AD Vision has informed us that the planned release of Devil May Cry DVD volume 3, Pumpkin Scissors DVD volume 5, Tokyo Majin DVD volume 4, Welcome to the NHK DVD volume 5 and all earlier DVD volumes of these four series have been officially “discontinued.”
AD Vision representatives have not yet replied to our request for clarification or additional information.
FUNimation has formally announced its acquisition of distribution rights to a large portion of Geneon USA’s former stable of anime titles. The first releases will hit store shelves as early as the end of this summer.
The official homepage for the upcoming World Destruction television series now hosts a streaming Flash TV spot trailer. The series is scheduled to premier on the 7th.
Source: Moon Phase Diary
The Shin-Ei Douga anime production studio has announced that its seventh annual “Sensou Douwa” (War Fable) television movie will air in August. This year’s production is “Kiku-chan to Okami” (Kiku-chan and the Wolf), an adaptation of Grave of the Fireflies author Akiyuki Nosaka’s short story Toshi-Oi Mesu-Okami to Onna no Ko no Hanashi (The Story of the Old Mother Wolf and the Girl) about a young girl who befriends and is taken care of by a kind female wolf in China during WWII.
Source: Anime News Network
The official Japanese Tamagotchi movie website has announced a third theatrical anime film based on the Tamagotchi digital pet franchise. The “Eiga! Tamagotchi Uchuichi Happy na Monogatari!?” movie will open on December 20th. The film will be the Tamagotchi franchise’s third theatrical anime, and second feature length film.
Source: Anime News Network
The Manga Gamer online store officially opened on July 3rd. The company has arranged licenses with major Japanese adult PC game development studios including Circus, Nexton, and Overdrive to offer officially English translated versions of popular Japanese adult visual novels games to English speaking consumers. Manga Gamer’s initial lineup of 7 different games go on sale on the 10th.
Source: Canned Dogs
Question:
I don’t understand why otaku love high school girls so much. Back when they were high school students, male otaku hated high school girls and were hated by them, right? So why it is that all dating sim and porn games revolve around high school girls. Shouldn’t otaku hate them?
Internet radio station Toon Radio, which specializes in animation soundtracks from around the world, has announced plans to broadcast the weekly AnimeNation News Podcast. The AnimeNation News Podcast will broadcast on Toon Radio every Friday at 11 PM ET (8 PM PT).
Japanese publisher Kodansha has set up a U.S. subsidiary “to publish and sell translations of its Japanese manga” in the U.S. begining in September. Kodansha USA launched on July 1 with $2 million in capital. The move to self-publishing is explained as an effort to maximize profits by direct distribution in place of licensing distribution rights to other publishers. However, Del Rey Manga, which predominantly publishes Kodansha properties in America, has confirmed that Kodansha will continue to license manga titles to independant American publishers.
Source: ICv2 & Anime News Network
The TV Tokyo television network’s homepage for the new Slayers Revolution anime series now hosts a 30 second streaming trailer.
The official Japanese webpage for upcoming full CG anime television series Scarecrowman the Animation now hosts a short Flash trailer.
The official homepage for the Rosario to Vampire anime television series now hosts a streaming Flash trailer for the Rosario to Vampire CAPU 2 sequel series scheduled to premier in October. Click the button featuring the Rosario+Vampire CAPU 2 logo to access the trailer.
Source: Anime News Network
Crunchyroll has acquired rights from Fireworks International for the North American digital distribution of the 1994 Gatchaman OVA series. The 3 episode series was initially released on American home video in 1997 by Urban Vision. The series will be available for free online viewing and commercial download on the Crunchyroll website beginning this month.
BOST TV has formally announced plans to offer the upcoming Strike Witches anime television series online with English subtitles.
Strike Witches animation studio Gonzo has made a Japanese announcement confirming plans to distribute the Strike Witches television series on Crunchyroll and YouTube, but has not made a similar announcement in English, nor have either Crunchyroll and YouTube made any statements regarding plans to distribute the series.
Source: Anime News Network
Bandai Entertainment, which absorbed American anime distribution company Bandai Visual USA on July 1st, has revealed plans to resolicit and continue distribution of the majority of Bandai Visual’s “Honneamise” line of DVDs, HD DVDs, and Blu-ray discs. Disc volume counts and SRPs will remain unchanged. However, Bandai Entertainment presently has not revealed plans to re-solicit Patlabor movies 1 & 2, the original Gunbuster OVA series, or any of the anime series licensed but never released by Bandai Visual USA (Engage Planet Kissdum, Shigofumi, sola, true tears).
Source: Anime News Network
The Tokyo Stock Exchange has formally placed Gonzo Digimation Holdings (GDH), the parent company of anime production studio Gonzo, on a one-year probation retroactively beginning on April 1, 2008, the beginning of the Japanese fiscal year. GDH has been determined to have financial liabilities exceeding its total financial assets. As a result, if GDH is unable to become profitable within a year, GDH stock will be removed from trading on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. On May 30, GDH announced a net loss of 3.752 billion yen (about US $35.44 million) for the fiscal year that ended on March 31.
Regardless of what you think of Gonzo’s anime productions, it can’t be a good sign for the anime industry when one of Japan’s most progressive and successful anime and game production companies is losing money at a dangerous pace.
CNET Japan reports that tremendously popular Japanese video hosting website Nico Nico Douga has come to an agreement with The Association of Japanese Animations, the Japan Video Software Association, and the Motion Picture Producers Association of Japan to strictly enforce respect for copyrighted video material. All videos hosted on Nico Video that use copyrighted video footage without authorization will be removed, and all new video clips uploaded to the site will be reviewed for copyright violations. The enforcement will include both full movies and episodes as well as fan created videos that use clips from copyrighted material.
Nico Video has already been progressively removing full anime episodes and certain video clips containing video game footage - particularly clips including footage of Nintendo game properties - for some time now.
