Posts Tagged ‘ikkitousen’

Curse you press releases for always arriving right as I was about to work on something else!

So while manga fans are busy floating in the sky thanks to Viz Media announcing an uncensored rescue of fighting series, Tenjo Tenge, what is there for anime fans to get excited about today? Well, according to a press release from Crunchyroll, how about the premiere of ecchi fighting series Ikkitousen? Yay?

Produced by JC Staff, this fighting series about seven warring schools and the heroine determined to unite them premiered in 2003 (before being released to DVD here in 2004-2005). Originally this was a license that belonged to Geneon before they took their ball and went home. The license was eventually rescued by Funimation in 2008 and even had a new box set release as recently as last year. It’s not unprecedented for a series to premiere on Crunchyroll after first having a DVD release but being that it’s usually the other way around, it’s still a little weird whenever the roles are reversed.

As of today, Crunchyroll has only added the first season to their site. However, the second and third seasons have been licensed by Media Blasters for awhile now. If you add in that they’ve been promoting some of their series (Queen’s Blade and Kanokon for instance) with Crunchyroll streams it becomes a not huge leap of logic to see additional seasons added at some point but when I contacted Crunchyroll by email, there were no firm plans in place to add them. So in the meantime, everyone will just have to deal with one season worth of fighting and pantsu flashing and I’m sure that somehow you’ll find a way to cope with that.

Full press release below the cut

Edited: Incorrectly identified fourth season as licensed by Media Blasters.

Read the rest of this entry »

Just a couple of months after laying off a quarter of their staff, Media Blasters announced today that they have redesigned their primary site (which is nice since the last one was a… what’s the phrase? Oh yeah, navigation nightmare) and have made the first three episodes of three series available for free. Currently the first episodes of Queen’s Blade, Kanokon and Ikki Tousen: Dragon Destiny are available on the site dubbed and in full DVD quality. If none of those series are of interest to you right now more series and episodes are already planned including Magic Knight Rayearth.

I’m really glad to see that Media Blasters is taking a step forward to try and reach the streaming audience. I’m not entirely sure how the streaming market works but was this really the cheapest way to go about this? It doesn’t sound like Media Blasters is rolling in capital right now so now I’m left wondering. Then again, it only takes two seconds to think about these three series and realize… yeah, is there a single mainstream streaming site which would touch these series with a ten foot tentacle besides Funimation?

So if you’re sitting home this afternoon with nothing else to do, why not go watch some dubbed ecchi action anime?

<Via Mania>

A little bit of interesting got mixed in with a little bit of exciting today while I was away. But here is what happened today wrapped up as neatly as I can get it.

Clannad Dub Premieres NEXT WEEK: When Sentai announced that they were going to dub Clannad I didn’t actually translate that into ‘we’ve actually already done it and now we’re going to blindside you with it so enjoy!’ I’m not complaining, I’m just saying this has been an incredibly fast rollout.

The press release went out this morning and has confirmed that the new dubbed version of Clannad will gets its first premiere on March 25th on The Anime Network’s Video on Demand. On March 26th, the series will become available via The Anime Network’s Online Player.

I admit that I do want to watch this. I saw the entire first season in its original Japanese and had a very lukewarm reaction by the end. Maybe a new dub track will help me take it a bit more seriously and not laugh at inappropriate times? (Full press release after the cut)

4Kids Strikes Back: 4Kids hasn’t been doing too well lately. It was recently reported that in the last quarter they posted a $21.3M loss (that figure was only $19.6M a year earlier) but when the going gets tough, the tough… um, license stuff. In a conference call with investors, Chairman and CEO Al Kahn assured investors that things are moving in a new direction, “The business reverses in the past few years have caused 4Kids to basically return to the very successfully business model that was used for 20 years prior to the launch of Chaotic. We have decided that 4Kids needs to return to its roots as a licensing and merchandising company that specializes in bringing wonderful Japanese programming and merchandizing to the rest of the world.”

Ready for the really good news though?

“We signed yesterday a very important Japanese property that we will be announcing in the next couple of days.”

And start speculating………… now!

Quick Durarara Update: In a quick update to something I mentioned earlier this week, VP of Licensing at Crunchyroll Rob Pereyda has mentioned on Twitter that Crunchyroll will be streaming the final two episodes of Durarara (episodes 25-26) and Sora no Woto (episodes 13-14) on the same day that they are released on DVD in Japan.

So yeah, that is mostly great news and I’m not looking a gift horse in the mouth… but in 3 days, episode 12 of Sora no Woto airs. Volume 7 is set to street September 22nd. Durarara will finish streaming around June and there’s not even a date set for the final volume of that one. This is going to be a loooong wait.

Ikkitousen Adds Additional OVAs: Moving into spring premiere news, Ikkitousen can’t cram all of the breasts that it wants to into the third season, Xtreme Xecutor, so the staff is creating additional OVAs. That’s not quite a direct quote but it seems close enough to me. Each of the six DVDs will be released with an additional original OVA attached to them.

MM! Light Novels Get Anime: Finally, the light novel series MM! will be getting an anime adaptation in the future (all the usual stipulations apply; announcement only, no details). From what I have gathered, the series is an ecchi school comedy about a boy who is secretly a masochist when it comes to abuse from girls but is ashamed of it. Now in high school, he wants to confess to a girl but is afraid of his masochism freaking her out. Seeking a solution, he joins the 2nd Volunteer Club after the president decides that she can fix him.

Read the rest of this entry »

And once again we’re back to another fun filled Monday. With only a couple of weeks left until the start of the new anime season, the new flood of anime trailers and promotional videos should be starting any time now but for now it’s unfortunately still at a slow trickle.

In case you were wondering, yes I do plan to do another season preview which hopefully will be up by the end of the month… which reminds me, I should probably get started on that in the near future. ^_^;; Oh look, a change of subject!

A new trailer lasting about two and a half minutes has gone up on the official Angel Beats website. Unlike most of the previous trailers, this one is actually almost entirely made up of new character scenes, story footage and a couple of short action sequences. It appears that the series is being sold as a dark action, moe series not unlike Higurashi – When They Cry (only I’m assuming less twisted) or Fate/Stay Night. I’ll be keeping an eye on this one when it premieres next month but it’s hard to say that I’ve actually been sold on the series yet.

Also premiering next month, another trailer has also been posted for the third season of the ecchi fighting series Ikkitousen: Xtreme Xecutor. The video is almost two minutes long though the trailer itself is only about 90 seconds. If you’re a fan of the series and want to make sure that it’s going to keep the deep philosophical tones that made the first two seasons so popular you can be rest assured: there is a panty shot within 23 seconds of the trailer beginning and a second one less than 6 seconds later.

Sad news coming out of New York as it’s been confirmed that Media Blasters was recently forced to put at least 13 employees on temporary unpaid leave or laid off entirely. For a small company like Media Blasters, this represents about 25% of their staff.

In a statement to ANN, Media Blasters CEO John Sirabella said “Recently, some of our larger vendors have slowed down quite a bit, so we have to take precautions. We are hoping that if we start to see the orders flow back from these vendors, we can bring [the furloughed employees] back later.”

Unfortunately, this news also comes with a round of new release dates for planned DVDs (including Kanokon, Queen’s Blade and others that certain fans have been looking forward to… I think you all know who you are). The list of titles that are being rescheduled are listed below with their new release dates afterwards:

Wordsworth Outer Story moved to 4/13/2010

World of Wordsworth Collection (WordsWorth Premium Collection) moved to 4/13/2010

Otogi Zoshi: Collection of Ages moved to 4/20/2010

Gaogaigar Season 2 LiteBox moved to 4/27/2010

Rurouni Kenshin Complete Series Volumes 1-22, Eps, 1-95 moved to 4/27/2010

Tekkaman Blade Complete (Volumes 1-3 , Eps. 1-49) moved to 5/4/2010

Bludgeoning Angel Dokuro-chan Special Edition (Now Dubbed) moved to 5/18/2010

Queens Blade The Exiled Virgin: A Single Step Vol.1 moved to 5/18/2010

Kanokon – The Girl Who Cried Fox: Sexy Like a Fox  Vol. 1 moved to 5/25/2010

Inma Seiden moved to 6/1/2010

Ikki Tousen Dragon Destiny: Vol 3 moved to 6/29/2010

Urotsukidoji: Legend of the Overfiend (Uncut Episode) moved to To be Determined

Urotsukidoji: Legend of the Overfiend (The Movie) moved to To be Determined

Queens Blade The Exiled Virgin: The Beaten Path, Vol. 2 moved to To be Determined

Fleshdance (Shimaizuma) moved to To be Determined

Ikki Tousen Premium Box moved to To be Determined

Oh My Sex Goddess (Megachu) moved to To be Determined

Sayonara Zetsubou-Sensei V1 moved to To be Determined

<Via ANN, Anime on DVD>

Writer’s block sucks but sometimes all it takes is just a couple of sparks to get you going again. I missed last week but there really has been very little to fall through the cracks. So what has happened in the last couple of weeks? Moe loli triplets will be airing sometime in the future, Gonzo has taken one more step towards obscurity and the holiday season is fast approaching which means more merchandise that none of us actually need but will probably buy anyway simply because we can.

Second Eden of the East Movie Delayed: Fans of last summer’s hit series, Eden of the East, have been very patient when it comes to the movie adaptations. Finally, the big day was just hours away when Production I.G decided to break the collective hearts of fans just a bit more by announcing a two month delay in the release of the second movie. This isn’t entirely bad news however. Originally both movies were set to be 60 minute adaptations of the TV series but then the staff got creative and expanded the story out even further making what was supposed to a 60 minute feature into 90 minutes instead. Surely fans can wait a measly two months for at least 30 more minutes of story?

Ikkitousen Season 4 Green Lit: For those of you who prefer your anime to lean more towards the action fan service variety, a fourth season of Ikkitousen has been green lit for production. Titled ‘Ikkitousen: XX (Xtreme Xecutor)‘, the new season will feature the animation debut of the character Bachou Mouki (voiced by Aya Endo [Sheryl Nome in Macross Frontier, Cruz in Needless]) and will also feature new characters that were never featured in the manga series. Beyond that, all of the cast and crew from the first three seasons will be returning to reprise their roles.

If you’re dying to get your fix, the official website has already opened with a trailer for the special DVD 0 being released at Comiket 77. The trailer isn’t really safe for work though the nipples are censored.

Major Gets Sixth Season: The seemingly perennial baseball anime had a sixth season announced this week. The new season will be getting a spring premiere, more specifically April 3^rd (just in time for baseball season naturally). I remember when this series was still relatively new and I couldn’t go more than a week without someone telling me to check this one out. Glad that’s finally over with.

LAMES

Manga Gamer Editing Upcoming Release: Manga Gamer put two news updates on their site earlier this week regarding their upcoming release of Soul Link from Navel (Shuffle). First the good news, the game will be released later this month (presumably in time to spend any holiday money you have coming to you) for €36.95 (or around $55). The bad news is that the game is being willingly censored by Manga Gamer before its release. In a statement posted to their site on 12/4 the company said:

“A total of 6 CGs from the game will be removed due to having an arguably underaged(sic) looking character naked. Because we don’t want to risk getting the law in the way of our future releases, we have decided to cut this CG from this release.” They go on to note that no text was cut.

As much as I hate censorship, this has not been a good year to be an eroge fan. Between the bans put into place because of one stupid game that wasn’t even made widely available and the Christopher Handley guilty plea, I can understand why Manga Gamer would prefer to go the safe route. It’s exceedingly lame that they buckled to whatever pressure they felt like they were under but understandable. On the other hand, JAST USA proved earlier this year that a little bit of Photoshop here and there (NSFW) can go a long way towards fixing those problems.

STUFF YOU DIDN’T KNOW YOU NEEDED UNTIL NOW

600 Japanese Girls Saying ‘I Love You’: Alright, so it’s not literally 600 girls being shipped to you just so that you can be peppered with the same phrase over and over but how about a CD containing the same thing? For a mere $25 you can have a special two CD set titled ‘Hougen’ which will help even the loneliest of otaku feel special as hundreds of girls (including voice actresses such as Rie Tanaka [most recently known as Nyx in Queen's Blade, Octavia in Tears to Tiara, Minna in Strike Witches]). If that’s not enough, a second CD is included in the set which features the reverse: hundreds of girls telling you they hate you perfect for that post holiday depression. The set will be released on 12/23 and is available for preorder from CDJapan.

 <Ikkitousen image ©YUJI SHIOZAKI・WANI BOOKS/IKKITOUSEN XX PARTNERS, Soul Link image ©Omegavision>

It was really only a matter of time before this one got licensed and it really shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone that Media Blasters is the one to get it. It was announced this morning via a forum post from John Sirabella that Media Blasters has acquired both seasons of the acid nipple hentai disguised as an action series Queen’s Blade. Based on the game books, the ARMS produced series premiered earlier this year to a heavily mixed reaction: some fans openly embraced the series and defended it by saying that it wasn’t actually that bad while others completely wrote off the series as pointless. Take a BIG guess which category I fall into. The series will begin to see its release in North America (complete with a dub track no less!) starting next summer.

Also announced by Sirabella was the acquisition of another ARMS produced fan service action series, Ikkitousen Great Guardians. This series centers around a girl named Hakufu who is destined to unite seven schools which are constantly at war with each other. Originally premiering in 2003, the first season was released by Geneon in the US in 2004 before they took their ball and went home a couple of years later (the license now rests with Funimation). Great Guardians is the third season of the franchise and premiered earlier this year. It’s the second chapter of the series to be licensed by Media Blasters for release in North America.

With both series receiving such strong reactions from anime fans around the world (be it good or bad), it makes me wonder how well Queen’s Blade will be received in North America. It’s not a title that has any chance of hitting the mainstream US market but the fact that Media Blasters is giving it a dub track indicates quite a bit of confidence in its sale value. Maybe I’m just over thinking it and should listen to perhaps the best quote regarding this release from Scott VonSchilling at Anime Almanac, “Media Blasters – staying alive one wank at time!”

<Via AICN>