AnimeNation Anime News Blog

Urban Vision has formally announced that the new Vampire Hunter D movie, known outside Japan as “Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust,” will premier on American VHS and DVD on February 12th, less than two months after the Japanese retail DVD release. The DVD version will include only the original English language version of the film, not the secondary Japanese language version, a “making of” featurette, trailers and Japanese TV commercials, a storyboard to film comparison and more. The film will retail for $19.95 on VHS and $29.95 on DVD.

Source: Anime News Network

Anime on DVD has learned that the upcoming release of the Card Captor Sakura movie from Pioneer will come in two different DVD versions. The “Cardcaptors” version will be dubbed only but uncut, cropped to be full-screen/pan & scan. The “Card Captor Sakura” version DVD will retain the original Japanese anamorphic 16:9 widescreen and include the English dubbed “Cardcaptors” version and the original Japanese dialogue with optional subtitles in Dolby 2.0 and 5.1. While no confirmation has been released yet, presumably this will be the first of the two Japanese CCS theatrical movies.

Central Park Media has officially indefinitely delayed the release of their Battleskippers movie and My My Mai DVDs, originally scheduled for release last month.

Source: Right Stuf International

Anime News Network has published its list of the extensive edits made to the final episode of Cowboy Bebop, mainly involving the heavy censoring of graphic bloodshed.

Martin Henderson (Windtalkers) has signed on to play the co-staring ex-husband role in DreamWorks’ Pictures re-make of the seminal Japanese horror film The Ring, opposite star Naomi Watts (Mulholland Drive). The film’s cast will also include David Dorfman, Amber Tamblyn, Rachael Bella and Brian Cox. The film will be directed by Gore Verbinski (Mouse Hunt, The Mexican) from a script written by Ehren Kruger (Reindeer Games, Scream 3) and Scott Frank (Get Shorty, Little Man Tate).

Source: Cinescape

Question:
I was wondering what do they mean when they say “director’s cut” on the video you bought?

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Tadasu Nagano, editor-in-chief of Shonen Jump Magazine and former managing director of Shueisha Publishing, passed away on November 24th at the age of 75.

Shonen Jump Magazine first went on sale in 1968, and is famous for being the manga magazine that launched such influential and popular manga creators and series as Akira Toriyama (Dragon Ball), Nobuhiro Watsuki (Rurouni Kenshin), and Tsukasa Hojo (City Hunter, Cat’s Eye).

Article courtesy of Scott Green

According to ICv2 News, the fate of popular anime TV series including Medabots, Moncolle Knight and Digimon may be in jeapordy as Fox Television considers doing away with its Saturday morning cartoon line-up. The Fox network has already canceled its weekday cartoon broadcasts, and is now considering doing the same with its weekend broadcasts because commercial advertising time sales during its Saturday morning hours have decreased dramatically. Regardless of how many viewers may love to see Digimon on Saturday morning, if advertisers don’t purchase commercial air-time during the broadcast, these popular anime series may find homes on other networks, or, in a worst possible case scenario, may possibly even disappear from American television entirely.

Article courtesy of Scott Green

Proving that AD Vision is slowly progressing on its translation of the eagerly awaited Excel Saga, Anime on DVD has published a list of the confirmed American voice actors that will dub the show.

Excel - Jessica Calvello
Hyatt - Monica Rial
Ilapalazzo - Jason Douglas
Menchi - Hilary Haag
Nabeshin - Brett Weaver
Pedro - Rob Mungle
Great Will of the Macrocosom - Kelly Manison
Misaki Matsuya - Tiffany Grant
Watanabe - Jay Hickman
Iwata - Mark Laskowski
Cosplay Excel - Cynthia Martinez
Kabapu - Mike Kleinhenz
Puchuu VA #1- Kira

Article courtesy of Scott Green

January 8th
DBZ 28 Garlic Jr.: Black Water Mist DVD
DBZ 64 & 65: Cell Games: The Games Begin & Cell Games: Surrender (dubbed edited & uncut VHS)

January 22nd
DBZ Movie 5: Cooler’s Revenge (edited and uncut VHS & DVD)

January 29th
DBZ 38 & 40: Imperfect Cell: Encounter & Imperfect Cell: Discovery DVDs
DBZ 62 & 63: Majin Buu: The Hatching & Majin Buu: Atonement DVDs

Source: Right Stuf International

Article courtesy of Scott Green

Namco has revealed, through several screenshots, that Kilik will return from Soul Calibur to Soul Calibur 2, albeit with a new character design.

Source: The Magic Box

Question:
I notice quite a number of older anime titles that have been resurfaced with new story lines and an updated look, for example Bubble Gum Crisis, Sol Bianca, G-Force, and even Ah! My Goddess to some extent. Why has this trend popped up in Japan?

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Following in the footsteps of Fushigi Yuugi and Rurouni Kenshin, another long standing fan favorite anime TV series has been finally confirmed for translation and distribution in America. TOKYOPOP has announced that the Marmalade Boy manga series will premier in next month’s Smile magazine and the TV series will be “coming soon from TOKYOPOP.” This is the exact same phrasing used in previous press releases to confirm TOKYOPOP’s now certified American release of another fan favorite anime series, Initial D.

Marmalade Boy broadcast 76 TV episodes and had one theatrical movie. The series is a shoujo romance/comedy about a love that develops between a teen girl and boy whose parents divorce, swap spouses, re-marry and move into the same house together.

Source: Anime on DVD

According to The Right Stuf and Anime on DVD, Pioneer, Viz, and Bandai have announced several American premiers scheduled for release in March and April including the Card Captor Sakura movie (presumably the first movie) in uncut and “Americanized” versions, the home video release of Zoids, the long awaited home video premier of Ronin Warriors, the American premier of the second Saber Gals TV series, Saber Marionette J to X, and the second Ranma TV series DVD boxed set.

Metropolis is also now tentatively due out on American home video in March. A British version of the Metropolis DVD due out in February is being advertised as having only the original Japanese language audio track.

Banpresto, the toy and game subsidiary of Bandai Japan is reported to have purchased 90% of the stock in Ashi Productions, ostensibly to boost profits in Bandai’s merchandising field. Ashi Productions has been responsible to producing anime series including Macross 7, Akihabara Cyber Team, Blue Seed, Jewel BEM Hunter Lime, Minky Momo and the current hit Ojamajyo Doremi Motto.

Source: Anime News Network