The News Thread (for news that does not need a thread)

Might not be interesting but Funimation is announcing something later today:
Summer's heating up! We've got an awesome announcement coming later today to help cool you down!
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Quite funny how half of the comments are suggesting FREE!
 
This was apparently on Funimation's tumblr:

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I think I can leave the obvious out of this.
 
So I guess this is Funimation's first Kyoto Animation license since Full Metal Panic! The Second Raid. Interesting.

In this case I wonder if Hyouka should go with Funi in this matter.

UPDATE - Funimation Announcement
FUNimation is proud to announce the acquisition of Free! -Eternal Summer-, the continuation of the hit swimming anime that made waves across the Internet! Not only will we be simulcasting the series as part of our summer season, we’ve also acquired home video rights! Yes, you read that right— Free! -Eternal Summer- will be coming to home video in North America.
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Interesting, there's no mention of the first season.
 
I'm glad their rights aren't exclusive but that's pretty weird. Maybe they have forgotten that they haven't already announced the first season or something? Or maybe it was planned for one of the upcoming cons and their schedules got messed up >_>

R
 
It's a little odd that they didn't mention season one as well.

Ah well, I am rather pleased with this news as I rather enjoyed it, but more so that it will probably open the doors to more genres/series being licensed that are usually left out.
 
If I remember correctly, at London Comic Con, one of the panelists (I can't remember who) said that the rights holders in Japan were basically not playing ball. I'm guessing they were waiting for season 2 to begin airing.

One of the theories I saw on ANN is that they'll announce season 1 at an upcoming convention.
 
While its not necessarily anime-related for now - Sony have brought the channel group that runs Kix and other channels.

Maybe we'll start to see more of an 'Animax' offering in the future.
 
reborn said:
While its not necessarily anime-related for now - Sony have brought the channel group that runs Kix and other channels.

Maybe we'll start to see more of an 'Animax' offering in the future.
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Or maybe even an Animax channel or time slot, that would be interesting especially since they now have Funimation titles (of course they need the TV rights). I'm not particularly fussed with the Kaze titles since Black Lagoon, Death Note and Magi will help out.
 
So, as Funi have Free Season 2 for home video (and possibly season 1), does that mean the ball is in Manga's court for a UK release? (Recall reading bits about exclusivity of Funi licenses to the UK and Manga having dibs) cause I want Free and I don't see Manga picking it up ...
 
Dannielle said:
So, as Funi have Free Season 2 for home video (and possibly season 1), does that mean the ball is in Manga's court for a UK release? (Recall reading bits about exclusivity of Funi licenses to the UK and Manga having dibs) cause I want Free and I don't see Manga picking it up ...
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Most of the time Funimation gets US, UK and AU rights. There's indeed a deal where Manga gets the first choice for titles. (and Madman in Australia)
If Manga declines an offer Funimation has the option to talk to MVM, Anime Ltd and Kaze.
Andrew Partridge has stated in the past though that he prefers to deal with Japan directly, so chances of Anime Ltd picking up a declined title are small.

The same counts for Sentai/Hanabee and MVM. Sentai has picked up US, UK and AU rights to a lot of their 2013 and 2014 releases.
MVM and Hanabee are the first in line to pick the title up as a sub-license. If they decline Manga and Anime Ltd can pick it up.

How to explain Space Dandy and Garden of Words to name two examples of exceptions in their catalog. I think Andrew jumped on the ball early on with Space Dandy.
As for Garden of Words. Either Sentai didn't have the UK rights, or MVM declined because it's a kind of movie and MVM rarely pick up movies.

Either way, this exclusivity thing is what keeps Manga/Madman big, will help MVM/Hanabee grow and Siren Visual barely on the radar.
I've been led to believe for a good while now that Kaze will leave the UK market when Bleach is over.
How about Anime Limited? Well, they're making their company big by playing a smart game. Sad they have had some issues in the past.

As for Free, I think you could be right that Manga won't bother. I think that you'll have to convince Andrew Partridge if anyone really.

PS: Talking about stuff that needs to get picked up in the UK... Sentai went back to dub certain titles, it'd be nice if someone picked those up that haven't been picked up in the UK yet (for Blu-ray release of course). As always, I prefer Anime Limited. But I honestly wouldn't mind Manga getting Nyan-Koi for instance. As long as Kaze doesn't get it I'm fine. And as long as there's no disc count logo I won't be submitting holdbacks of my own to getting it due to being devalued.
 
The import version of Oreimo Season 1 is selling out.

And Princess Jellyfish is in a mini-limbo situation for now:
RACS said:
Funi also told us this week that they are not going to press anymore of the current Princess Jellyfish sets, putting it effectively off the market for now. Like just about everyone else, we're sold out of them, but I found out this week that Funi will be filling some retailers backorders for the sets out of returns from other big retailers (like Best Buy and such), so we can expect to get at least one more shipment of the sets in the near future. That means we do expect to fill everyones backorder for it soon. Funi will probably do a Princess Jellyfish S.A.V.E edition at some point, but if they do it's a ways off yet.
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And expect some Beyond the Boundary [Kyoukai no Kanata] news at Anime Expo.
 
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