Briefly...

Dark Horse had one new announcement:

Evangelion: Shinji Ikari Raising Project. Shonen. Kadokawa Shoten, serialized in Shonen Ace since 2005.

Right Stuf has announced the animes Gakuen Alice (one box for the whole series) and Toward the Terra (the old 1980s movie). They also plan to have an interview with Konno Oyuki, creator of MariMite, on a future DVD box. Fans can submit questions, more details later.

Bandai has licensed Gundam 00, which isn't a surprise, and Hayate the Combat Butler, which is.

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2008-07-04/funimation-picks-up-over-30-former-ad-vision-titles

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2008-07-03/funimation-agrees-to-distribute-select-geneon-titles


I, for one, welcome our new Funimation overlords.

I saw an article recently discussing current trends in anime lately, and one thing that caught my eye was the inevitable demise of the 'single DVD' release. It's going to be a slow demise, as it will be over Japan's dead body, but it's coming.

Most companies still in business these days know that the best way to market things these days for actual sales is the way they market US TV - via season sets of 20 or more episodes in a box. You won't see 'House Volume 1, Episodes 1 and 2' here. And in a declining market like anime's, it's especially important. Remember how Kodocha died halfway through its run here? That's because it came out in 4-episode-a-disc DVDs, and no one bought them as they wanted to wait for the box. I suspect ADV has put Sgt. Frog anime on hold for this reason.

Japan, though, still has fans willing to pay through the nose for anything. They still have the $60 30-minute one episode DVD releases, and cherish them. And they get very irritated when fans in Japan import the complete FMP box set from the US at something like 1/3 what they'd pay in Japan.

So licensors say 'you have to release this in single DVD parts first, so that we don't have pirates buying it all up'. This makes US companies sad, as it means the series is far likelier to fail.

I don't know how this is going to shake down. Geneon went out of business, and it would not surprise me to see ADV follow them by the end of this year. I think it's going to have to be up to Japan to save the US anime industry by giving in on a few things, really. And I'm not holding my breath.