of their previous announcements, Darker Than Black is listed as simply “2008″, Ghost Hunt‘s site says Fall 2008, Ouran’s has no date but it was announced as 2008 at Otakon ’07, and Negima!? and Planet of the Beast King (Jyu-Oh-Sei) don’t have their own sites yet but AnimeSuki lists both as 2008. So I guess we can expect some substantive details in the months ahead, maybe.
P.S. A user on the AoD forums predicts that Soukou no Strain will be announced tomorrow based on the silhouetted teaser on Funimation’s front page. And guess what, that has 13 episodes to its name as well.
Tags: box sets, funimation, Licenses, thirteen