bandai

Yesterday afternoon, Bandai Entertainment held a special “Black Sunday” in Los Angeles’ Downtown Independent Theater (formerly the ImaginAsian Center) in order to reveal a “very unique” license…winter 2009 anime Kurokami (Black God), which will air simultaneously in Japan, Korea, and the US.

Well, not literally at the same time but close enough. And not on a basic cable American channel nor a widely-available digital cable American channel but ImaginAsian TV (iaTV), which is only available in select markets – namely, New York, NY; Los Angeles, CA; Princeton, NJ; Houston, TX; Dallas, TX; Fairfax County, VA; and Hawaii. Sorry, Midwest and Northwest…and the majority of America – you’re left out for now.

Here’s the rundown of regional airtimes for the collective “world historic first” broadcast premiere, culled from Bandai’s landing page* :

Japan (TV asahi): Fri Jan. 9th at 2:40am [Thurs. Jan 8th 1740 UTC]
Korea (AniBOX): Fri. Jan 9th at 10pm [Fri. Jan 9th 1300 UTC]
US-Eastern (iaTV): Thurs. Jan 8th at 8pm [Fri. Jan 9th 0100 UTC]
US-Pacific (iaTV): Thurs. Jan 8th at 8pm [Fri. Jan 9th 0400 UTC]

* The press release Bandai put out (one such copy) has what may or may not be a typo, stating the series’ Japanese debut will happen a day earlier on the 8th at 2:40am. cal.syoboi.jp says it debuts “2009-01-08(Thu) 26:40-27:10″, which agrees with the date given on the landing page, while both Sunrise’s site and the anime’s official website seem to agree with the press release. One thing is certain: it will premiere during the first full week of January 2009, barring a large broadcast interruption.

The two main beefs that Region 1 residents have expressed about this announcement are “Why the hell did Bandai Entertainment license this unknown series instead of already well-received series like Macross Frontier or Spice and Wolf?” and “Why the hell did they decide to put the dubbed version on a limited-reach cable channel and not include an online component?”

My response to the first question is because they wanted to appear progressive by using an untested show, similar to FUNimation with Shikabane Hime in October, except FUNi put it on four different online sites including their own. To the second one: I don’t know why since they could, and still may, make a subtitled version to be streamed online and should be able to functionally do so. I’m guessing its current absence has something to do with the arrangement among the partners involved and perhaps one or more of them is/are as willing to risks as Gonzo GDH (Tower of Druaga, Blassreiter) is and are still resistant to engage in legal streaming of their content over the Internet.

This announcement still remains a small step forward in terms of accelerating domestic DVD releases. Assuming the series is indeed 11 episodes as I’ve read in various places, the dubbing is guaranteed to be done by March because of weekly US airdates and an accompanying set of matching subtitles should be done if the translators doing their work at the same time, meaning the first volume (or even better, a box set) could be out on shelves by late summer or fall 2009. It is also a case of international cooperation in quickly adapting a new anime – dubbing off pencil test footage, for example – rather than working together on the actual production of a series, e.g. Afro Samurai, IGPX. I don’t believe it’s the first time but it is surely one of the first.

P.S. According to AnimeNews.biz, the anime has “its own story direction with major differences from the manga verison [sic] for the sake of adaptability”. Hmm. Guess I am more inclined to read the manga now in order to determine how far the anime strays from it.