Sakura Con 2011: Bandai Industry Panel

Bandai representatives reminded attendees that their online store is available at store.bandai-ent.com – this store includes exclusives before they go to other vendors.

This panel also experienced some unfortunate technical difficulties, but this time there was video and partial sound. I had to leave part way through to go to an interview (to be posted tomorrow!), but I heard that convention staff was able to fix the issue before the end of the panel. The details at the end of this post I found via the Bandai online store.

Announcements:

K-ON!
Released April 26th, but also available at the convention.

Girl Who Leapt Through Space
This 26 episode series from Sunrise was released April 26th and was also available ahead of schedule at the convention.

Girl Who Leapt Through Time
Two disc set includes the movie on Blu-ray and extras on DVD. Released April 26th, but also available at the convention.

Tales of the Abyss
This 26 episode series from Sunrise is based on the Namco Bandai game. The first volume includes episodes 1-7. Limited edition release includes a copy of Asch the Bloody manga volume one, regular edition (without manga) also available. Release date: June 7th.

Gundam 00 Movie: Awakening of the Trailblazer
This hybrid release is coming July 5th to DVD and Blu-ray. The movie is the final chapter of the Gundam 00 saga.

Gundam Unicorn
DVD volume one will be released June 7th, is currently available for pre-order, and will contain two episodes. The packaging features a reversible cover. This title is already available on Blu-ray, with volume three currently available in Bandai's online store and in the Amazon Marketplace.

Mobile Suit Gundam
The original 42 episode series, to be available in a two part Anime Legends hybrid release. Coming this summer.

Turn A Gundam
50 episode series, new to North America. To be released in late summer as a subtitle only release.

Also in the Bandai Online Store:

• Baccano! Blu-ray limited edition boxset, available May 17th. Currently available for pre-order.
• Durarara DVD part 3 available spring 2011, available for pre-order online.
• K-ON! volume 2 on Blu-ray and DVD June 14th, currently available for pre-order.
• Girl Who Leapt Through Space volume 2 available June 7th, currently available for pre-order.

Bandai Moves to Real Make-Up in Japan

Bandai Moves to Cosmetics?!

The beloved company Bandai, best known for making some of the best toys known to Otaku the world over is having a bit of a problem in today's economy. Sales of girls' toys just aren't what they used to be, and the company has had to come up with creative ways to keep the girls interested. And more than ever these days, girls want to feel more "grown up" and play with makeup over dolls. So what did they think of? Real cosmetics based on the popular anime and manga series, Nodame Cantabile. Girls and women who adore this series are now able to purchase easy-to-use eyeliner and mascara from Bandai's "Creer Beaute" line. Creer Beaute also has a line of beauty items (including face masks) inspired by the series Rose of Versailles, and another that includes nail polish fashioned after Fujiko Mine of Lupin the 3rd. The article makes special mention that Bandai was a huge success with girls in the past, especially with their Sailor Moon toys in the 90s. While they made some Sailor Moon themed cosmetics back then, it was "play makeup" and it was not the focus of their merchandise strategy. The company has shifted towards cosmetics just in the last year or so, but they have not stopped making toys entirely. This is also an innovative merchandising attempt to appeal to "big girls" (women over 30). The Creer Beaute site will also in the future feature beauty tips and videos on how best to use the makeup. Business analysts are predicting this to be a success for Bandai, and also admire their bravery for expanding into new market areas for their merchandise in a changing economy. This brand they say, is one to watch. We know that Sailor Moon in the beginning stages of the revival was lauded as something for two generations to watch, mothers and their daughters. While we still have no idea if there will be any new merchandise in Japan, we wonder if Bandai may consider Sailor Moon for their Creer Beaute line? It would fit right in with both generations!

Otakon 2010: Bandai Announces K-ON! dub

At the "Bandai After Dark" panel on Saturday night, Bandai not only formally announced the K-ON! dub, but offered the lead role of Hirasawa Yui to voice actor Stephanie Sheh on the spot. Sheh accepted, meaning that we will more than likely hear her interpretation of the world's spaciest lead guitar player soon enough. As if that wasn't enough, the panel continued with Cristina Vee bursting onto the show floor in a K-ON! costume to sing a bunch of the shows better known songs, including the popular ED track Don't Say Lazy. It was announced that Vee will be playing the role of Akiyama Mio, which she called "a dream role."

How is this relevant to Sailor Moon? Well, if you've been living under a rock for the past few years, you might not know that the prognosis for anime dubbing has not been particularly good of late. With the decline of the anime market in the United States in particular, and sub-only releases selling to an increasingly picky enthusiast market, we're long past the boom days when any show that was even moderately popular would receive an English dub. While a dub for a show as popular as K-ON! may seem like a no-brainer, it was still nice to see the enthusiasm everyone at the Bandai panel seemed to have for the project.

One audience member even asked during the Q&A whether or not CDs would be released with the English voice actors performing the K-ON! songs, as Vee had just done; the answer from the panel was "I don't know," which surprised me, because I was expecting an unequivocal "uh, no," for an answer there. The dubbing will be done by Bang Zoom! Entertainment, which, if you recall, did do some song dubbing back in the day, such as with the early Rurouni Kenshin openings and endings. I was under the impression that they had stopped doing that sort of thing for legal reasons, but who knows- the industry has certainly changed in the ten years or so since then.

Vee did a fine job with the K-ON! tracks, and personally I'd be keen to hear her tackle some Sailor Moon songs- either the original Japanese songs, or the sometimes simplistic, but often surprisingly good, songs from the original dub.

While we're on the subject of Bandai, they also took the opportunity to announce their forthcoming releases of Sora Kake Girl, or The Girl Who Leapt through Space (not to be confused with The Girl Who Leapt Through Time), and a My Otome prequel OVA (to be released together on one disc). Interestingly, they also announced that K-ON! will be released simultaneously on Blu-Ray and DVD.

Other events at the panel included a The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya sound-alike contest, an exclusive clip from the second episode Gundam Unicorn (which is SO not my thing, but at least some people there were very excited) and the exclusive premiere of the Season 2 dub outtakes for that series, the hilarity of which made me wish that Crispin Freeman would be cast in any Sailor Moon redub in some capacity if only to produce quality outtakes. Freeman for Tuxedo Mask: WHO'S WITH ME????

More Pictures of Naoko at Bandai Hobby Center!

So, in my mad fervor of looking for information pertaining to the upcoming campaign, I came across this (and to my surprise this wasn't linked on any English websites at all?!) Bandai Hobby Center has a blog, and they have posted an entire entry about Naoko Takeuchi's visit last October. Better yet? It was posted in October! Two days after her visit! Sailor Moon Channel didn't mention anything about her visit until January! What really got us about these pictures was how happy she looked drawing - we wonder how long it has been since she has drawn any manga! We'll let you all come up with your own theories on this time lapse, but for now here's a quickie translation ... and oh yeah, the pictures!

Ms. Naoko Takeuchi BHC visit.

The cartoonist, Ms. Naoko Takeuchi came in BHC the other day.

Hearing her name, you think of Sailor Senshi Sailor Moon!

Every girl in here became crazy when the original creator of Sailor Moon came!

Ms. Takeuchi was wonderful and gentle through her visit to BHC, and talked to people.

I asked if she would draw only one Usagi-chan in uniform when I asked for her autograph?

She immediately drew it at the Hobby Center!

When she came, I was very emotional ♪ Zowie!

BREAKING NEWS: Funimation Asks About Possible Redub of Sailor Moon

Special thanks to our seasonal writer Starcat and her buddy Furu for bringing this to my attention just a few minutes ago!

Funimation's Blog The Funimation Update posted a survey yesterday asking for fan inputs about new series in Japan. One of these options is a possible redub of Sailor Moon. Fans, please VOTE SAILOR MOON. However, we would encourage you leave your opinion on the facts we are about to present to you at the bottom of the page in question 5. We have provided you an image of where Sailor Moon is located in the survey (Questions 3 & 4)

- Funimation would likely use their own dub artists for the show. We here at Moon Chase really don't want to see this. The VAs of the original dub in Toronto all worked really, really hard to make the characters who they were and they really put Canada on the map for anime dubs. The show was also one of the big spark plugs that started the whole anime boom in the late nineties. To lose the majority of this cast would be devastating. These are voices that we all grew to know and a few of them have even expressed interest in returning to their roles if there was a redub or lost episodes dubbed. Now, let's look at Pretty Cure. Toei is collaborating on the dub with Ocean Studios, and this partnership has produced wonderful results. Every episode that we have watched brings a happy tear to our eyes because this really is a dub to be proud of , hardly any cuts have been made. And it brings a sad tear to our eye because Sailor Moon never had this chance.

So please, if you want to see your old familiar voices have another chance at your favorite character in Sailor Moon, let Funimation know at the bottom who you enjoyed and that you would want to see a redub featuring the old stars.

On a side note, we'd also like to have Roland Parliament also have at the very least some input in the production. He worked extremely hard given the pressures he had from Optimum Productions to make certain edits to the series, to direct what we think were the best episodes of the series. He went above and beyond his role as a director to make sure that he put out a high quality product, sometimes having the dub actors stay past their call times (by a long shot) just to get the right take on a line. He would come home tired after a long day of dubbing, and then watch the next day's episode in Japanese, and make notes. And then, this would all repeat again the next day. Sailor Moon was under a lot of pressure to put out 5 episodes a week!

- Funimation seems to have the vast majority of Toei's cards in their hands. Viz only has two Toei anime licenses - Boys Over Flowers and One Piece (which is actually in a partnership with Funimation). Bandai as far as we can tell has no Toei Licenses, and ADV has only one Toei license, Saint Seiya. ADV previously had the rights to Sailor Moon, and to make a long story short, they only got the rights to the subtitled version (and they received masters of poor quality) near the end of Sailor Moon's licenses for North America. And it's looking like I'm going to have to work on this Geneon article pretty soon, but they have been resurrected in Japan. If you are going to Animazement this is a major part of Moon Chase's presentation at the Sailor Moon Universe Panel! Funimation is in a special position as well because they are now streaming a lot of Toei's series for their on-demand service on their site as well (all subtitled). These include Air Master, Captain Harlock, Digimon Adventure 02, Fist of the North Star, Galaxy Express, Pretty Cure and Slam Dunk. So right now, it is looking like Funimation is the only option for a distributor for Toei at this moment.

We here at Moon Chase happen to have spoken to a lot of independent anime/comic book store owners who praise Funimation's vast selection, but they are not fans of their pricing strategies at all. Even some fans agree, with our own The Me finding the $60 price tag per volume of Ourah High School Host Club a little too expensive. In Canada especially, Funimation needs to really improve their distribution of anime across the country, not sending the bigger selections to only the bigger cities. This was the major issue with the release of the first two seasons - many Canadians simply did not have the chance to see ADV's release of Sailor Moon in stores until very close to the license expiry. It was a sad day that Canadians could not purchase a show which had its dub produced in their own country.

We encourage our readers in Canada and the US to also comment to Funimation about their pricing strategies and distribution, what they would like to see in their own cities.

- Last , but certainly not least, is the issue of the final season, Sailor Stars. We are all dying to see it, however it doesn't seem in these times that an unedited dub on television would air without any controversy. Sure, gender bending has done well late at night with the example of Cybersix, and Cartoon Network's Adult Swim block has been able to keep any objections to a dull roar, but Sailor Moon is a girls' superhero show, and many young girls back in the day did watch and love the show. It would be difficult to adapt some elements of the storyline towards the under 10 set. At this point, we would wholly support a straight to DVD release of Stars since that's the only way that we think it could be in North America and work. Ideally, we'd also support a dub which aired late at night on adult-centered animation blocks in Canada and the US, however we don't think that a dub aimed for young girls of that season could work.

Nonetheless, we have all waited too long for Sailor Stars, so please leave your opinion on the series with Funimation.

- Oh yeah, and there's a couple other series we love on this survey too. Hayate the Combat Butler 2nd Season continues one of our staff favorite comedies and misadventures of a teenage butler, and K-On! is a teenage high school slice-of-life comedy about some girls who join a club, start a band, and have to deal with a guitarist who is a complete space case. If you enjoyed Ouran as a slice of life comedy, then you'll love K-ON! too. Vote for these too if you can!

- And most importantly, be nice and informative when you write your comments. They are more likely to listen to well written comments rather than "OMG I LOVE SAILOR MOON PLZ BRING IT BACK ^_^". A higher up at Funimation could read that and say "Ok, we know you love Sailor Moon, but why do you want it back? How can we bring it back? What would you like to see?"

Once again, that survey is located here.

Fans, please join and watch our forums. In the next few days we will be planning a letter writing campaign, but we will not be posting any details on our blog posts. And we've got a few other things related to this that we have up our sleeves, so stay tuned. If any of you fans write any comments towards Funimation and would like to share them on the site, please send us an email!

And finally, we have a few words for someone else...

拝啓 武内直子:

いかがお過ごしでいらっしゃいますか。
セーラームーン全員女性。
北アメリカで別の機会をセーラームーンに与えてください。

月の名にかけて,
スタッフノMoon Chase.

Breaking News: Kodansha Makes A Name For Itself and Geneon is Rescued!

Last week, there were a couple big, breaking, developments in the anime world involving two companies involved with Sailor Moon, Kodansha and Geneon. Kodansha is a manga giant in Japan, and was the publisher of the Sailor Moon manga in both its novels and in their magazine, Nakayoshi (which is almost like Shojo Beat, filled with manga for girls). Geneon was responsible for bringing the movies, S and SuperS seasons to North America. Unfortunately, Geneon shut down North American operations abruptly last winter, leaving many series in limbo. Of course, Sailor Moon has been long gone for a few years now, so it had no releases implicated when this happened.

Kodansha to Directly Publish and Sell Manga in September

Kodansha, has had a few forays in publishing outside of Japan. They have published some reference books, dictionaries, and books about Japanese culture and language translated into English. The books were translated and published in Japan, and then exported around the world. Many years ago, they also tried to publish bilingual manga, which seemed like a good idea - speech bubbles contained both Japanese and English. However, they were very expensive, and they stopped publishing these when Tokyopop licensed the English rights to many of them. Last week, the company took another major foray, and announced that they were going to publish and directly sell manga beginning this September. Traditionally, Kodansha licensed some of their titles to Tokyopop and Del Rey, and to a smaller extent Viz. Kodansha has been watching the Manga market in the United States and has noticed it is on the rise, and that there is some competition between the manga companies with their books and magazines. We have a slight feeling Tokypop’s recent meltdown (**) had a role in accelerating their business strategy. Currently, their holding company Kodansha USA holds ¥210 million (around 2 million USD). They will be based out of New York and Yoshinobu Noma, a senior VP with the company will serve as President of Kodansha USA. We are assuming that the format will be English only. There is no word as of this writing what titles will be included, but Del Rey has confirmed none of their Kodansha licenses have been pulled.

If/when the issues between Naoko Takeuchi’s Princess Naoko Planning and other companies involved with Sailor Moon ever get reconciled, it is likely that Kodansha would probably handle everything with the manga themselves. It is hard to say whether this will be a good decision or not, many fans did not agree with some of the translation from the first time that the manga hit North American shelves. Again, Sailor Moon fans will have to wait and see until the first few titles are published from Kodansha, and how good the quality may be.

Funimation Rescues Some Geneon Titles

The last we heard from Geneon, was that they were pulling out of the anime industry in terms of distribution and releases, and were going to focus more on managing their properties. There is some truth to that, lately we have been noticing a few Geneon movies airing here and there on Teletoon. On the flip side, it looks like Anime Current on G4 has stopped. The block has been replaced with Reviews On The Run (a terrible video game review show which plays too many times on the network in a day). In February, the company donated $138,000 worth of toys, CDs, and DVDs (we assume all overstocks) to the Kids Wish Network. It’s nice that the company was still able to give back despite the circumstances.

When the company announced it’s shutdown, Funimation was very vocal about acquiring certain titles and licenses from them. However, they made the mistake of mentioning Sailor Moon, whose license has been out of international hands for many years now. Funimation announced last week that they had signed an exclusive distribution agreement with Geneon, leaving Funimation with the exclusive rights for marketing, manufacturing, sales and distribution of several Geneon titles. So far, the list includes:


Black Lagoon
Black Lagoon Second Barrage
Elemental Gelade
Ergo Proxy
Fate/stay night
Hellsing Ultimate
Kamichu
Karin
Kyo kara Maoh! Season 2
Lyrical Nanoha
Ninja Vixens
Paradise Kiss
Rozen Maiden
Rozen Maiden - Träumend
Shana
Shonen Onmyouji
The Familiar of Zero
The Law of Ueki
The Story of Saiunkoku
When They Cry

One of our very devoted readers and biggest fans was very crushed when she could not find any more volumes of Saiunkoku, and has been hanging off the edge of a cliff since the release of Volume 2. When she heard this news, she jumped for joy and gave us this exclusive comment, “That’s Great!” We still want to know what has happened to the classic gems that Geneon held such as Akira, Appleseed, Lain, Fushigi Yugi, and many more. Some store owners we spoke to were a little disappointed that Bandai didn’t get the rights, for they prefer their pricing structures over Funimation’s (and we agree). Funimation plans to begin these releases sometime in late summer, though it is unknown if they will continue where Geneon left off, or start these series over.


**We have neglected to talk about Tokyopop’s current restructuring, however we have spoken to a few comic book store owners. It is their unanimous opinion that the company licensed "too much too fast" and invested a little too much in independent artists which didn’t sell as much as they had hoped. While some of the owners we spoke to encourage independent artists, some of the titles that Tokyopop published barely sold at all. One of them showed us an entire section in which he said over 3 shipments, he only sold two books. In one’s opinion, it’s not entirely the fault of declining manga sales, but more dependant on what titles were licensed and how they were marketed. This is not a problem with Viz, as they are "cleaning hous" in comparison to Tokyopop.

Late-Breaking News: The Girl Who Leapt Through Time Licensed!

This one almost slipped under our radar. At the New York Anime Festival earlier this month, Bandai announced that they have the license for Mamoru Hosoda’s The Girl Who Leapt Through Time. Finally, the wait is over for this award winner! We have been covering this one for a long time and we’re happy to hear the news. The movie will have a limited theatrical release before a DVD comes out in 2008. The first screenings will likely be announced soon, and will probably take place in Los Angeles or New York. There may be a dub of the movie but it’s unknown who the cast is or if this will be the version shown in theaters. We will keep our eyes on the situation and let you know as soon as we find out! In the meantime though, check out this trailer!

Breaking News: Bandai Visual USA to Handle Own Releases

More news from the current plight of Geneon USA today! Previously, Geneon was handling all of the distribution for Bandai Visual USA - fans can check out some of those titles here. Since Geneon abruptly announced their exit from anime distribution and marketing, Bandai Visual USA has confirmed that they will keep up with their new releases as planned, and are working to find alternative distribution agreements. This is good news for fans of Bandai Visual titles, but still no word on what is going to happen with Geneon's titles. We met an independent Anime shop owner today who was shocked to hear the news, but not entirely surprised saying that Geneon had fallen back in the last couple of years. One of our readers even wrote us in to express their disappointment in the recent Geneon release of the Ai Yori Aoshi series - it was only the DVDs wrapped in plastic, no box, no thinkpak, no nothing. In our experience, titles were sometimes hard to find back then and are even harder to find now. Again, we will keep you posted once we hear any news of what is going to happen with Geneon titles.