Posts Tagged “funimation”

Last night, I was browsing through the top song charts of various countries’ iTunes Stores and I was surprised to find “Sousei no Aquarion” by Akino, the first opening theme to the anime of the same name, on the Japanese chart. I then thought to myself, “Hey, wasn’t that one of Funimation’s Kickoff ‘07 licenses?” I checked and found I was right but then I began to wondering why I hadn’t heard anything about an upcoming release. The landing page for Aquarion says “Coming Fall 2007″, which seems to be a projection that be missed since it’s almost winter and there’s still no definite word. Meanwhile the other six titles seem to be doing fine.
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Friday’s news that Shinsen-Subs has dropped Romeo x Juliet in accordance with an C&D letter sent by FUNimation on behalf of Gonzo is a stark example of the deep relationship the two companies share. FUNimation has previously licensed many Gonzo titles including Black Cat, Bakuretsu Tenshi, Basilisk, Desert Punk, Kiddy Grade, Samurai 7, Solty Rei, Speed Grapher, and Trinity Blood. Anyone who remembers the “Babes, Blades, Blood, Beauty” campaign from last year knows that all those were Gonzo titles. Other licensors have also distributed shows from Gonzo such as ADV with recent releases Red Garden, Pumpkin Scissors, and Welcome to the NHK and less recent ones like Kaleido Star; Viz with Saikano; and Geneon with Hellsing, Last Exile, and Vandread.

One thing that concerns me about this occurrence is what FUNimation said to ANN about producers’ rights:

In a statement to ANN, FUNimation said, “…[I]t is important to note that the rights owned by Japanese producers are still applicable, and enforceable, worldwide even before the anime is licensed for local distribution.”

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One of my 2007 predictions came true last week when Funimation launched its Funimation Channel on iTunes last Tuesday. That day I decided to plunk down 2 bucks to see what kind of quality the episodes are. Yes, I know they are dubbed only and I’m fine with that. I picked the first episode of Samurai 7 because I hadn’t seen it before. Now, I would have posted about this last week when it was actually news but my attempts to record a screencast came up not so good so I’ll have to settle for something more pictorial.
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Yesterday I clicked on a banner ad on ANN that sent me to the “Funimation 2007 Kickoff” website. Apparently, each weekday from Jan 22nd through 26th at noon CST (10am PST/1pm EST), a special announcement will be posted. Sure, I’ll be checking the page everyday next week but that’s not my point.

Recently there has been a trend of behavior that is starting to irritate me - that is, licensors hyping announcements. While this latest thing by Funi is not as grandiose as Bandai’s ASOS Brigade or as “clever” as Geneon’s hints at Rozen Maiden during a podcast that people otherwise wouldn’t listen to (at least I wouldn’t, I don’t know about you…), it still annoys me that they are making fans do more legwork. Call me lazy but I’d rather have companies just make a press release and surprise fans the old-fashioned way because I doubt we’ll remember years from now how Keroro took over ADV’s website for a day or two.
And yes, I do realize that I am inadvertently promoting Funi’s project by linking to it.

Back in mid-January, Funimation announced its licensing of Tsubasa Chronicle season one and the Tsubasa/xxxHOLIC crossover movie in Anime Insider magazine and that they would start releasing the series by the end of this year (2006). This fueled rumors that they had also licensed the xxxHOLIC TV series, which had yet to air in Japan and was two months from its premiere. Alas, no further announcements have been made in the 6 1/2 months since then. Why no progress? Here are four possible excuses I culled from brainstorming.
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At Anime Boston this weekend, it was formerly announced that Funimation has the North American license for BECK: Mongolian Chop Squad. This news made my weekend as this series is one I’ve been wanting to come to America. The question is: “Will this sell in America?” I think it will sell alright because of the rock elements but AnimeNation’s “Ask John” (4/4/05) is less optimistic.

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