At their Anime Expo panel, Funimation announced that they have licensed the anime series Sengoku Basara, an anime series which just finished it’s run in Japan after airing from April to June of this year (it’s 12 episodes long).
Funimation also picked up season 1 of the original Dragonball series from, I think, Viz Media. They also noted that there will be more announcements over the summer.
Looks like we have our first Anime Expo related licensing announcement. Funimation has announced that they have licensed the Sands of Destruction anime series (also known as World Destruction).
Sands of Destruction is an anime based off of the SEGA game of the same name. It is 13 episodes long and was produced by Production I.G. and directed by Shunsuke Tada. It aired on TV Tokyo between July 7 and September 30, 2008.
So, you may be lucky and have a theater close to you showing it. Well, if you live in Canada or California that is.
Funimation has announced that they are screening Evangelion 1.0 on 70+ screens in North America, starting off with Anime Expo in Los Angeles on July 2-5, then moving to Seattle July 3rd (for a week), Houston on July 16th, Phoenix on July 17th (for a week), San Diego Comic Con July 22-26, and then 4 locations in San Diego and Riverside, CA on July 29th.
Then the movie is showing in Boston August 14-17, followed by a screening in 67 Canadian theaters on September 30th.
So we have 67 Canadian locations, 6 California locations, plus Houston, Phoenix, Boston, and Seattle. Not a very good selection of sites if you live East of the Rocky Mountains in the United States (except for you damn Bostonians). It’s not even currently scheduled to screen in what seem to be obvious locations such as New York, Washington, D.C., Chicago, or Atlanta (to at least make a trip non-suicidal for those in the east. I mean, who is going to fly out to San Diego or up to Canada to see a movie?)
So alas, the rest of us will have to wait for the DVD release on November 10th.
OK, Funimation didn’t quite license that much, but they went on yet another licensing spree today, picking up both Tower of Druaga shows, Dragonaut – The Resonance, and Blassreiter from GONZO and Bamboo Blade from D. Rights.
Now, personally, I’m not sure if any of these are actually good licenses except for Bamboo Blade. Part of the reason is just because none of the three GONZO shows exactly lit fires under anyone as far as I could tell, but also because, at least in the case of Blassreiter and Druaga, they were previously released legally with english subs (or in the case of the second Druaga series, still being released). I guess Funimation figures that people already download shows, so it’s no different than that, but we’ll see.
Of course, I’m still waiting on Shakugan no Shana II sooo….
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Funimation licenses Eden of the East, Casshern Sins remake
Funimation entertainment has announced that they have licensed the anime series Eden of the East and the Casshern Sins remake. Both shows are scheduled to come out in 2010.
Casshern Sins is a 24 episode series which aired October 2008 and March 2009. Eden of the East is an 11 episode series which aired between April and June 2009.
Funimation also got box sets of remastered Dragon Ball Z episodes, which apparently are DVD box set releases made from the original masters. I guess this is somewhat of a big deal for Funimation and DBZ fans.
Funimation also announced the Korean live-action movie Daytime Drinking at their Otakon panel, scheduled for an April 2010 release.
Yesterday, Funimation also announced that they had licensed four Case Closed movies: The Last Wizard of the Century, Captured in Her Eyes, Countdown to Heaven, and The Phantom of Baker Street.