In what can be filed under the “it’s about nut-#$%#@ing time” category, Funimation has announced that they are producing and distributing some of Geneon’s more popular series, including:
- Black Lagoon (both seasons)
- Elemental Gelade
- Ergo Proxy
- Fate/Stay Night
- Hellsing Ultimate
- Kamichu
- Karin
- Kyo kara Maoh! (2nd season only)
- The Law of Ueki
- Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha (being released as Lyrical Nanoha)
- Paradise Kiss
- Rozen Maiden (both seasons)
- Shakugan no Shana (released as just Shana by Geneon)
- Shonen Onmyouji
- The Story of Saiunkoku
- When They Cry - Higurashi
- Zero no Tsukaima (being released as the Familiar of Zero)
- plus the live-action Ninja Vixens
Luckily for myself, I bought up the entire Shana series when Geneon shut down, but many of these other series I just haven’t gotten to yet. Most of these titles were the obvious choices to be picked up as well.
Also, apparently Geneon still holds the actual licenses to these series, but Funimation is going to do all the dirty work for them, including producing and distributing them.
The first titles are scheduled to start their release in Late Summer.
However, this brings up an interesting question…does this mean Geneon may appear on the licensing market again, but will just use Funimation to distribute, kind of in the mold of Kadowaka USA? That had been a possibility floated all along. I think it’s too early to know whether that is the case, however.
Added thought:
If I may, two glaring omissions to this list to me (which doesn’t impact me because I already have both series) are Haibane Renmei and Fushigi Yugi. Just though I’d say that.
