Pioneer Announcements from Anime Expo

The limited edition version Akira DVD tin to be released on July 24th will indeed be packaged in “Anchor Bay” style. There will be no plastic DVD keepcase inside the tin, just the disc in a plain CD jewel case.

NieA_7 and Hand Maid May will both be released on DVD bi-monthly. NieA_7 will be 4 volumes (4/3/3/3) while Hand Maid May will be 3 (4/3/3), meaning that America will not get the home video exclusive Hand Maid May episode 11.

Pioneer explained that the Moldiver DVD was released with “dubtitles” due to budget considerations. There wasn’t enough money to re-do proper subtitles after it was discovered that only the closed captioned track was still available. Sound effects comments were removed, and there were some minor script and timing changes made to the closed captioning text, but this was a case of dubtitles or no DVD release at all. As a consolation, the disc was released at an uncharacteristic low retail price.

Pioneer is working on an American DVD release for “Sherlock Hound,” Hayao Miyazaki’s Meitantai Holmes TV series from 1984. They’re currently trying to work out difficulties in the audio synching between the English and Japanese dialogue tracks. The Japanese-Italian co-production was produced in English and was later dubbed in Japanese and Italian.

There will be a new Boa album later this year, and a performance at AnimeFest in Texas August 31st-September 3rd.

According to Studio Pierrot, a new series of 4 half-hour Fushigi Yuugi OAVs based on the Fushigi Yuugi Gaiden (side-story) novels, will be going into production and release in America by Pioneer.

Source: Anime on DVD