In direct response to my personal concerns calling for more 'new material' for the R1 market (how could it be anything else after all), most of the majors did not disappoint and offered up quite the new licensing blitz at the AX 2010 show over the weekend.First lets start with Funimation, who announced:
Trigun: Badlands Rumble
Black Lagoon: Roberta’s Blood Trail
Darker Than Black Season 2
Shakugan no Shana Season 2
Hellsing Ultimate Vol # 5-7
Toaru Majutsu no Index (A Certain Index of Prohibited Books)
Toaru Kagaku no Rerugan (A Certain Scientific Railgun)
Keep in mind these are ALL 2011 titles. Trigun: Badlands Rumble will get a limited US theatrical release before it goes out on DVD. All of these are important titles for US release, especially Railgun. And thank God they are finally going to finish Hellsing Ultimate.
Funi also picked up another batch of former Geneon releases including Ai Yori Aoshi, Armitage III, Haibane Renmei, Hellsing TV anime, Serial Experiments Lain, Tenchi in Tokyo, Tenchi Muyo!, Tenchi Universe, and Texhnolyze. All good choices.
Sadly, Funi also announced that they have NOT picked up the license for Evangelion: 2.0 You Can (Not) Advance. I know this is going to disappoint a lot of people (including me). Word on the street has it that the asking price for the series was the highest price EVER for an R1 license, and I think the huge success the title has seen on BD in Japan worked against it's R1 prospects. Maybe later on.
Funi wasn't the only company busy at the show!
Section 23 announced:
Highschool of the Dead
Nozomi picked up:
So-Ra-No-Wo-To
Revolutionary Girl Utena TV and Movie
Viz picked up:
Nurarihyon no Mago (Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan)
And last, but certainly not least, the biggest announcement of the show (IMHO) came from Bandai, who has picked up:
K-On!
Bandai said the current contract is only for the first season, and also said they have not decided if it will be DVD, BD, or both and did not know if it will be dubbed, and if so, who the dub cast would be. In other words, they have the show, but don't know much else at this point. Stay tuned.
