Posts Tagged ‘the disappearance of haruhi suzumiya’

Fans on both sides of the US received a bit of excitement this week when US theatrical premieres and screenings were announced for both the dark sci-fi King of Thorn and the Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya movies this week. In the east, the Japan Society has announced the lineup for their Japan Cuts Festival of Contemporary Japanese Cinema taking place the first half of July in New York. Among the 20 films listed in the press release, the US premiere for the sci-fi thriller King of Thorn will be taking place on July 11th at 6pm. To get the more up to date information on tickets and venues, visit the official website. The futuristic thriller spent 2009 in the film festival circuit before opening in Japan on May 1st and getting largely ignored in theaters.

Meanwhile, for those of us on the other coast and can’t make it to New York the US premiere of The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya has been announced for June 24th at Laemmle’s Sunset 5 theater in LA. Unlike the previously mentioned film, The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya was released to Japanese theaters in Feb. and managed to pull in the equivalent of over $7 million US in eight weeks. I’m sure there are conclusions we can draw from this but I’ll allow you to come up with your own.

The movie will be shown in its original Japanese with appearances from the English dub cast (which would make more sense if they were premiering the dub but whatever), Cristina Vee and prizes being offered to fans and cosplayers from Bandai, Yen Press and Crunchyroll. Tickets went on sale yesterday and so if you plan on attending this event I suggest you contact the theater and get yourself set up early. The movie had its first US premiere in San Francisco starting May 21st lasting through this weekend at the Viz Cinema.

So I live too far away from both of these places to plan on attending. Though if I had the choice I’d much rather find a way to get to New York to see King of Thorn. Man, they get to have all the fun on the east coast! Oh wait… no they don’t.

Updated: Corrected info re: Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya US premiere. Apologies for the error.

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As much as I love spending an entire month trying to squeeze in as much new anime as I can, the “biggest” downside to every new season is that news slows down to a crawl and I start to get a little lazy. It happens every three months like clockwork and inevitably I always manage to to sleep in some morning and miss cool news like this happening. But enough of my whining, there’s new anime to announce!

First up this morning, Bandai has announced that they have licensed the latest release in the Haruhi Suzumiya franchise, The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya. Originally released to theaters in Japan back in February, the 2 and a half hour movie was a hit with fans and the perfect antidote for a… let’s call it, not entirely well received second season in 2009.

Making the announcement via the latest episode of the ASOS Brigade and Twitter here are the important things to note: There are no firm details on when the DVD will be released but it will start screening at the New People Center in San Francisco starting May 21st in its original Japanese and again in Hawaii as part of the Spotlight Asia Films Program starting in mid June . For those who can’t make it to San Francisco or Hawaii, it will eventually hit store shelves complete with a dub track and I’ll get that date up for all of you as soon as its announced.

In other announcements made today, Funimation has announced that for their spring simulcasts they will be teaming up with Fuji television to stream their noitaminA block each week. Airing in Japan on late Thursday nights, the television block is aimed at viewers who might not normally watch anime which means lots of out of the ordinary titles.

For this season, the noitaminA has been expanded to a full hour and will feature the series House of Five Leaves (produced by Manglobe) and The Tatami Galaxy (produced by Madhouse). If you haven’t heard of either series, the first is about a masterless samurai in Edo era Japan becoming the bodyguard for a gang known as the ‘Five Leaves’. The first episode began streaming this morning on the official Funimation site with new episodes going up each Thursday morning at 10:30am Pacific (12:30 Center/1:30 Easter) in its original Japanese with subtitles while The Tatami Galaxy will begin airing next Thursday at 9:45am Pacific (11:45 Center/12:45 Eastern).

So there we have it; new announcements from both Bandai and Funimation in one morning. So which are you most excited about checking out?

Press releases below the cut

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That small contingent who is still holding out hope that Gonzo isn’t circling the drain has reason to rejoice today. A new trailer for the upcoming game, Arcadia Saga Online, has been posted to the official website (Gallery>Movie>Right) with animation produced by Gonzo. The game itself is created by Gonzo Rosso which used to be part of the larger corporation, GDH, until the branch was axed back in March. But then in October, Atlus became the majority share holder and the former sister branch became a completely separate entity.

The new trailer is 105 seconds long but it takes about 45 seconds to actually get into any background or character artwork. If you’re wondering what this means for Gonzo and their future, it’s basically zilch. Until someone wearing a Studio Gonzo name tag says ‘yes, we created this in the very recent past and we have more on the way’, it means that at some point in the past they worked on a video game which was already true.

Still, it’s pretty ain’t it?

Moving along to other trailers that have people talking, how about a new trailer for the Haruhi Suzumiya movie? A new one minute trailer was posted to the official website earlier this week. Yes, the site disappearing is intentional. Hang around and it will auto play after a few seconds. Oh Kadokawa, you and your clever promotional antics. The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya premieres on 2/6.

<Via ANN, YouTube vid via Anime Vice, ANN 2>

Kyoto Animation and Kadokawa are on thin ice with fans right now but recently seem to have found some peaceful middle ground lately. On one hand, the anticipated Endless Eight DVD disaster is turning into an average level release after the first two volumes of the story arc went onto sell over 10K copies each. On the other hand, perhaps fans are just biding their time following the announcement of the long awaited Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya movie being released next year. In the original announcement, fans were forced to be satisfied with the vague spring 2010 release date.

A new release date has been released online though and states that the movie will now be released February 6^th, 2010 with fans in Japan able to buy advance tickets starting November 21^st. Also revealed in the announcement is that the movie is going to be a full 150 minutes. Wait, 150 minutes? As in it’s going to be two and a half hours long? Bloody hell that’s a long movie!

<Via Gigazine>

I have to work during Golden Week!?

In an update to a couple of stories that I’ve written about previously (here and here), release dates have been announced for the upcoming Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya and Gintama movies. Technically this isn’t entirely confirmed because Kyoto Animation has yet to say so themselves but a theater listing says that the new movie is going to open in Japan on February 6^th. After the year that Kyoto Animation and Haruhi Suzumiya have had, it might be good to get a fresh start in 2010 though I still wonder if it’s too late to salvage what fan base this franchise has left.

In more official news, the brand new teaser site for the upcoming Gintama movie has announced that the movie will be released during Golden Week in 2010 which lasts from April 29^th to May 5^th. The movie will be titled Gintama Shinyaku Benizakura-Hen (Gintama: Benizakura Arc – A New Retelling) and retell the Benizakura manga arc. If you haven’t already started, Crunchyroll has 181 episodes available so fans can get caught up before the premiere next year.  

<Via ANN>

In the final episode of the renewed Haruhi Suzumiya broadcast, a teasing message was included to announce a brand new Haruhi Suzumiya movie which will be released in the spring of 2010. The movie will animate the primary story in The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya light novel which fans believed was going to be part of the second season before getting Endless Eight. The teaser image doesn’t reveal anything besides the planned season release but as soon as new information is available it will be on the official site.

Not so surprisingly, the excitement from fans and bloggers I’m sensing is fairly low. Could it really be possible that the legions of fans that this series once had have moved on? The first Endless Eight DVD sold a dismal (yet surprisingly high) 14,000 copies upon its release. Of course, there are still three more volumes of that story arc left to be released to test the ‘otaku will buy anything’ adage. But have enough fans been burned by the franchise or will all be forgiven once promotion begins on the new movie?

<Via ANN, Video via Canned Dogs>