Bandai Entertainment Adds Hayate Anime, TokiKake Manga
The North American distributor Bandai Entertainment has announced at its Anime Expo panel on Friday that it has acquired the Hayate the Combat Butler! (Hayate no Gotoku!) anime and Ranmaru Kotone’s manga adaptation of The Girl Who Leapt through Time (TokiKake) film.
Synergy SP adapted Kenjirou Hata’s Hayate the Combat Butler! comedy manga as a 52-episode anime television series that aired in Japan from April of 2007 to last March. The story follows a boy named Hayate who serves as a butler, bodyguard, confidante, and more to a girl named Nagi to pay off a 156,804,000-yen (about US$1.4-million) debt.
Kotone’s The Girl Who Leapt through Time manga adapts Mamoru Hosoda’s award-winning film of a girl who discovers she can time-leap — time-travel, and uses her ability during her everyday life. Kotone’s manga is different from Gaku Tsugano’s manga that was licensed by CMX; Kotone’s manga adapts the recent anime film, whereas Tsugano’s manga adapts Yasutaka Tsutsui’s original novel.
Gundam 00 to Run on Sci Fi Channel on November 17
The North American distributor Bandai Entertainment has announced at its Anime Expo panel on Friday that the Mobile Suit Gundam 00 series will premiere on America’s Sci Fi Channel on November 17. Two episodes will air weekly, similar to how two epsiodes of Gurren Lagann will begin airing July 28. A new Gundam television series has not run in the United States since Mobile Suit Gundam Seed.
The series starts a new timeline, based on our own real-world A.D. history, in which mankind has splintered into three major factions. A group known as the Celestial Being aims to eradicate war with giant robotic mecha known as Gundams and their Gundam Meister pilots. Fullmetal Alchemist’s Seiji Mizushima directed this series, and Honey and Clover’s Yousuke Kuroda oversaw the scripts. Yun Kouga. Loveless and Earthian manga creator Yun Kouga is designing the original characters, which Basilisk’s Michinori Chiba adapted for animation. The first 25 episodes ran from October of 2007 to April of 2008.
Right Stuf Adds Gakuen Alice, Reissues First Terra e
At his company’s Anime Expo panel on Friday, The Right Stuf International’s Shawne Kleckner has announced the license of the Gakuen Alice magical school comedy anime in a series box set that is planned for spring of 2009. The 2004-2005 26-episode anime adapted Tachibana Higuchi’s sh?jo manga about a seemingly ordinary girl named Mikan who decides to enroll in a magical school to follow her best friend. Mikan strives to prove herself worthy of being in the school. Tokyopop released the first three volumes of the manga series in North America.
Right Stuf will also release the original Toward the Terra (Terra e…) anime film in winter of 2008. Fourteen years ago, in 1994, Right Stuf brought out this film on video tape, following that up with a laser disc in 1995. For the DVD version, it plans to use the recent Japanese remastering of the movie. Bandai Entertainment announced at Otakon 2007 last July that it will release the 2007 anime television series remake. Both anime versions adapt Keiko Takemiya’s original Toward the Terra… manga classic, and Vertical launched the North American edition of the manga in 2007. The story takes place after humanity has abandoned the devastated Earth for space, and after the emergence of Mu, a psionic offshoot of mankind that is persecuted by normal humans. The Mu seek refuge by heading toward the Terra homeworld of the past.
Bandai Entertainment to Announce Gundam 00 License Details
Bandai Entertainment President and CEO Ken Iyadomi will announce at an Anime Expo panel on Saturday the details on the company’s release of Mobile Suit Gundam 00, the latest television series in the long-running Gundam science-fiction franchise. The series starts a new timeline, based on our own real-world A.D. history, in which mankind has splintered into three major factions. A group known as the Celestial Being aims to eradicate war with giant robotic mecha known as Gundams and their Gundam Meister pilots. Fullmetal Alchemist’s Seiji Mizushima directed this series, and Honey and Clover’s Yousuke Kuroda oversaw the scripts. Yun Kouga. Loveless and Earthian manga creator Yun Kouga is designing the original characters, which Basilisk’s Michinori Chiba adapted for animation. The first 25 episodes ran from October of 2007 to April of 2008.
Dark Horse Gets Eva: Shinji Ikari Raising Project Manga
At its Anime Expo panel on Saturday, the North American publisher Dark Horse Comics has announced that it has acquired Shin Seiki Evangelion: Ikari Shinji Ikusei Keikaku (Neon Genesis Evangelion: The Shinji Ikari Raising Project), Osamu Takahashi’s manga based on an Evangelion game spinoff. The game has the player “raising” Shinji Ikari, the main character of the Evangelion science-fiction franchise, and determining what path his life will take. (Before Evangelion, Gainax developed the Princess Maker franchise in which the player raises a girl to adulthood.) The manga version adapts the game storyline, particularly its school sequences. The manga has been running in Kadokawa Shoten’s Monthly Shonen Ace magazine — the same magazine that serializes Yoshiyuki Sadamoto’s main Evangelion manga — since June of 2005, and five compiled volumes have been published in Japan. Dark Horse will start the manga in late spring or early summer of 2009.
Funimation Announces Ouran High School Host Club Cast
The North American anime distributor Funimation has announced its full English dub cast for Ouran High School Host Club at the anime’s panel in Anime Expo at Los Angeles, California on Friday. The company also said that it will be releasing the series in 13-episode half-series boxes starting in October. The English dub cast is as follows:
Caitlin Glass as Haruhi Fujioka
Vic Mignogna as Tamaki Suou
Greg Ayres as Kaoru Hitachiin
J. Michael Tatum as Kyoya Ohtori
Luci Christian as Mitsukuni Haninozuka
Mike McFarland as Ryuuji “Ranka” Fujioka
Patrick Seitz as Umehito Nekozawa
Todd Haberkorn as Hikaru Hitachiin
Travis Willingham as Takashi Morinozuka
Aaron Dismuke as Yasuchika Haninozuka
Brittney Karbowski as Hinako Tsuwabuki
Carrie Savage as Momoka Kurakano
Cherami Leigh as Kirimi Nekozawa
Christopher R. Sabat as Ritsu Kasanoda
Eric Vale as Toru Suzushima
Jamie Marchi as Chizuru Maihara
R Bruce Elliott as Kasanoda’s Father
Funimation Picks Up Over 30 Former AD Vision Titles
The North American anime distributor FUNimation Entertainment and Japan’s ARM Corporation have announced that ARM has transfered the rights to more than 30 of its titles — all previously held by A.D. Vision — to Funimation. Those rights include the home video, broadcast, digital, and merchandising rights in North America and other regions. The complete list of transferred titles is as follows:
* 009-1
* Ah! My Goddess: Flights of Fancy
* Air Gear
* Air movie
* Air TV
* Blade of the Phantom Master
* Comic Party: Revolution
* Coyote Ragtime Show
* Devil May Cry
* Guyver: The Bioboosted Armor TV
* Jing, King of Bandits: Seventh Heaven
* Jinki:Extend
* Kanon
* Kyoshiro to Towa no Sora (once titled as Shattered Angels by ADV Films)
* Le Chevalier D’Eon
* Magikano
* Moeyo Ken TV
* Moonlight Mile
* Murder Princess
* Nerima Daikon Brothers
* Pani Poni Dash!
* Project Blue Earth SOS
* Pumpkin Scissors
* Red Garden
* Sgt. Keroro 1st & 2nd
* Tokyo Majin
* UFO Princess Valkyrie
* Utawarerumono
* Venus Versus Virus
* The Wallflower
* Welcome to the NHK
* Xenosaga
These are most of the titles that had been removed from ADV Films’ catalog in January. A majority of them were relisted in ADV Films’ catalog in February, only to be gradually removed for a second time. ADV Films also once planned to release Gurren Lagann, but Bandai Entertainment announced in May that it had acquired the series. 5 Centimeters Per Second is not on Funimation’s list of transferred titles, but copies of ADV Films’ release remain available at retailers.
The joint Funimation/ARM announcement comes the day after Funimation announced it will also manufacture and distribute select titles that Geneon Entertainment (USA) had planned to release before it ceased in-house DVD distribution. Funimation indicated that the new titles from ARM will be significant to its efforts in “social networking, the FUNimation Channel, and Internet VOD.”
Bandai Entertainment’s Gurren Lagann Dub Cast Announced
At their Anime Expo 2008 panel on Thursday afternoon, the production companies Aniplex and Bandai Entertainment announced their new English dub cast for the Gurren Lagann television anime series:
Simon: Yuri Lowenthal
Kamina: Kyle Hebert
Yoko: Michelle Ruff
Viral: Sam Riegel (sometimes credited as Sam Regal)
Rossiu: Johnny Yong Bosch
Kittan: Christopher Smith
Leeron: Steven Jay Blum
Nia: Hynden Walch
Kiyoh: Karen Strassman
Kinnon: Stephanie Sheh
Kiyal: Gina Bowes
Lordgenome: Jamieson K Price
Tetsukan: Tony Oliver
Narrator: Tony Oliver
The series will premiere on America’s Sci Fi Channel on July 28.
Funimation Agrees to Distribute Select Geneon Titles
The North American anime distributor FUNimation Entertainment has announced that it signed a deal with Geneon Entertainment to manufacture, sell, and distribute “select” DVD titles in North America. Those titles include Ergo Proxy, Hellsing Ultimate, Black Lagoon, Black Lagoon: The Second Barrage, Karin, Kyo kara Maoh! Season 2, Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, Elemental Gelade, Fate/stay night, Kamichu, the live-action Ninja Vixens work, Paradise Kiss, Rozen Maiden, Rozen Maiden - Träumend, Shana, Shonen Onmyouji, The Familiar of Zero, The Story of Saiunkoku, When They Cry - Higurashi, and The Law of Ueki.
Death Note’s Obata to Work on Next Castlevania Game
Konami has announced that Death Note manga artist Takeshi Obata has designed the characters in Castlevania Judgment, a 3D fighting spinoff from the Castlevania (Akumaj? Dracula) supernatural game series for the Nintendo Wii game console. Longtime producer Koji Igarashi is overseeing this Fall 2008 game in which Belmont clan, a mainstay of the franchise, fights against the characters that have appeared in the Castlevania games over the past 22 years. Tokyopop announced in March that it would be releasing Kou Sasakura’s separate Castlevania: Curse of Darkness manga, which is based on the Sony PlayStation 2 game of the same name. Viz Media finished releasing Obata’s Death Note manga and is still releasing his Hikaru no Go and Blue Dragon: Ral ? Grad manga.
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