Japanese animation studio Production I.G. confirmed at Anime Expo its involvement with an anime project based on EA's video game Dante's Inferno. Yasuomi Umetsu (Kite), Shukou Murase (Ergo Proxy), & several others will take part in the six-part project. More information will be revealed at Comic-Con International in two weeks.
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:
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.
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).
The fact that online streaming site Crunchyroll had a larger booth at Anime Expo than most of the anime companies present is really telling of the times we live in today. At their panel, Crunchyroll announced the simulcasts that they got lined up for the Summer season. Naruto Shippuden, Shugo Chara, GinTama, Shangri-La, Reborn, Saki, Hayate, Chi's New Address, & Kaasan will all continue to show new episodes every week. Time of Eve will also continue, with episode 5 going up just this week.
In terms of brand new shows, the yuri series Aoi Hana already started streaming last week. Besides that, three new series were confirmed as well. Kanamemo, Yoku Wakaru Gendai Mahou, & Charger Girl (Fight Ippatsu! Juden-chan) are all new for the Summer. Kanamemo has already started, & the other two will be added shortly. I'm not sure what the holdup is since both of them have already begun airing in Japan, & they can't really be considered simulcasts if they're not even streamed in the same week. & Juden-chan on Crunchyroll? I can't believe they'd show such a perverse anime series on their site. On the other hand, they did stream Strike Witches last year. But on the other hand, Strike Witches didn't have girls erotically peeing themselves in every episode.
The big news at Viz's Anime Expo panel was the confirmation that they'll indeed be speed releasing the One Piece manga in order to catch up to where the story is in Japan. Similar to what Viz did with the Naruto manga- except even more extreme- they'll be releasing 30 volumes of the series in just 6 months. Beginning in January 2010, they'll be releasing 5 volumes a month starting with #24, & conclude in June with #53. That is a LOT of manga.
While it'll take a few months for the graphic novels to catch up, Shonen Jump will begin publishing the "latest chapters from Japan" (presumably only a few weeks behind like how Naruto is now) beginning with the January issue. Over the next few months, Viz's new One Piece site will update with summaries of the four sagas that take place in between where the English manga is now & where it will be come January. That way, SJ readers wont be totally lost.
In anime news, the long-awaited Kakashi Chronicles is finally getting animated. The special will stream on Viz's site on August 6. Speaking of Naruto, DVDs for Shippuden will finally start coming out beginning September 29. Unfortunately, Viz will no longer be releasing it in season box sets like they did for the first series, & will now instead be doing the obsolete single DVD releases. It is, however, the only way to watch the dub of the series. The first Shippuden movie will be released shortly after on November 1.
Viz also announced that they got the second Death Note Relight special & will be releasing it on October 27 (just in time for Halloween!). Meanwhile, the DVD for L: Change the World will come out on August 18. The second Bleach movie will be getting a DVD release on September 8, after getting a limited theatrical release at Viz's new San Francisco theater on August 19.
At their Anime Expo panel, Bandai Entertainment announced that they have licensed the new Eureka Seven movie. In fact, it'll shown on the big screen in American theaters for one night only on September 24. Currently about 300-400 national theaters are listed as taking part. They also announced that the entire Eureka 7 anime series has begun streaming for free on Anime News Network, in both sub & dub formats. As in exclusive to ANN, & not just mirrored from another site like Hulu or Crunchyroll. Though if I had to guess, I'd say the series will eventually land on Crunchyroll somewhere down the line.
Bandai also briefly mentioned the Escaflowne Movie being released on Blu-ray. & now, a few days after the con, it was announced that it'll indeed be coming out on Blu-ray on September 1 of this year.
Separately, Namco Bandai announced at their own panel that they'll be adding many popular Japanese songs to the American iTunes store. These includes songs by JAM Project, as well from anime series like Haruhi & Lucky Star.
According to an Anime Expo con-goer, he heard "straight from a rep's mouth" that Media Blasters had licensed the anime series "Sayonara Zetsubou-Sensei" & "Moyashimon." Both titles will also get dubs, something that MB doesn't always do with their titles anymore. No official announcement of the such has been made yet, but it seems likely to be true. Media Blasters does seem to be keen on freely blabbing news to con-goers who ask, without making any announcement first. They did tell me about Moribito returning to Adult Swim at ACen, after all. This news also comes shortly after they quietly licensed Blade of the Immortal, further proof that MB doesn't always make big announcements of their licenses.
The same con-goer also talked to some FUNimation reps on hand at AX. Apparently not only is FUNi confident about One Piece simulcasts returning to their website, but all the episodes that have been missed during this downtime will be put up as well. Meaning most likely episodes 391 to present will all be up. Eventually.
Yasuhiro Nightow & Satoshi Nishimura, the two guys behind the Trigun manga, brought a special surprise with them at their Anime Expo panel- the world premiere of the Trigun Movie trailer! The film was originally slated to come out in 2009, but that doesn't seem very likely at this point. It's still in the middle of production, & no release date was given at the panel.
Anime Expo was a bit quieter this weekend when compared to years past. There weren't tons of new announcements made by every company, but FUNimation did have the most things going on.
In terms of new licenses, they've FINALLY gotten the DVD rights for the first 13 episodes of DragonBall, something they've been trying to get for the past decade. Now that they have those, Funi will start re-releasing the entire DragonBall series in remastered season sets, similar to what they've done for DBZ & GT. Season 1, the first 31 episodes of the original series, will be released on September 15. They also got the anime adaptation of the Nintendo DS game "Sands of Destruction" (World Destruction: Sekai Bokumetsu no Rokunin). Both Funi's season set & Sega's American release of the game will hit in Spring 2010. Finally, in a very up the the wire last second announcement, they cleared the rights to Production I.G's Sengoku Basara. Funi also stressed that they haven't lost the One Piece DVD license & DVD sets will continue to come out. They also stated that they don't have the Rebuild of Evangelion 2.0 movie yet.
FUNimation confirmed that they plan to launch ShoDojo.com, a brand new online anime community site to take the place of their now defunct animeOnline. Thousands of streaming anime episodes will also be a part of the site, meaning they're probably planning it to compete with Crunchyroll.
FUNimation also announced the dub cast for Slayers Revolution. & they're keeping most of the original cast! Best news I've heard all con. The fabulous Lisa Ortiz will resume her role as the lead character Lina Inverse, & most of the others will also be the same. The only exception is Xellos, who will now be voiced by the (relatively speaking) newcomer & extremely talented Michael Sinterniklaas. He will also direct the dub. Pretty interesting how FUNimation, which is located in Texas, is letting all the recording for this series go to New York. Especially considering Zelgadis' VA no longer lives there & has since moved to join the California voice actors. The main cast:
The winners for the Society for the Promotion of Japanese Animation 2009 Awards were revealed this weekend at Anime Expo. Personally I disagree with many of the choices made this year. It seems fan favorites won over superior talent for a lot of the categories. See for yourself below:
In addition to confusing Americans by sort of bringing over Kannagi, Aniplex has now announced that they'll be showing the American premiere of the first Gurren Lagann movie, with official English subtitles & all. Well actually Gainax had shown the film at FanimeCon last month, but that was in Japanese with no subtitles. The subbed version will be shown on July 2 at the Los Angeles giant convention. Director Hiroyuki Imaishi & character designer Atsushi Nishigori will be presenting the film, which will be officially called "Gurren Lagann the Movie –Childhood's End-" in English (despite that not actually being the translation of the Japanese title).
Interestingly enough, there's still no official word from Aniplex or Bandai Entertainment of actually licensing the film for US DVD release. Just because it has official English subs, don't just assume that it's been licensed. What's going on with Kannagi should be proof of that, not to mention all the legal subtitled anime on Crunchyroll that isn't licensed for American release. Still though, with the film already subbed, it wouldn't take too much effort on Bandai's part to take the last needed step. But considering sales for Bandai's titles haven't been doing so hot, including their releases of Gurren Lagann, they may be trying to be more cautious in what they license.
The Society for the Promotion of Japanese Animation has announced the finalists for their 2009 anime awards ceremony, with the winners being revealed during Anime Expo this summer. This American awards event is voted on by the fans, with voting being done online at their official website. Make sure to check out last year's winners, then see who's running this year below:
I've talked before about how awesome a person voice actress Cristina Vee is. & it doesn't have to do with how good her voice over work is, as I've still yet to see any of her stuff yet (still gotta get the Aika R-16 DVD). Rather, it's because she's such a huge anime fan AND she actually works in the anime dubbing industry! I mean most of the voice actors in anime like the work they do, but they're not necessarily fans of the genre (Greg Ayers being a huge exception, of course). But Cristina Vee is as big a fan of anime as you or I. For example, she attended Anime Expo not really as a guest, but as a FAN. She even cosplayed as Haruhi Suzumiya... video game version Haruhi Suzumiya! She's truly one of us, & she's lucky enough to voice for anime characters on top of that! She's like an otaku goddess or something.
The picture came from her blog, which is where she also announced some big news on shows she's working on. It's already been known for awhile now that Cristina would be playing Nanoha in "Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha." But now that FUNimation has rescued the series from Geneon, she can officially announce that she will indeed be playing the title character of that series. Not only that, but she also announced she'll be playing another lead character in one of the other titles Funi rescued, & this one should be a real treat for NebsTV viewers. Cristina will be playing Louise de la Valliere in "the Familiar of Zero!" Yay for pattenko tsundere characters!!
Meant to post this awhile back, but it slipped my mind. During Anime Expo, there was a special awards ceremony to honor the industry called the SPJA Awards. The truly interesting thing about these awards is that they honored those on both sides of the industry, so both Japanese creators & seiyuu as well as American dubbers & voice actors were recognized. Check out the complete list of winners below:
