Lots of Anime News Updates: Hayate, Funimation, Gundam, and More
Posted by: Yamcha in NewsLots of stuff happening on Anime Expo weekend.
First order of business, Bandai licenses the Hayate the Combat Butler anime and a manga version of The Girl That Leapt Through Time. Very exciting news, but then I remember that Hayate will get the Bandai treatment with uber expensive special collector’s packages and is also 52 episodes… Joy.
Oh yeah. Gundam 00 and its cast of androgynous men will air on the Sci-Fi channel twice a week starting November 17. Meh. Mark your calendars if you want to. Or not. The DVD release will come sometime in 2009.
Funimation is in ADV’s house acquiring their animu. 30 titles to be exact, but with a few exceptions, most of the titles are very niche. As much as I like Air, Kanon, and Welcome the the NHK, these titles probably won’t rake in tons of money for Funi. It does bring them one step closer to becoming the industry giant though.
Dark Horse acquires an Evangelion spin-off manga based on… Raising Shinji Ikari. Who wants to do that exactly? The question I raise is who actually likes Shinji enough to be interested? On second thought, don’t answer that.
Not to be left out, Right Stuf made some announcements too. Gakuen Alice boxset slated for Spring 2009 as well as a DVD release for the anime film, Toward the Terra.
Viz has been pretty busy too with a planned four disc boxset for Hunter x Hunter, as well as plans for Nana, Monster (2009), and Honey and Clover (2009).
Sources:
Anime News Network
Anime on DVD
Tsubasas on 
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The only thing Shinji was good for was for Kaworu to be ambiguously gay towards (or, not so ambiguously if you’re reading the manga).
There was never anything ambiguous about the Shinji/Kaworu dynamic. Just how much more direct did the manga make it?
Hayate was a surprise to me. Might have to pick that up. I don’t mind Funimation’s “industry giant” approach. I’ve always thought that the R1 anime business wasn’t strong enough or stable enough to support so many different companies. With Funimation, we know they can support themselves well with the likes of DBZ so we don’t have to worry about them going anywhere soon. Here’s hoping they make Keroro Gunsou a priority. Never been a fan of Viz. They put too much stuff in limbo without any real explanations. They’ve already burned me on Corrector Yui and Full Moon wo Sagashite seems to be in the same boat now. Even Prince of Tennis has vanished off the radar after the 4th box set.
As someone who has pre-ordered Kanon 6 (the LAST in the series, goshdarnit), I have a personal stake in this whole ADV brouhaha so I’ve been following this bit of news since word began trickling out on Friday.
Robert’s Anime Corner Blog has an excellent blow-by-blow account of how the news unfolded (http://animecornerstore.blogspot.com/2008/07/some-adv-new-releases-now-suspended.html) and more details on Funimation’s conquest (http://animecornerstore.blogspot.com/2008/07/adv-implodes-funimation-picks-up-advs.html).