Anime News, News - by Ian - July 19, 2011 - 20:50 Europe/London - Be first to Comment!
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.
Anime News, News - by Ian - February 26, 2011 - 11:45 Europe/London - Be first to Comment!
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.
Anime News, News - by Ian - July 11, 2010 - 14:48 Europe/London - Be first to Comment!
Manga Entertainment today squashed the rumours floating around the internet regarding their acquisition of Kanon 2006. We reported in May that Manga Entertainment along with Bamboo Blade had Kanon 2006 on their wishlist, Bamboo Blade was confirmed today by Manga Entertainment.
To the dismay of the Kanon fans, Manga Entertainment have today confirmed via their Twitter page that they do not currently own the rights for Kanon in the UK:
Re #Kanon rumours. Manga does not currently have this series on its schedule. Sorry for the misinformation that may have got out.
This announcement does not rule out Manga’s interest in the series for the UK, it just reiterates that it does not have the rights to the series.
Source: Twitter
Anime News, News - by Ian - July 10, 2010 - 17:55 Europe/London - Be first to Comment!
There are unconfirmed reports that the popular series: Bamboo Blade: Series 1 – Part 1 will be released in the UK on the 22nd November 2010, according to Play.com, Anime UK News have reported today. Anime UK News have further speculated that this release may actually be published by Manga Entertainment due to the titling of the show.
Manga Entertainment currently have not confirmed that they have acquired the license to Bamboo Blade; however, we reported in May that Bamboo Blade along with Kanon 2006 were on their hit-list. So it’s very possible that Bamboo Blade will be released under the Manga Entertainment name. This rumour is further firmed by the level of Funimation shows that Manga Entertainment distribute as part of their distribution agreement with the US Anime company.
Source: Anime UK News, Play.com
News - by Ian - June 20, 2010 - 20:20 Europe/London - Be first to Comment!
Logo © Manga Entertainment
Anime is a dodgy business in the UK, with DVD sales rarely reaching four figures in it’s entire life-cycle let along reaching five figures in it’s life-cycle; however, there are a few exceptions to this rule. Naturally Ghibli is the first exception, other than that, well Manga Entertainment seem to have the rights to them.
One such right is the Naruto series – Manga Entertainment recently confirmed via Twitter that in one day alone Naruto Shippuden Box 1 sold 1330 copies.
Who knows the total series’ figures, but based on those sales it’s safe to assume that Manga are making an awful lot from the Naruto series.
Source: Twitter
News - by Ian - June 20, 2010 - 20:13 Europe/London - Be first to Comment!
Dimensional Manga is returning to the convention circuit this month on the 26th June. Dimensional Manga is the force behind the Pwanda series and will expand it’s current range of books and merchandise around this franchise with a whole new Pwanda experience.
For the first time, Pwanda will expand into the children’s market with Playtime with Pwanda and new more grown-up titles will include Samurai-Pwanda, Mech-Pilot Pwanda and Pirate Pwanda.
All of these mangas will be available directly from our affiliate, Toymation exclusively on the 26th June at the LondonAnimeCon.
News - by Ian - May 10, 2010 - 10:00 Europe/London - Be first to Comment!
Ouran High School Host Club Members
Yeah, it’s Monday. The prospect of the end to the hung parliament may be in sight and frankly it’s just not as important as this week’s anime release…. well, that’s a slight exaggeration but something’s got to take our minds off of it. This week there is only one new series being released and that series is:
Now of course, this series has already been released in two box-sets, but if you’ve not already got the two single releases this anime is well worth the buy. We reviewed the two single releases and you can see the reviews here and here.
Features - by Ian - April 4, 2010 - 22:16 Europe/London - Be first to Comment!
The complete collection of this must-see series.
Reviews - by Ian - April 4, 2010 - 22:15 Europe/London - Be first to Comment!
The world is a filthy, evil place. Harbouring people with no morals, love or sense of decency, it’s time for things to change. Unluckily for the criminals of the world, the Shinigami Ryuk has accidentally dropped his Notebook onto Earth from the Death World and a teenage Light has managed to pick it up and he is about to cleanse the world.
Death Note is already well known to almost all of the anime community, despite only making across to the UK in 2009; it’s been widely followed, admired and discussed about for many years. Something that not many anime can achieve, it’s so widespread that there have been a number of “copycat” incidents in the media where people have actually penned their own “Death Notes” books with people they hate – naturally this has led to the mass media trying to use Death Note as some sort of scapegoat for society’s wider problems.
Death Note focuses primarily on the lead character, Light who is a teenage prodigy with a strong sense of morality and what the world should be like. Due to this intelligence he easily believes that he could play at being God, a task that is given to him in the first episode as he finds a notebook with instructions. These instructions are very sinister, write someone’s name in the notebook and that person will die. As with most decent people, he dismisses it as something that’s disgusting but is also tempted to use this tool. He decides that he’s going to test it on someone who deserves to die – a most wanted criminal.
To his surprise it works, and to further this level of shock he is met with a Shinigami (Death God in Japan) called Ryuk who explains how to use the Death Note, mostly because he wants to see what’s going on and as he’s got an affinity with apples.
It doesn’t take long for the police to realise that someone is killing off criminals around the world and brings in someone to try and help – L. L is a criminal’s worst nightmare, with a sickly look about him and an almost Sherlock Holmes power to deduct everything from the word go and play the game at the same time he’s easily the hero of the series.
The plot itself moves around at a very quick pace, with plenty of subplots running concurrently and with an expanded but brilliantly placed cast Death Note manages to capture the viewer’s interest in the first episode. Rather than the series peaking at the start and the end it manages to keep the suspense running throughout the entire series – not an easy feat. Especially as this is a 37 episode series that’s essentially a murder-mystery show. At no point do the cast seem mechanical, forced or unbelievable. Even the characters that are seemingly perfect, such as Light or L are fallible and these fallacies are shown in the most catastrophic ways – something that would often occur to people who are “better” than everyone else.
Of course, to keep the plot moving along there are a few twists and turns that are expected a little and towards the middle of the series it becomes hard to picture how the show will continue with its momentum. It’s at this point a coup de grâce is delivered to one of the key characters and the entire show’s dynamic changes and some of the other characters start to “slip” a little, it’s at this point the viewer is able to start predicting the end of the show; however unsuccessful they may be at it.
Death Note manages to toy with the audience throughout the entire show, with promises of scenes that do not occur but make the viewer beg for more of what was delivered instead. At no point does the show let the viewer take a back seat and simply guide them through the world, it’s shock after shock with blows to the gut that leave the audience gasping.
The characters are well designed, with all of the “other-worldly” creatures designed in a way to show that it’s clear that they are the same specie, but each are unique as humans are. The humans in Death Note also all look different – another rarity from the anime world. The support cast are all designed well and the actual colouration of the scenes and the characters is done brilliantly. A keen eyed viewer will be able to spot that the colours change throughout the show, with the backgrounds darker and lighter at different points to accurately reflect the situation at hand.
The casting of the voice actors of the Japanese cast is perfect, there is emotion and depth in the acting, and the English voice cast attempt to match this but miss but a smidgen but the English dub is still a great dub and well worth watching.
» Final Score
9
Death Note has clearly has many influences: it’s part horror, part tragedy and part detective drama. With the lead character being a super smart, super athletic teenager with maniacal tendencies, it’s easy to dismiss Death Note as its plot is weird and its lead character is boring. However, this would be a grave mistake. Death Note is easily one of the best anime to be released in the 2000s.
Reviews - by Arctic Zora - March 22, 2010 - 20:50 Europe/London - Be first to Comment!
“Gunparade March” originally started out as ,a video game for Playstation. Due to its huge award winning success, it was later featured as a twelve episode anime series and also a three part manga. The anime version of Gunparade March was produced by J.C.Staff and broadcast on MBS in February 2003 and April 2003 in Japan and only recently made it’s way across to the UK. It is comparable with many other animes, such as: Gundamn Wing, Baldr Force EXE and bizarrely enough, Tenchi Muyo.
The opening of the first few episodes gives a brief but detailed description of what is happening in a fictional world, where alien life forms known as the Genjyu have taken over control of the world and people have been living in fear of these creatures since the late 1940s. Rather than being intelligent life forms, the Genjyu are no more than parasites, spreading across the world at an incredible rate and leaving nothing but destruction in its wake. To try and battle these creatures, all modern forms of warfare have been employed and it would appear that not even a Nuclear bomb is able to disperse the creatures and prevent full invasion. As such the use of these powerful weapons have left the planet poisoned with radiation. Yet the aliens continue to live on whilst the human race struggles to live ordinary lives alongside them.
On first impression this anime is nothing special, it could even be described as cookie-cutter. The storyline, though interesting, would only appeal to one type of audience – the sort that love guns, machines and robots thrown in for good measure. Not to forget the Genjyu, who are huge, vicious aliens that can only be destroyed by a monster fighting-weapon-laden-robot, the Humanoid Unit AMTT-500, who incidentally looks a little like Metriod. This is all discovered in the first episode and not to mention a bit of bloodshed to seal the deal for those out there that judge an entire anime within the first twenty minutes.
However, by the second episode the story widens out a little and it can entice a much larger audience. It becomes humorous, with typical characters with similarities that can be found from across the Sci-fi genre and a few others to boot, such as a cute girl like Sasami from Tenchi Muyo. The storyline has pulled on inspiration from Tenchi Muyo with a lot of action, but with a lot of comical every day life moments thrown in. There is plenty of time to get to know the history and the lives of the characters, which the first few episodes spends a lot of time doing.
The main characters are actually young adults still in a Training school where they are taught to use the Humanoid Unit AMTT-500. These students treat the Genjyu invasion like an everyday thing, laughing and discussing more ordinary concerns such as having a boyfriends and homework. The characters seem to vary from very serious, to flirtatious, Lolashota to playful. As could be expected from teenagers, some of the subject matter isn’t always family friendly and the humour can be a little crude now and again.
The artwork is nothing out of the ordinary, with a pleasing look but the characters are all a little generic however the backgrounds and the characters themselves have enough detail. The animation quality is fairly good, although there are an awful lot of still shots of space, robots and a lot of close-ups of people talking but with little movement. The voice acting is very standard, almost forgettable on the whole and the Japanese cast isn’t much different either.
» Final Score
7
A good opening to a series, although the first episode will lead many fans away from the series who would probably end up liking later episodes in the volume.
Reviews - by Ian - January 12, 2010 - 11:13 Europe/London - 4 Comments
Ouran High School Host Club is a school for the rich, famous and beautiful and in the case of Haruhi Fujioka a scholarship student who is unfortunate enough to break a several million yen vase and end up being forced to work as a man in a Host Club. This is not a hard-hitting exposé of the life of cross-dressing hosts, but a lighter than life comedy about an unfortunate girl who stumbles across more than fortunate boys.
Part 1 of this acclaimed anime series left us on a high, Haruhi had just been through a vision roughly based around Alice in Wonderland where she was being tried for various crimes before she realised that she was in a dream. We catch up with the unlikely group of people back at school and the school newspaper is suffering from a decline in readership and need the Host Club to help them get back on their feet.
The next twelve episodes of Ouran High School Host Club mange to continue with the high quality that was experienced throughout Part 1, with fun being poked at class, gender and many facts of life for “normal people” as well as expanding into areas of emotion and divide whilst maintaining the easy going flow of the show. There is hints of a complicated storyline being developed by the latter episodes of Part 1 and Part 2 only go to expand upon that. Whereas many animes attempt to have multiple plots running at the same time end up being a mess of random episodes tied together, Host Club effectively manage these plots and subplots throughout the entire series. There are some references that only the “otaku” culture may understand, such as growing mushrooms in a dark corner, but for the most part the universal humour that was seen in Part 1 has translated through to the remainder of the show.
Granted Host Club is entirely unbelievable in almost every aspect – super rich kids essentially enslaving a poor person at a school where apparently no work is done and teachers allow half naked boys running around empty music rooms. But the character development is strong, for the entire cast, not just the two lead characters. This is a rare occurrence in any form of media, let alone anime. Based on the first volume of this series it would be easy to believe the characters to only be 2.5 dimensional, a bit flat with a tiny bit of history. This volume really fleshes the characters out from the twin’s insecurity, Kyoa’s inferiority complex, Honey and Mori’s extensive history to Tamaki’s less than pleasant relatives. These issues are also all dealt with, but in a manner that leaves other issues open for the characters to inhabit and dwell in, of course this is a comedy show and all issues are dealt with in amusing ways. Fake feuds, exaggerated worry and various other techniques are used to keep the viewers attention but keep the emotional undertones in full view.
To maintain this level of detail the script needs to be next to perfect and fortunately the same high quality writing has managed to be marinated throughout the entire series. This has led to no filler episodes and even fewer duds. As this is only a 26 episode series with nothing on the horizons for a Series 2 the writing and plot has had to be very tight and this attention to detail shines through.
The animation quality also remains very high, with every character being bright, distinct and easily recognisable. There are a few scenes where characters are doing fiddly jobs and the animation is smooth – the temptation to simply have music playing the background whilst there’s a freeze-frame on the character has fortunately been ignored.
In terms of voice acting, the Japanese cast is best; however, the US voice actors have done a superb job at getting much of the maniacal laughter and emotion across. All of the characters match their voices and it’s all performed very well – just unfortunately they’re not as good as their Japanese counterparts.
In terms of extras, well last time I managed to get a copy of the US disc and there were some amazing specials that didn’t fly across to the UK release which is a huge shame. Those extras really made the DVD super special. Unfortunately the extras again have been missed off of the second volume for the most part. Maybe next time eh?
» Final Score
10/10
With a gentle storyline that helps the character’s development and engages with the viewer, Host Club manages to achieve what many anime attempt and miss: an engaging, personal experience.
News - by Ian - November 25, 2009 - 17:11 Europe/London - 1 Comment
Manga Entertainment are becoming known for securing the rights to some older anime and selling it in the UK, this has been especially noted with the old Miyazaki classic: Panda Go Panda!. Today it has been announced that they have secured the rights to another pre-Ghibli Miyazaki work – Sherlock Hound.
Sherlock Hound
“Written and Directed by Hayao Miyazaki (Spirited Away, Howl’s Moving Castle) during his time at Japan’s largest animation studio, TMS. Before he went on to create Totoro and Studio Ghibli, Miyazaki captured a whole generation of childrens’ imaginations with his retelling of the Sherlock Holmes mysteries using a loveable cast of canines. For the first time ever in the UK, all 26 episodes of the cult toon classic are collected into one deluxe box set.
“Sherlock Hound”, released as either Famous Detective Holmes or Detective Holmes in Japan, is an anime based on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes series where all the characters are depicted as anthropomorphic animals, the majority dogs, though Holmes is a fox and his enemy Professor Moriarty is a wolf. The show featured regular appearances of Jules Verne-steampunk style technology, adding a 19th-century science-fiction atmosphere to the series. It consists of 26 episodes aired between 1984 and 1985.” – hmv
Available:
1st February 2010 – 5 Disc Complete Set
This classic Miyazaki series retells the famous Sherlock Holmes story as friendly dogs and is an easily accessable and adorable series. You can pre-order this now from hmv here.
Source: Manga Entertainment’s Twitter Feed
News - by Ian - October 17, 2009 - 11:56 Europe/London - 1 Comment
On Monday, MVM Entertainment’s latest series, X is out to buy on DVD. X The Series Volume 1 is a brilliantly animated series, that according to all of the press releases has a very strong stance of characterisation. To keep on everyone on tenterhooks, here are a few clips to enjoy:
News - by Ian - October 13, 2009 - 20:10 Europe/London - Be first to Comment!
With the release of the legendary Devil May Cry just around the corner, Manga Entertainment have kindly allowed four clips to be aired, just to tantalise your sense and keep you hyped up until the 19th October.
Adapted from the hit Capcom series of video games, produced by Madhouse Studios and directed by Shin Itagaki (Black Cat; Desert Punk), the complete DEVIL MAY CRY anime series comes to DVD as a three disc release featuring all 12 episodes of the action-packed horror adventure.
Struggling to stay on top of his ever-increasing financial problems, Dante makes a paltry living by running his small demon hunting business, Devil May Cry, along with his agent, Morrison. Half-demon himself and armed with a variety of weapons – including his twin pistols, Ebony and Ivory, and a massive sword he calls Rebellion – Dante is a fearsome foe for anybody who stands in his way, particularly those who are not human. His only weaknesses are beer, pizza and the women in his life. Among them are the young orphan girl Patty Lowell, a feisty fellow demon hunter named Lady, to whom he owes a sizeable amount of money, and Dante’s beautiful and mysterious ex-partner Trish, who returns to his life unexpectedly and delivers a whole new bunch of problems.
Together (and often separately!), Dante, Lady, Trish, Patty and Morrison take on a never-ending horde of human-impersonating demons, their one intention being to send them straight back to Hell.
Cool, sexy and bloodily violent, DEVIL MAY CRY is a thrilling and mature anime series that will appeal to fans of other action-horror series such as “Hellsing” and “Karas”.
News - by Ian - September 28, 2009 - 09:00 Europe/London - Be first to Comment!
This week we have a legendary series being released as a complete box set. Although this series is now actually nearly two years old, it’s only been in the UK for a few months and the good value boxset is out already. Along with there is the second part of an easy viewing series with an interesting history. These two titles are:
- Death Note Complete Series Box Set
- Negima?! Volume 2
As always, these DVDs can be bough from all good retailers nationwide and on almost all websites.
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.
