Funimation is licensing anime like mad. Their next adoption comes in the form of the anime named Soukou No Strain. The 13-episode military robot anime series will ship in English in March of 2009.
Director Tetsuya Watanabe (Rumbling Hearts, Zone of the Enders) and Studio Fantasia (Rumbling Hearts, Stratos 4) animated this series which aired in Japan from November of 2006 to February of 2007. The series loosely adapts Frances Hogson Burnett's A Little Princess novel about a rich daughter named Sarah Crewe who suddenly loses her father and her family fortune and must work as a common servant. The anime resets the plot in space in the distant future. It centers around a 16-year-old girl named Sarah Werec who loses her military status when her brother seemingly becomes a traitor to her government. Sarah struggles back up the ranks as a common pilot in hopes of confronting her brother.
Source
ANN
Clannad Malware Creator Gets Two Years in Prison
On Friday, the Kyoto District Court found Masato Nakatsuji guilty of hiding a malicious program within Clannad anime images on the Winny file-sharing network and sentenced him to two years in prison along with a three-year suspended sentence. Since there is no law in Japan against the creation of malware ("Trojan horses," viruses, and other malicious computer software), the 24-year-old former Osaka Electro-Communication University graduate student was actually charged with violating Clannad's copyrights and defaming another student. Nakatsuji admitted that he had also distributed his program with pictures of the other student to mislead the authorities.
Two years was the length of prison time for which the prosecutors had asked, while the defense has asked for a suspended sentence only. This was the first criminal prosecution of an alleged malware creator in Japan.
A 39-year-old man named Shōji Sakai was arrested on the same day in January as Nakatsuji was. Unlike Nakatsuji though, Sakai was not involved with the creation of the malware. Instead, Sakai was charged with uploading about 5,700 episodes from about 230 titles, including Idolmaster Xenoglossia, Mobile Suit Gundam 00, and Kimikiss pure rouge, and sentenced to one year in prison (with a three-year suspended sentence) in April.
Source
ANN
I just had to throw this one in also
A Major Blow to 4Kids
4Kids Entertainment, the American licensing company whose current anime properties include Yu-Gi-Oh! and Dinosaur King, announced its financial results for the quarter ending March 31, 2008. During the first three months of the year, 4Kids posted revenues of US$15.0 million, but a net loss of US$6.4 million.
According to 4Kids Chairman and CEO Alfred R. Kahn, much of the loss was caused by expenses surrounding the launch of 4Kids' Chaotic trading card game. The market for auction rate securities, of which 4Kids maintains a portfolio, also declined. The third reason Kahn cited was the "decreased licensing revenues from some of our more established properties.”
Source
ANN
4Kids isn't dead yet? *beats them with a baseball bat*
