Whilst we’re pretty much in a state of hiatus, which is sad, I noticed that we had a huge hack attack and this meant that the site was flagged as a malware site. We’re most certainly not a malware site and it’s taken a little while to fix the site.
For those of you who are interested, we’re still actively looking for help with updating the news here. So if you are interested, please email me on webmaster@news-animeNOSPAM.com, but remove the NOSPAM and I’ll get back to you.
Manga Entertainment, one of the largest anime distributors in the country, and consequently one of the largest Twitter users in the anime business world, have today released a new trailer for their up and coming title: 2001 Nights. This 1.11 minute video shows off some of the incredible looks of this anime and it’s clearly space themed imagery.
Currently the BVA give 2001 Nights a release date as the 26th September, but even if the wait is that long, you can see a snippet of what to expect below.
Toymation, one of the premier sites for exclusive, rare and limited edition Japanese and anime goods have announced the ceation of Anifest. Anifest is launching on the 11 December 2011; however, they are going to be doing a screening of something, we don’t know, on the 14 August 2011, to a select lucky few who will be able to get a sneak preview of what the Anifest events are going to look like.
If you want to get into the event, all you need to do is join the Anifest’s Twitter page. @UKAnifest will detail all of the changes and things that need to happen. A lot of information will also appear on the Anifest website, available here.
So keep an eye out on the Twitter and websites for updates!
In May, Manga Entertainment announced that they will be releasing Freedom OVA, this title was previously only available as a limited release from Beez Entertainment, and thanks for the companies highly active Twitter feed, they have further confirmed that this series will most certainly be out in the UK on Blu-Ray.
Rather than just the norm, in the anime world, of a DVD release and a Blu-Ray release, Manga Entertainment are considering going down the option of a DoublePlay release, which means the OVA will contain both DVD and Blu-Ray. This is a method of selling that is used by most Hollywood movies these days and even the new Ghibili titles are on DoublePlay these days.
There’s still no confirmed release date, but with news like this, it’s likely to be the tail end of this year.
Re-released and remastered on Blu-Ray – truly amazing.
Studio Ghibli is known world wide for producing some of the best animated films in recent times, even western animation studios Disney and DreamWorks have pull inspiration from this film studio. Let’s also not forget that it tends to be Disney who releases all of the dubbed versions of Ghibli films – which his probably why the dubs are actually of a good quality. Even 25 years ago this studio was producing classic films and one that is often forgotten about is Laputa: Castle in the Sky. That is, until now as the team at Optimum Releasing have decided that this classic film is to be re-released in Blu-Ray and the re-release really goes to show how amazing the film is, considering it was made a quarter of a century ago.
Laputa is set in a parallel world, where huge sky ships, sky pirates and sky crime is something that occurs on a daily basis. Humans have dreamed of being in the air since the dawn of time, the ability to fly is a wish that many have and in this world whilst the ability for a human to fly does not exist, flying cities are believed to have existed in the past. Yet, it’s been such a long time since people lived in the sky, in large floating cities, that people have chalked the idea to legend and are now content with living on the ground. Yet, airships are still used by a large number of people and it’s in an airship where we find our heroine, Sheeta.
Sheeta is being held against her will in a huge airship by what looks like pirates and manages to free herself from her captors. Unfortunately, by freeing herself she ends up falling through the sky and tragically looks like she’s going to die in the first few minutes of the film. However, something bizarre happens and a small stone she wears around her neck prevents her from dying by slowing down her speedy descent to terrafirma. She luckily manages to find herself in the arms of Pazu, a young boy who works in the mining town that she finds herself in. As he’s young, naive and somewhat nice he looks after her and takes her back to his to rest after her ordeal.
It doesn’t take long for Pazu to find out what’s going on with his new young friend, Sheeta and in mere moments the pair are good friends and he’s protecting her from the people who are after her. He manages to confuse the group of professionals and takes Sheeta to a fatherly figure in the town. He manages to escape from the town and go to ground. In the mines of his town, the pair learn the truth about the stone and the mystery behind Sheeta’s magical stone.
It’s very easy to enjoy Laputa, it’s not a tale with any overarching storylines, there’s very little talk of the environment or trying to make the viewer think about the real world. It’s a nice and gentle tale that many adults could easily tell their children, it’s got the familiarity that most European fairy tales have and this could be possibly be because Miyazaki was arguably influenced by Gulliver’s Tales and many other staple European tales. This coupled along with the obvious influences of Northern England and Welsh mining towns of the late 20th Century make the film aesthetically very pleasing and comforting on the eye. Watching some of the cobbled streets in the main town in Laputa makes you feel like there should be Corrie’s music playing in the background.
Of course, it’s impossible to talk about Laputa without mentioning the inevitable, the Castle in the Sky. Many who saw Miyazaki’s Howl’s Moving Castle before Laputa will see two very distinct similarities. However, what needs to be noted is that neither film has anything to do with one another and in the original novel for Howl’s, the ending is nothing like the way that Miyazaki portrayed it. Yet, it’s the continued feeling of man to want to escape from the shackles of gravity and fly away from everything that makes the ending of Laputa as poignant as it is.
The Blu-Ray release of Laputa Castle in the Sky is something that is pure, visual perfection. The transfer between DVD to Blu-Ray makes a significant difference to the way the film is presented and it looks as good today as any modern anime release. This is something to really shout about as it’s a 25 year old film!
Final Verdict
9/10
Laputa: Castle in the Sky is an amazing film, a truly brilliant piece of work that’s oft forgot, but easily on par with the rest of the major Ghibli releases.
Manga Entertainment today announced via their Twitter feed some of the details on two of their most highly anticipated releases for 2011.
The first is Evangelion 2:22, which will be available in Blu-Ray, DVD and a lovely Blu-Ray/DVD combi pack from the 30th May. The combi pack contains bonus materials in terms of a booklet, although the details around the booking are yet to be confirmed. To pre-order early as to not miss out at hmv click here and for Amazon.co.uk click here.
The next one is the age-old Akira. This anime classic will be available for the first time in Blu-Ray and also available on DVD from the 27th June 2011. There will also be a Steel Book version of the release which is going to be super-limited-edition – so ensure you pre-order early as to not miss out. You can pre-order at here for hmv.
The packshot artwork is available below:
It’s been widely reported that two Studio Ghibli classics, Laputa Castle in the Sky and My Neighbours the Yamadas are to be released in Blu-Ray in the UK on the 9th May. This is due to Play.com putting the Blu-Ray edition of the films up for sale; however, at this moment in time there is no formal confirmation of this.
The UK release for Optimum’s films website currently does not confirm if this is correct and at the time of writing Optimum Releasing were unable to confirm the date’s accuracy. However, Play.com are often correct with their release dates of anime releases, so it’s highly likely that these dates are correct.
Update – 1st March 2011
Optimum today confirmed to News-Anime that Play.com is correct and both Laputa and My Neighbours the Yamada’s will be available in the UK onl Blu-Ray from the 9th May 2011 and will be confirming the full details alongside packaging information very shortly.
Japan Expo Logo
After the huge success of last year, the Japan Expo‘s 12th convention will take place between the 30th June to the 3rd of July 2011. Last year over 173,000 people turned up to Europe’s largest convention for Japanese culture at the Paris-Nord Villepinte Exhibition Centre and this year the Japan Expo is expecting closer to 200,000 people from all over the world to attend.
There will be a number of surprises moving forward for the expo, but so far there will be manga editors with a ton of exclusive reveals, pop culture with film’s on display, modern culture and traditional culture exhibitions with calligraphy and origami workshops being planned.
More information will be provided as and when we have it.
Copyright Beez Entertainment
Beez Entertainment have confirmed the release dates of the second volumes of Durarara!! and Gundam 00, Season 2. In only a few short weeks these volumes will be made available in DVD format only. There is currently no Blu-Ray DVD release penned for these releases.
Durarara!! Volume 2 – 28th March 2011
Gundam 00, Season 2: Part 2 – 28th March 2011
Both will be available in the usual retail outlets hmv, Amazon, Play.com.
Manga Entertainment recently confirmed via their Twitter account that they have obtained the rights to release Dance in the Vampire Bund in the UK at some point this year.
At the present time no details are known regarding the release, in the UK. As soon as information comes to light, we will let you all know.
However, Funimation are the license holders in the USA and they’ve confirmed that Dance in the Vampire Bund will be available in both DVD and Blu-Ray and will be out in the Summer.
If we are truly to expect Vampire Bund this year, we may have a simultaneous release or one in late Autumn. As it’s a 12 episode series there is a decent possibility of seeing a Blu-Ray release.
Seeing as this is a short series and there’s a fair potential for good sales on the highstreet, a Blu-Ray is a fairly likely possibility in my opinion.
Will it grow on you as fast as bamboo?
School life is pretty rubbish for most people, with hindsight many say that they would return. I for one would never return to school, not unless it was like the Japanese schools that I watch on a seemingly endless basis. Lucky Star, Azumanga Daoih, Host Club and Haruhi Suzumiya all seem to enjoy a level of freedom, flexibility and happiness that was devoid in my early life. Was I just a lonely horrible kid? Possibly, although doubtful. It’s just what we watch in or anime is happy. Now, that said, being in school is still hard and it’s made even harder when you’re bullied into joining a club that you don’t really know about, or want to join. This is the basic premise for Bamboo Blade – joining the school’s Kendo Club.
Although at first it’s easy to assume that Bamboo Blade is simply a sports anime, that assumption would be deadly wrong. Bamboo Blade, although has many sporty over-tones, is in fact a “slice of life” anime, with many of the elements that are essential for this genre to be successful displayed to us in various form – just hidden away behind Kendo. There’s the jaded, unimpressed, tired and dysfunctional teacher, there’s the over confident girl, the happy girl, the girl with a hidden side and the two boys who really aren’t that good at anything. Yes, all of the elements that need to exist to make Bamboo Blade a success are there.
Yet, just ticking all of the boxes on a particular form doesn’t make a show a success. Fortunately in the case of Bamboo Blade, the other elements that make a good anime are available by the bucket load. Bamboo Blade is primarily about a Kendo Club in a private school where the teacher no longer has the enthusiasm to care about Kendo, although he’s an ex-champion, but he is in terrible debt. His old teacher or “sensei” phones him and places a bet that his team would destroy theirs. Of course, with no team, and a bet of a year’s supply of sushi on the line, he gets a team hastily together.
There are two members who already exist, the team captain and another member who is absent for a lot of the first volume. This is then increased by a fair few by the appearance of two boys who seem to have the ability to pull in girls like it’s the last days of the earth. With a growing team, it’s very easy for the show to fall down the “Dragonball Z training” route, where everything becomes dead serious, the fun disappears and the show takes a nose dive.
To some degree this does occur and there are a fair few scenes which is just training, talking about training, talking about going to training and just surrounded by Kendo. Luckily these scenes don’t take the lead and the main element of character interaction and the dysfunction teacher, odd students and the strange relationships between all of them stay prevalent and this makes the show that bit more enjoyable.
The cast is fairly wide and somewhat varied, although it does fall into the classic stereotypes of this genre of anime. That’s not to say that they are uninspired characters, just, not revolutionary. Yet they are performed very well by both the Japanese and the American voice actors who do the characters justice in both languages.
The character designs are good, with all of the characters being unique enough to be memorable, but none of them are really out of place with the exception of one character. Yet this character is “right” in his appearance, so it makes visual sense.
6
Whilst not exceptional and definitely not revolutionary, Bamboo Blade Volume 1 is an enjoyable anime that keeps the attention of the viewer throughout all of the episodes. It’s just not in the same league as its peers.
Copyright Beez Entertainment
Aside from Manga Entertainment, news on the anime front is a little scarce at the moment from the other big distributors. However, Beez Entertainment recently blogged about their plans for the future and what 2011 has in store for us, from them.
They want, more interaction with the average fan, release more shows but reduce and sometimes stop the delay between the US release and the UK one and to increase the volume of the Anime Legends franchise, which has been a huge success for Beez.
This is nothing new to Beez, for a long time they were one of the only companies who would openly frequent forums and Twitter and since the departure of their lead PR man they are trying harder than ever to get closer to the fan. This makes sense as customer loyalty is everything in a niche market, so let them hear your thoughts!
Beez Entertainment’s blog is located here, however, it’s full of spam as their filters aren’t great so you’re better of checking out their Facebook page, Twitter page or just talking about it below!
Logo © MVM Entertainment
MVM Entertainment are now known for releasing box sets of their older and new material and they have recently confirmed that they are going to be releasing the following shows in a box set:
This is great news for bargain hunters as a box set is always more cost effective than purchasing the single releases. Not forgetting that they are a good collection of decent anime, Desert Punk especially is one worth picking up if you’ve not already got it.
