Yesterday I posted how the first episode of Honey & Clover was available for free on iTunes, but Nana wasn't. Well now today, the opposite is true for FUNimation On-Demand! FUNi added the first four dub episodes to their Comcast On-Demand section, with the first episode being free to watch. The other three episodes can be rented for 24 hours for 99 cents each. But hurry, because the episodes are only up for a very limited amount of time. All four episodes will be taken down after this Friday. Keep in mind that the episodes are rated TV-MA, for mature audiences only (& while I feel that may be a little extreme, the truly mature content doesn't show up in these first few eps).

The dub itself is quite good in my opinion, which I'll admit I was worried about after seeing Viz's trailer. The English voice actresses for the two Nanas do a good job of bringing their own to the characters. They really shouldn't be compared to the Japanese seiyuu, as they aren't trying to emulate their foreign counterparts. They're doing their own thing, which is really the only thing one can do with series like Nana. Sounding natural is the most important thing in a slice-of-life drama like this, & they can't do this if they try to imitate the Japanese version. Thankfully, they sound just that- natural. Nana Osaki's English voice is appropriately deep & grainy, while Hachi's voice sounds happy-go-lucky without coming across as annoying.

There is a section in FUNimation's onDemand block for "Honey & Clover," but as of this writing there are currently no episodes listed. Whenever they do go up, you can bet that the first episode will be free for it as well. It's Funi's policy, after all. Speaking of which, other recently added free first episodes up on their On-Demand block include Kaze no Stigma, Heroic Age, Claymore, Buso Renki, & Romeo X Juliet.

EDIT: Forgot to mention- why'd they change the ending theme?

In a time when adult video games are in trouble even in Japan, it seems weird to hear that big-name hentai games are finally being brought over to America. But that's exactly what MangaGamer.com announced at Anime Expo this past weekend. Erotic anime games being licensed, released, & translated in the US are nothing new, but for the most part they've always been low-key obscure games that you've never heard of. Certainly we've never had the likes of KEY games released here. & considering how expensive those must be to license, it might never happen.

Still, MangaGamer.com announced two big adult titles at Anime Expo, news that we're not accustomed to hearing. They are the "Shuffle" romance game & the Higurashi horror series. Specifically, they've got the rights to the first 8 Higurashi games, of which the first half will be released in late October (just in time for Halloween). NAVAL's Shuffle will be released this summer, & more NAVAL games are expected to be announced soon. As with all of MangaGamer.com's titles, these can purchased as downloads on their website.

In somewhat related news, another hentai game American licensing company, JAST USA, announced some big titles of their own. Nitroplus, which is a bigger studio than what JAST usually gets, licensed several of their titles to them. The biggest one here is "Zanma Taisei Demonbane," which is what the Demonbane anime series is based off of (as seen on NebsTV).

Source: http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2009-07-05/mangagamer.com-acquires-shuffle-romance-visual-novel

Trigun wasn't the only cam-recorded movie trailer at Anime Expo this year. Imagi's long-awaited Gatchaman CGI film finally showed its first official trailer at the convention as well. The quality of the recording isn't really that good, but it does its job of giving us our first real taste of the film. This is REAL G-Force movie, unlike that Disney wannabe. Imagi's other anime-turned-American-CGI-movie, Astro Boy, is due out this Fall.

It's one thing to have your typical anime websites covering the stuff that goes down at Anime Expo (ANN, Japanator, AnimeVice, NebsTV, etc). But when more unlikely news sites or organizations take notice, it gets a little cooler.

LA Weekly, a local Los Angeles newspaper, did some coverage of America's largest anime convention. One of their reporters did a writeup for the event, as well as created photo gallery of some of the best cosplay there. G4 did pretty much the same thing, writing up an article for AX & adding a cosplay photo gallery. Finally, Japan's own Akiba Blog took notice of the event as well. Check out their coverage in the links below:

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