ComicCon 2007: news on FLAG, The Third, Haruhi Suzumiya
Paul •
Leading into this past weekend’s New York ComicCon 2007, we have seen a busy few days for the US anime industry come and go, during which a few anime licenses and interesting tidbits of news have been circulated.
- In terms of new licenses, Bandai Entertainment announced the acquisition of the unconventional war drama “FLAG” (13 episodes from Gundam animators Sunrise) while Kadokawa Pictures USA and Right Stuf will collaborate on the US DVD release of sci-fi fantasy “The Third”.
- Presumably due to the prohibitive costs involved in dubbing an obscure and potentially poor selling show, Media Blaster’s DVD release of the yuri-favourite TV series “Kashimashi ~ Girl Meets Girl” will be subtitled only (no English dub).
- Meanwhile, Bandai’s extremely complicated US DVD release of “The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya” took another twist as they named a controversially high price of $60+ for each individual special edition DVD volume (there will be four in total) and confirmed their plans to release the show in both Haruhi (Japanese DVD release) and Kyon (Japanese TV broadcast) episode order; though the “Kyon” episode order will be subtitled only and included only with the special edition DVD releases.
- Lastly ICv2 have summarized the winners of the first annual American Anime Awards (which were held at ComicCon); the evening’s biggest winner was Fullmetal Alchemist (including Asian Kung Fu Generation for their song “Rewrite” – the final OP of the popular shonen TV series).
