License News
from MCM Expo
The Anime
Industry panel has come and gone at this weekend's London
Comic Con MCM Expo, and unusually it was MVM who
had the most licenses to announce. In recent years
MVM have focused more on live-action Asian film and
their anime acquisitions have been dwindling, whilst
Manga and Kazé made all of the big announcements.
However, Manga and Kazé just confirmed the
release dates of their previously announced titles (see our
release schedule for details),
the only new license revealed was the first Gintama
film, with the supernatural actioner due for release on DVD
only in December. They also confirmed a complete
collection release for Puella Magi Madoka Magica in
October, with a later twitter post stating that this could
be on both DVD and Blu-Ray.
MVM on the other
hand announced a glut of new titles, and confirmed that they
intend to release at least one anime title a month.
They confirmed the acquisition of both series 1 and 2 of
Rosario+Vampire, a series about a human boy who is
accidentally enrolled in a private school for demons and
monsters, Bodacious Space Pirates, a sci-fi series
where a schoolgirl inherits her late father's space pirate
ship and crew, Dream Eater Merry, a fantasy series
about a high school student dragged into a world of dreams
and demons, Shakugan no Shana Season 2, the sequel to
MVM's earlier release
Shakugan no Shana
and Rozen Maiden Ouverture, the two-episode OVA side
story to the surprisingly good
Rozen Maiden.
One other interesting
tidbit from the panel was Manga's rep Jerome
Mazandarani noting that Japanese distributor Toei was
pleased with the forthcoming UK Dragon Ball Z
release, and that this may make future licenses from them
more likely. Hopefully this makes a UK release for
One Piece a little more likely!