Viz Anime Announcements from Anime Expo

Viz has acquired the American distribution rights to the currently ongoing Inuyasha TV series, which they’re anticipating will last for 52 episodes. There’s no word on an American license for the Inuyasha movie, due out in Japanese theaters this Christmas. Viz is hoping for American television exposure for the series, so home video release plans will hinge on possible TV broadcast circumstances.

The long awaited Ranma season 1 DVD boxed set is expected to be released in November, followed by the season 2 boxed set some time in the first half of 2002.

Viz is still researching the feasibility of a DVD release for Maison Ikkoku as only the first 36 of 96 episodes are currently available dubbed, and the current subtitled VHS releases sell less than 600 copies each worldwide. One possibility would be pre-order only sales, similar to what AnimEigo does with some of their DVD releases.

When questioned about internet petitions with several thousand names, Bill Flanagan, editor of Animerica Extra, pointed out that despite over 10,000 signatures on the unedited Dragonball manga petition, sales did not increase by anywhere near that number when Dragonball was finally printed in an unedited format.

Video Girl Ai is now scheduled for DVD release in America this fall as a single boxed set. The footage missing from the second VHS volume release will be restored in the DVD release.

Source: Anime News Network