This past weekend at Anime Boston, New England's largest anime convention, anime distributor FUNimation Entertainment held an industry panel on Saturday. At the panel Adam Sheehan, the Senior Events Manager at FUNimation Entertainment, went over new products and services coming from the company, and announced some new anime to be distributed from FUNimation. FUNimation had also held a Sneak Peak panel on Friday in which they played clips from some of their recently or soon-to-be released shows, including Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Soul Eater and Dragon Ball Z Kai.
FUNimation's Social Networking
One of the first things promoted at the industry panel was the anime company's social networking venues. Sheehan promoted the company's blog, as well as their Twitter, Facebook and YouTube accounts, asking anime fans to leave their own detailed opinions of the company and its work. This includes any poor opinions fans may have, as the companies what to know when fans think they're doing something wrong or they aren't providing anime fans with the quality product they're expecting.
FUNimation also promoted they're new online panels, which they are calling FUNiCon. They company will be treating these online panels like panels at a convention, announcing new products and newly acquired anime to the fans.
New Products, New Film and Anime Lines
Sheehan also made a note of how FUNimation is now releasing their anime in half-season sets, so that there are no longer any art boxes to contain individual discs. These art boxes would often come with extra swag for the fans, and FUNimation wanted to make sure they could still provide them with these products. Now a convention exclusive, FUNimation provides anime fans with free items when they make purchases at their booth in the dealer's room at anime conventions. Items that they are currently giving out include a Rin shot glass, Dragonaut booty shorts and a Soul Eater patch.
Two new video lines were also brought up. First there is the Hong Kong Connection, a video line dedicated solely to old Hong Kong action movies from the Shaw Brothers. Though FUNimation prides themselves on giving their shows high-quality English dubs, these movies have been dubbed poorly on purpose to give viewers that campy feel expected from these kinds of movies. There are currently twenty films to be released, and they will have an MSRP of $19.95.
The new S.A.V.E. line of anime was also briefly mentioned. In this line, full anime series and movies will receive a price reduction. This will leave series like Air and Moon Phase at under $30, and films like the King of Bandits Jing movie at under $10.
New and Upcoming Anime Releases
Trailers for new and upcoming releases of FUNimation anime were also played, like Soul Eater, which Sheehan described as looking like "the Gorillaz [band] started making anime".
Season 2 of the martial arts anime Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple was released due to the unexpected success of the first season. The movie Evangelion 1.11 has received a DVD and Blu-ray release, and Slayers Revolution has been released with almost all of the entire original cast reprising their roles from the early 2000's dub.
The latest release from the company is an anime called Strike Witches, which has the strange plot of taking place in World War II, except it's giant aliens versus girls with fox ears and tails who have propeller legs so that they can fly, and also cannot wear pants as they would get caught up in the propellers.
The first upcoming release is the DVD and Blu-ray release of Dragon Ball Z Kai on May 18. Though following the plot of the original anime, Kai has been cut to 100 episodes to follow the original manga in the way Akira Toriyama, the original creator, wanted it to. The new English dub won't "kid it up," having a script that more closely follows the Japanese dialogue than the original DBZ dub did. The anime will be premiering on the Nicktoons channel with edits, but the DVD/Blu-ray release will be edit free.
Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, which has been airing on Adult Swim Saturday nights at 12:00, will have the first thirteen episodes released on DVD and Blu-ray May 25.
Initial D 3rd and 4th Stage, which tells the story of a prodigy downhill racer, will both be released May 11 with FUNimation's re-release of the First and Second Stages coming later.
FUNimation picked up Geneon's license of the CLAMP anime X and will be releasing that in a complete set on June 15th along with the OVA.
Finally, the first part of a new series, My Bride is a Mermaid, will be released July 20.
Newly Acquired Anime, FUNimation Q & A
Two anime series, Black Butler and Spice and Wolf 2, had been previously announced by FUNimation on their FUNicon online panel, but were brought up again at Anime Boston.
There where new announcements, however: Chobits, which had been previously released by Geneon, will be receiving a rerelease from FUNimation. Chobits will keep the original English dub from Geneon and will have a complete set released at a later date. The Eden of the East movies have also been licensed, and FUNimation was proud to announce that the original opening song for the anime series (sung by Oasis) will be included in the DVD release of the show.
The panel ended with questions from the fans. They are still undergoing casting for Hetalia: Axis Powers and so there is no English cast announcement just yet. The lack of Blu-ray releases is due to Japanese companies being worried about reverse importation, since America and Japan have the same Blu-ray region code and American DVDs are much less expensive.
Sheehan also talked about FUNimation's strict subtitling policy, where potential translators are given a very difficult exam that tests not only their Japanese language skills, but their ability to specifically translate dialogue from movies and television.
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