Anime Central Announcements

Anime on DVD has reported from Anime Central some interesting news about Manga, especially concerning the Evangelion movie. According to a Manga Entertainment representative the movie may not receive a theatrical release, but may instead go straight to VHS/DVD. The translated script must be approved by Gainax, the Japanese producers of the series. The eagerly awaited Wings Of Honneamise DVD is due out September 29th. The Magic Knights Rayearth OAV series will be released in one package on DVD once the four individual volumes are released on VHS. As far as future plans go, their next title will be Virus Buster Serge. Manga is trying to acquire the rights to The Big O, a series that has received a good deal of fan buzz that was described as Batman: The Animated Series meets Giant Robo.

At Anime Central, AD Vision announced that their next title to see DVD release will be Bubble Gum Crisis 2040. The fan favorite comedy Dragon Half will also see a DVD release in the future. No date was given for the Gasaraki DVD release, but it was revealed that the series DVDs will be packed with extras, including a booklet explaining a lot of things. It was stated that ADV holds options on Blue Seed 2, and the Sorcerer Hunters OAV, but have not exercised them yet due to their busy schedule. The special version of the Evangelion episodes was also brought up. Apparently neither ADV nor Manga has the rights to these episodes, and either, or another company can obtain these US distribution rights if they are willing to pay Gainax’s high asking price.

At the convention, Bandai has stated that all the material from the Cowboy Bebop Session 0 will be released domestically spread across the DVDs. Jubei-Chan: The Ninja Girl – Secret of the Lovely Eyepatch will be on 4 DVDs, without a subtitled VHS release. The first volume is due out in August. Experimenting with episodes per release, Outlaw Star will be released on three DVD discs, with nine episodes on the first, and eight on the second two for $45 each. Each volume may be a single dual layer disc or may end up with 2 discs in each volume. For the series Brain Powered and Silent Mobius, the first three volumes were dubbed as a trial to see how well the series sells. DVD releases for the two series are least a year off, possibly two. Bandai is definitely moving away from subtitled VHS. It is highly unlikely that any new Bandai titles will be on sub VHS – they’ll be dub VHS and sub/dub DVD. Gundam 0080 will appear on DVD early next year. Their next series will be an OAV which they refused to name. Regarding the Fox acquisition of Escaflowne, Bandai stated that Fox wanted to remove the Yohko Kanno music, but Bandai put an end to that. The music will be unchanged. The DVD release of the series will be uncut, subbed and dubbed. Bonus material will include extra footage.