Anime Review Roundup
Manga's Birthday Bash Hits The Stores
It's Manga Entertainment's 20th Anniversary this year, in case you always skip past the logos on DVDs. In fact they had a big party for press types last week, a 'thank you for your support and get plastered on sake cocktails' type thing. But that's no reason for Manga's loyal fanbase to feel left out, as they have a present for you too. There's a big sale on now, loads and loads of Manga product at ridiculously low prices. The 20th Anniversary Blowout is currently in progress at the Hut group of e-tailers, sites like Zavvi, Asda and WH Smith. The link will take you to Zavvi.
We're talking the whole of Soul Eater for £17. The Summer Wars/ The Girl Who Leapt Through Time Blu-ray twin pack for around £7, Noein for £7, Guyver for £7 and much, much, much more.
According to Manga's Twitter feed, HMV will be getting in on the act from tomorrow.
Watch Fairy Tail Online and For Free… Again
Fairy Tail is the long running magic anime series that Manga Entertainment announced as one of their new licences early this year. It turned out that the US licence went to Funimation, and depending on when the dubs are completed, we should get the first discs in 2012. It would be nice to know what the show's about, and indeed it has been a staple of Crunchyroll's schedule since it first started. The problem is that Crunchyroll's licence stipulates that old episodes are taken down as new ones are put up. If you missed the start of the series and try getting into it now, somewhere around episode 80, you'll understandably be lost. Fortunately, Funimation are priming new viewers for the series release by putting up the series on Youtube again from the beginning. UK viewers are invited too. You can go and see episodes 1 & 2 right now by clicking the link, and hopefully more will be added as weeks pass.
More Manga Entertainment and more anniversary celebrations this week, as I got to take a look at two titles, old and new. The first is one that I have been anticipating, and salivating over for two years now, ever since the US release. That is the UK Blu-ray debut of Akira of course, the seminal movie that single-handedly kicked off the craze for anime in the West, back in the early nineties. It's still the awesome sci-fi epic that initially inspired me 20 years ago, biker gangs in a future metropolis, risen out of the ashes of WWIII, corrupt politicians, secret experiments conducted by the military, telekinetic children, and the prophecy warning of the return of one such child named Akira. Only now it's in beautiful high definition video, and with a Japanese TrueHD soundtrack so earth shattering that it will increase your building's insurance premiums.
The new was the release of Nabari no Ou: Part 1. It's a story about ninja, which doesn't have anyone called Naruto in. There's no loudmouth, orange clad, midget with an irrepressible optimism in this show, for which I am profoundly grateful. These ninja are actually sneaky, they actually do some of that hidden assassination stuff. Nabari no Ou has a very interesting premise, in that five of the ninja clans have survived to the modern day, and they still compete to see who is top of the heap. Their world, the Nabari world exists in parallel to the everyday world, and anyone, doctor, politician, or schoolteacher may live a second life as a ninja. One boy, Miharu Rokujo was born with an innate secret ninja technique, a technique so powerful that whoever can master it can become the King of Nabari, and reshape both the ninja world and the real world to his desire. Of course Miharu doesn't know how to use it, all he knows is that all of a sudden, ninja from all over Japan will kill to possess the knowledge within him.
Nabari no Ou: Part 1 is in shops today; well it's in online retailer warehouses today. Akira's Blu-ray will finally hit UK stores on Monday 27th June, next week. There's also a DVD re-release, and a collector's edition Blu-ray DVD combo with booklet. And it's all courtesy of the birthday boy, Manga Entertainment.
It's Manga Entertainment's 20th Anniversary this year, in case you always skip past the logos on DVDs. In fact they had a big party for press types last week, a 'thank you for your support and get plastered on sake cocktails' type thing. But that's no reason for Manga's loyal fanbase to feel left out, as they have a present for you too. There's a big sale on now, loads and loads of Manga product at ridiculously low prices. The 20th Anniversary Blowout is currently in progress at the Hut group of e-tailers, sites like Zavvi, Asda and WH Smith. The link will take you to Zavvi.
We're talking the whole of Soul Eater for £17. The Summer Wars/ The Girl Who Leapt Through Time Blu-ray twin pack for around £7, Noein for £7, Guyver for £7 and much, much, much more.
According to Manga's Twitter feed, HMV will be getting in on the act from tomorrow.
Watch Fairy Tail Online and For Free… Again
Fairy Tail is the long running magic anime series that Manga Entertainment announced as one of their new licences early this year. It turned out that the US licence went to Funimation, and depending on when the dubs are completed, we should get the first discs in 2012. It would be nice to know what the show's about, and indeed it has been a staple of Crunchyroll's schedule since it first started. The problem is that Crunchyroll's licence stipulates that old episodes are taken down as new ones are put up. If you missed the start of the series and try getting into it now, somewhere around episode 80, you'll understandably be lost. Fortunately, Funimation are priming new viewers for the series release by putting up the series on Youtube again from the beginning. UK viewers are invited too. You can go and see episodes 1 & 2 right now by clicking the link, and hopefully more will be added as weeks pass.
Nabari no Ou: Part 1 is in shops today; well it's in online retailer warehouses today. Akira's Blu-ray will finally hit UK stores on Monday 27th June, next week. There's also a DVD re-release, and a collector's edition Blu-ray DVD combo with booklet. And it's all courtesy of the birthday boy, Manga Entertainment.
Your Opinions and Comments
I'd say your spending was restrained. I went for Black Blood Brothers on DVD, Origin, and Eden of the East on Blu-ray. So I restrained myself too. Although I have noticed since that initial surge, prices have started creeping back up.