Anime Boston Details
Bandai News
Bandai Entertainment's Robert Napton presented his company's news and announcements. Last summer, Bandai was very active in licensing new shows, and the dubbing and production on several of those is just about finished. Lucky Star will be Bandai's first upcoming new release, scheduled for May 6. A new DVD of the series will then come out every two months, for a total of six volumes, and each one will contain thorough liner notes explaining Lucky Star's vast numter of in-jokes and references to other anime.
Even before that, on Saturday, April 26, the first episode of Bandai's military science ficiton series Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion will premiere on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim programming block. Before the broadcast, on Friday night, and on every subsequent Friday, the episode that is scheduled for that week will also be streamed on adultswim.com. There is no set date for when Code Geass will come to DVD yet, but Bandai is working on dubbing the series, and onlincluding as many of the extras, such as sound dramas, that are available on the Japanese DVDs as possible. On April 6, the second 25-episode season of Code Geass will begin in Japan, and Bandai's license already extends to cover that, as well as the manga adaptations of the series and the light novel.
The summer months of the year will see Bandai brining out the first volume of Ghost Slayers Ayashi (aka Ayakashi Ayashi), starting around June. Both the 25 episodes of the main television series and the five of the Ayashi Divine Comedy OAV sequel will eventually be brought out. The initial volumes of Toward the Terra and Clamp School are also set for the summer, as are the single-volume My Otome Zwei and the four episodes of the Mobile Suit Gundam Seed Destiny Special Edition OAV. To avoid confusion, the 90-minute episodes will be brough out as the Gundam Seed Destiny TV Movies. Over the summer, Bandai is also planning limited theatrical distribution for its The Girl Who Leapt through Time feature film. Both a subtitled and a dubbed print will be distributed to theaters, based on interest and the concentrations of anime fans in the markets that individual theaters serve. The prints will be based on that used for the Japanese theatrical run of the film, rather than the slightly different DVD version, which Bandai is currently scheduling for the fall.
Bandai Entertainment's one new announcement of the 2008 Anime Boston, is last year's 12-episode science fiction comedy Rocket Girls, about a high school student who stumbles into becoming an astronaut while looking for a part-time job. Until a short time ago, fansubs of the series were hosted on the CrunchyRoll service, which removed them following a Bandai request.
As the victory of Blu-Ray in the DVD format wars has been declared, Bandai is looking at the beset ways to take advantage of it. No definite decision about when the company will begin releasing discs in the new format has been made yet. Overall, Bandai Entertainment's core business remains producing and distributing anime. Despite the fact that it has been publishing the Eureka 7 manga, and will be bringing out the three companion manga series to Code Geass, it still considers manga to be a shoot-of from its primary products. When manga related to Bandai's licenses do exist, however, it does plan to consider acquiring the rights to them, and in fact, Bandai is extremely pleased with being able to end up with as high-profile a manga as Code Geass.
Funimation News
FUNimation Entertainment's events manager Adam Sheehan hosted the Anime Boston panel of North America's largest anime distributor. Incidentally, Anime Boston 2008 is the 400th anime convention he has participated in as an attendee and industry rep.
As he has at other previous panels, Adam began by going over some of Funimation's ongoing sales and promotional initiatives. 12 different series are currently available for digital download on iTunes and the XBox Live Marketplace service, priced at $1.99 per episode or $38.99 for a full series, while subtitled episodes of Black Blood Brothers can be downloaded to own from Funimation's own website. Funimation is treating digital distribution first and foremost as a way to get fans interested in new series that they may not want to immediately buy DVDs of, and to introduce non-fans to different anime. Nonetheless, the end-goal of any digital distribution initiatives will be to drive the sales of the series DVDs. Funimation's website has also recently been redesigned, with features like an enhanced video section and a list of broadcast of Funimation titles.
The cable FUNimation Channel continues to feature new series from both Funimation and other companies. Funimation's Black Cat, MoonPhase, Peach Girl and Suzuka have recently premiered on the channel, with Ninja Nonsense, Record of Lodoss War and Shingu set to start screening in the coming weeks.
The company is also continuing to promote its Operation Anime club assistance program, the budget-priced Viridian Collection of $14.98-$19.98 single DVDs and $29.98-$49.98 full-series box sets, and the Funimation Green initiative. All DVDs featuring that logo feature packing that uses recyclable materials, printing technologies that use renewable energy sources and cleaner production practices, and paper from forests grown with sustainable techniques.
Of the shows Funimation is currently releasing, Sheehan highlighted Shuffle!, Black Blood Brothers, the One Piece movie, and Aquarion. That show is being used to test how the North American anime market will respond to releases of multi-episode sets instead of four or five-episode individual disks. If it works, Funimation intends to release other future series the same way.
Spring plans include the May 20 street dates for the single-volume BALDR FORCE EXE Resolution series and the computer-animated movie Vexille. These will be followed on May 27 by the standard and Blu-Ray release of the Dragon Ball Z Dead Zone and The World's Strongest movies, packaged together in a single collector's tin. Both films will be remastered in high-definition, digitally restored and with a wide-screen transfer. On the same day, DBZ's Season 5, the complete Imperfect Cell and Perfect Cell sagas will also be brought out, with both Japanese and "newly revised" English-language dialogue. And for a one-two-three punch, the first of Funimation's DVD release of the uncut, Japanese-dialogue One Piece is scheduled for that date as well. One Piece, Season 1: First Voyage will be a two-DVD, 13-episode set, and further releases of the pirate adventure series will follow the same pattern of availability as sets only. The School Rumble OAV (scheduled for June 17) will be the last release of Spring 2008, and the second season of that series will be brought out over the second half of the year. The summer will also see the Blu-Ray version of the Dragon Ball Z: History of Trunks and Bardok specials.
With Sheehan's presentation taking up most of the panel's allotted hour, the audience questions at the end touched upon several older Funimation series. The license for Kodocha was not extended past episode 51, as the company chose to focus its resources on other, more popular series. On the other hand, while it did not work as well as expected in its Cartoon Network broadcast, more Case Closed season box sets are in the pipeline. Finally, while Funimation is extremely interested in acquiring the first 13 episodes of the original Dragon Ball, that license is not currently available.
ADV Films News
At his company's Anime Boston 2008 panel, David L. Williams of ADV Films announced that his company has acquired the North American distribution rights to Kiba. This 51-episode alternate-world adventure television series, with animation produced by Madhouse, was sponsored by the Japanese division of the trading card company Upper Deck. Williams was not able to make any comments about ADV's plans for the Gurren Lagann anime.
(There may be more news to ADV Films details, I will try to keep people posted)
