NIS America has announced that they will be releasing a Blu-Ray and DVD combo premium set complete with hardcover artbook of the popular anime series Arakawa Under the Bridge and Katanagatari in English. Arakawa Under the Bridge originally was a manga created by Hikaru Nakamura while Katanagatari was a novel written by Nisio Isin (NisiOisiN) who also wrote the popular novel, Bakemonogatari.
The combo premium sets will retail for $69.99 each with a release date of July 5th, coinciding with North America's largest convention, Anime Expo.
Last year, NIS America released Toradora! in July during the weekend of Anime Expo and brought 2 key voice actors from the series to the show, Yui Horie and Eri Kitamura. For the perceptive folks out there, feel free to speculate in the comments.
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."
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