Here’s another little tidbit of news coming out of Otakon: Cowboy Bebop will be back in print again in the US. FUNimation announced that they’ll be releasing the popular anime classic series digitally and on Blu-ray in 2014. Sadly, the Blu-ray probably won’t be as impressive as the Japanese box set, but it also won’t be $350. If you’re not into owning things, Daisuki has you covered. The streaming service has confirmed they have licensed Bebop for release in 2014 as well, and are anticipating it to go up just before FUNimation’s release. Good time to be a Bebop fan! Read more…
Earlier this week Bandai announced that they would cease production of video and manga aimed at Americans: This is huge news as this is the company had amazing A+ titles like Cowboy Bebop which you could hardly say were niche. Is this the end for anime in America? No, but the era of dubbed anime titles and translated printed manga seems to be in very bad shape to say the least. Now you can argue that this is part of a larger transition from physical media to digital — and you can also question how good Bandai was or wasn’t at marketing — however to be fair one has to admit that piracy hasn’t helped the industry: And that’s exactly what Kyle Hebert is talking about in this video: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Nov 6, 2009 in Animation
The good news? Blu-ray for Samurai Champloo will be out on December 15, 2009. The bad news? What the hell ever happened to Shinichirō Watanabe! I realize that having been behind two great anime shows is pretty good for one lifetime, but damn it I’d like to see the guy do one more big thing. I’m not saying that he’s a slacker in fact Watanabe is the associate producer on the 2011 Cowboy Bebop film. But instead of seeing him revisit the past I’d love to see something new.
