FUNimation Entertainment announced today that its previous owner, Navarre Corporation, has sold them to a group of investors for $24 million. The investor group includes Gen Fukunaga, FUNimation's chief executive officer. Navarre Corporation is a distributor of electronic goods and entertainment with a 25 year history. Although FUNimation Entertainment has been sold, Navarre will continue to act as the exclusive distributor. Much more after the jump.
Spring is here which means another season of exciting new series and continuing series. Food hunting series Toriko makes it's debut as an anime this season and is definitely worth keeping an eye on. Deadman Wonderland is a rather disturbing series of a young boy who was framed and ends up in a Battle Royale style prison for the murder of his entire class. As for continuations, borderline hentai Seikon no Qwaser, The World Only God Knows, and gender bender Maria Holic and Kampfer are all back with a second season.
For Macross Frontier fans with a Playstation 3, there will be a 'live' concert held in Sony's virtual online world, Playstation Home. 3D models of the characters Ranka and Sheryl will be performing on stage based from the movie.
Also as part of the celebration, Japanese Playstation account holders can also purchase Ranka and Sheryl's outfits for their avatars which started earlier last week on February 24. The concert will be held on March 26, 2011. Note, interested viewers must sign in with a Japanese Playstation account in order to watch the concert.
Via Anime News Network, Funimation has recently sued 1,337 Bittorrent users for illegally stealing episode 481 of One Piece. Whether this is a reaction to the recent Fractale debacle is unclear, but the events seem too closely related for Funimation's legal action to be coincidental. The suit requires the defendants,
"shall destroy all copies of Plaintiff's [videos] that Defendant has downloaded onto any computer hard drive or server without Plaintiff's authorization and shall destroy all copies of those downloaded [videos] transferred onto any physical medium or device in each Defendant's possession, custody, or control."
Aniplex USA will be offering a limited quantity of The Garden of Sinners (Kara no Kyokai) Blu-ray collection on sale at Rightstuf. The set contains all 7 movies originally aired in theaters in Japan including a special bonus chapter included in an 8th disc. Apparently this is a direct import from the Japanese edition but will include English subtitles and a separate booklet in English with all the translations for the included artbook. Hardcore fans will be pleased to note they will be able to purchase the collection at a discounted $398.98 opposed to the 52,200 yen (roughly $638 USD as of this post) price tag in Japan.
The Garden of Sinners was originally a light novel written by Kinoko Nasu and illustrated by Takashi Takeuchi. Both men are probably best known for forming the visual novel game company Type-Moon which produced the popular Fate/stay night series.
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