Will Thirteen Be A Lucky Number for Funimation?
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
Fading Love for Lucky Star
I’m gonna throw in my two cents on my current feelings about Lucky Star (albeit possibly tardy…or maybe not) as a slight fuss arose in the anime blogocube following Scott’s post. Like Scott, I showed the series in question in my anime club with the final episode shown this past Wednesday. While most people liked it watching for the first time, I began to be pretty passive about it rewatching, working on a crossword or reading some articles for a class. On principle, I usually don’t watched something I have already seen (anime, movies, TV shows, etc.) except I am looking for something in particular to pick out or if I am listening to a director’s commentary. For example, I can recall somehow seeing Love Actually three times within a 9-month period and enjoying it less and less on each subsequent viewing.
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Tags: Editorial, lucky star
Geneon In Talks With Outside Distributor?
In this week’s Anime Corner Store newsletter, Robert divulged a small update on the Geneon situation, namely, that they have been “in serious talks with a major US home entertainment distributor” (Paramount?) to get some of their series back on store shelves. He can’t reveal any specifics at the risk of ruining his firm’s relationship but he did say the company is new to the anime space, that they will likely pick and choose which titles are included in the deal.
I would expect an announcement to occur in the next couple months if a deal indeed gets made. You can read the unedited section from this week’s newsletter yourself after the jump and begin to speculate on your own.
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Reading Out Loud #01 - PiQ and Lucky Star
The first DVD volume of Lucky Star shipped yesterday (the earliest I expect to get my copy is the 15th) and I figured this would be a good time to kick off an experimental, new feature for the blog. I’m calling it “Reading Out Loud” because that’s basically what the posts will be about: myself reading print articles, columns and reviews out loud with dramatic emphasis when appropriate.
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Tags: audio, Features, lucky star, piq, reading out loud
A Call For Better Advance Awareness
Chris Beveridge posted a complaint Monday about the lackluster marketing and solicitation efforts of ADV Films and FUNimation to the broader non-hardcore audience. I personally haven’t had as bad a problem with on-box descriptions but I’ve had more of an issue with minimalistic ads, such as the above from the June issue of PiQ that I got in the mail late last week.
At first, I was like “what the hell is Shattered Angels?” and the one-line copy - “Why Choose?” - wasn’t helping me understand what the hell they were trying to advertise. It took a quick search engine query to divine that Shattered Angels is actually Kyoshiro to Towa no Sora under another name. (I later noticed that the image credit mentioned the production committee in the lower left corner but tiny, grey text on a white background is not very readable to the average eye.)
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Tags: advertising, Anime, Commentary, Manga, marketing
Nozomi Sings an Aria While Central Park Media Is Playing Adagio
I’m sure you’ve heard by now that Nozomi Entertainment, the licensing arm of TRSI, announced it will release the first season of ARIA the Animation (or as I like to call it, “that laid-back gondola anime”) subbed on September 30th. But while they continue to attract attention for bringing cult favorites like Victorian Romance Emma and Maria Watches Over Us to the states in season box sets, another independent licensor seems to be remaining stagnant and it’s not entirely clear how they will rise out of it.
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Tags: central park media, licensing, nozomi
Poll: Do You Own Any Anime-Related T-Shirts?
Earlier this week, RightStuf announced they would begin taking pre-orders for “Otaku Collegiate” t-shirts and hooded sweatshirts that would become available at the end of July and feature an unlabeled box of Pocky. That news combined with Aardvark Tees following me on Twitter jogged my mind about anime- and Japanese-related apparel. Anyone who has attended a convention in recent years has probably seen someone wearing a “looking for a Japanese girlfriend” or another cheesy phrase shirt.
Personally I would almost never buy such a shirt because (a) I already have a bunch of shirts, many of them from events I have partaken in, and (b) most of them are crap or have pithy phrases on them. I believe the only anime-related shirt I own, aside from a couple club ones, is the monochrome Eva shirt I got from an issue of Shonen Ace. Anyway, I felt this was a good subject for a new poll so feel free to vote in the sidebar.
75 views | 2 commentsTags: Polls
Hunter X Hunter to FINALLY BE RELEASED! Now Put Out Monster!
The moment I read the news that Viz would be releasing the Shonen Jump-based series Hunter X Hunter in season box sets beginning in Q4 2008, a huge grin appeared on my face. At last, this awesomeness will be brought to America! The manga by Yoshihiro Togashi is already on volume 19 (Vol. 20 comes out May 6th) and for those of you who have never heard of HxH, shame on you! (For a good introduction to the plot, read this Animefringe feature from September 2005.)
To get some perspective of how long it has taken for this anime to hit US shores, the anime was created in 2000 and it has since been dubbed into French, Spanish, Italian, Portugeuse, Tagalog, and even Arabic. Viz pitched HxH and Monster to television broadcasters at this year’s NATPE and they have DVD rights for both so the next logical step would be to get Monster on DVD and perhaps TV. (Adult Swim, you know you want a psychological thriller/drama to replace InuYasha…) Failing that, just Hunter x Hunter getting onto Toonami would be fantastic.
P.S. Did you know Viz is a part-owner of a future 150-seat movie theater to be the main attraction of the yet-to-be built J-Pop Center in Japantown?
85 views | 1 commentTags: DVD, hunter x hunter, viz
“Gacha”: A Homophonic Pair of Manga
I got the pulp copy of RightStuf’s Spring 2008 catalog in the mail today and found an odd coincidence: two different manga with homophonic names: Gacha Gacha and Gatcha Gacha. The former is a shonen title dealing with a girl’s multiple personalities with an ecchi bent (the story arc shown above, “Next Revolution”, involves a boy who swaps gender whenever he sneezes due to a VR game malfunction!) while the latter is a shoujo romantic comedy with a love square and hints of shoujo-ai. Thankfully the Wikipedia pages for both series offer links to the other (shonen to shoujo and vice-versa) in case you were off by a letter. Still hard to discern between the two if you only hear the titles, though.
92 views | 1 commentTags: gacha gacha, gatcha gacha, Manga
One Week Left for Anime Blog Awards Noms; None for Me So Far…
The deadline for nominating “web logs” in any of the Anime Blog Awards’ fifteen categories is next Tuesday, April 22nd, and I figured I’d write a post about it to remind any stragglers to submit their suggestions for the short lists. I’m also writing this under the situation that I haven’t been nominated once so far in any category. I’m not trying to be egotistical but come on, NOT ONE?!? *coughs* Perhaps I should chide myself a little for not making frequent posts or for not developing a substantial gimmick or personality with which I could market my blog. I would certainly agree I haven’t done anything particularly spectacular to warrant internet recognition through a group of my peers.
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Tags: amateur otaku radio, anime blog awards, aor, introspection, nominations, rant
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