FUNimation Announces a Host of New Licenses

At Anime Expo FUNimation demonstrated its position as the preeminent American anime company by announcing a host of new licenses including the new anime feature, Trigun: Badlands Rumble, which Funimation expects to exhibit in theaters before releasing on DVD. Among the anime that Funimation is planning to release in 2011 are the third Black Lagoon series, Black Lagoon: Roberta’s Blood Trail, Darker Than Black Season 2, Shakugan no Shana Season 2, Hellsing Ultimate Vol.s 5-7, Toaru Majutsu no Index (A Certain Index of Prohibited Books) and its related series Toaru Kagaku no Rerugan (A Certain Scientific Railgun).

Funimation also revealed that it would be simulcasting a number of anime series including Black Butler 2, Shiki, Sekirei—Pure Engagement, Sengoku Basara Two, as well as the live action Moyashimon, which is based on the manga about an ag student who can talk to bacteria and other micro organisms. FUNimation will begin simulcasting all these series this month as they air in Japan.

In addition to these new series FUNimation also announced that it had acquired the rights to a number of former Geneon properties including Ai Yori Aoshi, Armitage III, Haibane Renmei, Hellsing TV anime, Serial Experiments Lain, Tenchi in Tokyo, Tenchi Muyo!, Tenchi Universe, and Texhnolyze.

Amidst this horde of license announcements FUNimation also confirmed that it did not have the license for Evangelion: 2.0 You Can (Not) Advance. Considering that Funimation put out an excellent Blu-ray edition of the first Evangelion movie re-boot , this has to be seen as a real loss for U.S. fans. Perhaps another American anime company will release the remaining Evangelion films, but it appears that Gainax may just not realize how far the market has slipped even for a previously gilt-edged property like Evangelion. There is also the question of how many iterations of basically the same material that even the most devoted fan will buy, regardless of the substantial cosmetic improvements in the new re-booted version.

Funimation Acquires 'Trigun'

Funimation Entertainment has acquired home entertainment, theatrical, broadcast, digital and merchandise rights to the 26-episode Trigun anime series previously released in North America by Geneon. The space cowboy saga was a hit on the Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim and was actually more successful in the U.S. than it was in Japan. The anime series was based on 3-volume Trigun manga by Yasuhiro Nightow, which is published here by Dark Horse along with the 14-volume Trigun Maximum manga sequel.

A dozen years after the property first appeared on Japanese TV in 1998, it is set to regain some major visibility. Madhouse, which produced the original Trigun anime, is releasing an anime feature film, Trigun: Badlands Rumble (directed by Satoshi Nishimura) in Japan on April 24th.

Funimation did not announce the acquisition of the Trigun movie, but did indicate that it plans to release the original 26-episode Trigun series on DVD in the fall of 2010. Even if Funimation does not acquire the rights to the new Trigun: Badlands Rumble film, given the popularity of the property here in North American, someone will, which should provide a sales boost for Funimation’s re-release of the original series.

Also the fact that Trigun was one of Geneon's bestselling titles would appear to make it an excellent candidate for release on Blu-ray in order to recapture some of those original sales in the upgraded hi-def format.