box sets

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.