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.] Read the rest of this entry »
ICv2 is reporting that 4Kids has let its Pretty Cure license lapse and revert back to Toei 31 months after they gained the US rights and did absolutely bupkis with it, despite planning to debut it on their TV block in fall 2006. Now the series sits in a zone where it has not been officially released yet but has lost a lot of momentum that it had when the initial license was announced. I’m not sure who is waiting for a DVD release but in the meantime, you can try out the first two episodes via Direct2Drive – something I did a few months ago and found them to be entertaining but not fantastic.
In its February 2006 story about its 4Kids license, ICv2 said that the series “has a chance to become the first magical girl anime series since Sailor Moon to achieve popularity here in the States” (did Cardcaptors flop?) and I suppose it still could if it’s marketed the right way. By the way, if you want some recommendations of other mahou shoujo series, Chris Fritz at the Pink Sylphide wrote a post about his favorites earlier this week.
Funimation announced their license of Ookiku Furikabutte today but they changed the name to ‘Big Windup!’WHAT!?! I can understand changing an anime’s name to make it more accessible to American audiences as ADV did with The Ugly and Beautiful World (Kono Minikuku mo Utsukushii Sekai) and even Rumbling Hearts (instead of The Eternity You Desire/Wish For) is something fans would be able to get used to over time. But renaming can also make things confusing, like what I thought happened with Shattered Angels (instead of Kyoshiro and the Eternal Sky), which actually isn’t as bad as I first thought. I credit part of my frustration to being a baseball fan and when I see ‘Big Windup!’, I think of an announcer saying the title of a baseball video game marketed toward kids that could have broader appeal (e.g. MLB Power Pros, very good game but not so good announcer) or a in-game powerup that also sounds cheesy when spoken. I am NOT looking for the trailer Funimation puts together whenever this gets released in late 2009 (self-speculation) but am sort of anticipating its actual release.
In the meantime, I will be watching fansubs of the show to see if it’s good. (I saw the first episode a few weeks back and, though it was slow, I saw some potential in it so, like a minor league scout, I’m going to give it a chance and hope it improves.)
*sigh* OK, I did find it clever that they parodied the MLB logo to make the series’ logo but I’m still not pleased about the name. I would have been fine with Pitch Like You Mean It! or a less cheesy name I can’t think of right now.
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.
Remember John Ledford’s mention of “B” titles a month ago? I had kind of forgotten about it until I came upon two things recently that mentioned it. This week’s edition of the AnimeNation News Podcast released on Thursday covered the topic and an ICv2 interview with Mike Balliff, ADV Senior VP of Sales, mentioned the phrase in a question about whether popularity in Japan is a good indicator of success in America.
Every week on the AnimeNation News Podcast, the hosts cover the news of the past week as well as two or three Ask John questions. The question from June 22nd, “Why Don’t ‘B’ Titles Sell in America Anymore?”, was the first of two to be discussed and below is the audio from the June 28th episode:
With the industry panels beginning tomorrow at Anime Expo and Otakon taking place in just three weeks, many big-name licenses are sure to be announced by the major US distributors. There will be confirmations of previously discovered domain names, logical steps and sequels based on previous licenses, and a few out of the left left field” announcements. The slam dunks and the relative unknowns share the stage of their respective industry panels. It’s the perfect time for fans to play prognosticator and predict how the chips will fall regarding the R1 fates of their favorite titles. [AOD has a topic on this for their AX forum.] Below the jump are those that will probably be locks along with many other less substantiated possibilities. Read the rest of this entry »
ADV made it known during their panel at Anime Central and through a press release on Friday that they have licensed four GONZO titles: Red Garden, Welcome to the NHK!, Pumpkin Scissors, and Magikano. Most of those sound like they would be good fits with ADV’s marketing but I am a little concerned about NHK, probably because I’ve watched the most of that one out of the bunch.
Here’s the release breakdown from the press release:
Red Garden: 24 episodes over 6 discs
Volume 1 due 9/18/2007
Welcome to the NHK!: 24 episodes over 6 discs
Volume 1 due 10/2/2007
Pumpkin Scissors: 24 episodes over 6 discs
Volume 1 due out 10/23/2007
Magikano: 13 episodes over 3 discs
Volume 1 due out 12/4/2007
The surprise seemingly-out-of-nowhere news of the week is ADV’s license of AIR the anime and its subsequent 87-minute movie. The company has set the release date for the first of four volumes as August 14 and stated a new DVD will come out each month – this means that all of AIR will have been brought to the R1 market by the end of November. That’s like Viz releasing three volumes of the Naruto manga a month from September to December, except with video discs.
I think it’s worth noting out that it was last Friday that ADV announced at Anime Boston that the first volume of Innocent Venus will come out on August 21. In that particular press release, you can read rep David Williams describing the anime as “combin[ing] the sci-fi noir of Logan’s Run with the fast-paced action of Gantz”.
P.S. I am not lying about the title of this post. I actually did finish downloading AIR the TV series (but not the movie) last night and was – and still am – planning to watch it this weekend, although I’m going to be occupied with yard work part of Saturday and I have a paper due Thursday…
I don’t like to jump to conclusions and start rumors but this just seemed strange to me to not pass along. Everyone probably knows by now that the anime being hinted at in ANN’s current Geneon license contest is Higurashi and the first five clues so far have been pretty straightforward: 26 episodes, Summer of ‘83, based on a PC game, etc. But the sixth one is more “puzzling” than its predecessors.
The words “English Title” seem to indicate Higurashi might get the same treatment that Kimi Ga Nozomu Eien got with “Rumbling Hearts”. Forumites on AoD and ANN are wondering whether the contest runners screwed up the space distribution since the most likely alternate title would be “WHEN THEY CRY”. BUT…that doesn’t fit into a 3-5-3 phrase structure. So it’s probably “THE [blank] CRY” or “WHY [blank] CRY” with the middle word being plural and mysterious. Longshots I thought of include “see lolis die” and “big psych out”. That is, if the wording is in fact 3-5-3 and not 4-4-3.
I guess we’ll all find out the North American marketing name late Monday evening. Whatever the name ends up being, it’s a good thing I finished downloading the series this weekend. Now I have to actually resume watching it – I left off at episode 3…
Last week was full of appetizing announcements regarding licenses and release dates but now that I think about it, I realize I’ve written some interesting posts about some of the anime involved in those press releases and that I have certain obligations to buy each of them (Tsubasa, Haruhi, Solid State Society) — or at least the first volumes of ‘em. Come along with me and look back at what I now slightly regret writing. Read the rest of this entry »
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