Twelve. Twelve new acquisitions have been rolled out, announced, from FUNimation over the past few weeks and are highlighted on their New Show A-Go-Go site. Most of these shows have been previously released either by ADV or Geneon, but FUNimation getting them is a good thing. See with the collapse of ADV and the withdrawal of Geneon from the states that left mainly FUNimation, Viz and Bandai as the major players in the anime distro business. Anime had hits its peak and was now coming back down to Earth, but not so fast. FUNimation could have messed up big time by acquiring all these titles, flooding the shelves with releases but something happened on the way to ruin, they are succeeding and saving shelf space. ADV began putting out thinpac box sets, neat full series in the space usually taken by 2-3 DVD's. Now what FUNimation has done is take these series, revamp ones needing it and package them up in very thin, eco friendly packaging where you can get 26 episodes in the space it takes for 1 DVD case, neat! The price point is great also, these are not greatest hits, gold, platinum or some such type of collection, they are just great bargains for the price (and shelf space, did I mention that). Anyway back to the Anime 12.
In quick succession we've seen FUNimation hook up older titles from ADV and Geneon, get them back on shelves in complete collections where they fell short in the past, sometimes broken into part 1 and 2 sets. While these have been more than welcome these new titles are just numbingly tasty, one hell of a way to start the new year. So what is to get excited about, let’s see ... and check out the official sites found on New Show A-Go-Go. (No particular order btw.)
- Samurai Champloo - Love Afro Samurai, this title is legendary, like Cowboy Bebop meets Afro Samurai, HOT!
- Soul Eater - I've not seen this title before, but hot design and slick action, yeah a must buy for me in 09.
- Evangelion: 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone - Eva, nuff said, must have.
- Gungrave - More style, more action and a great anime based on a pretty good video game.
- Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo - A classic piece of literature gets re-imagined. This title is made for HD, beautiful.
- Slayers Revolution - My first eBay purchase was the original Slayers box set. I've been waiting for this for years.
- Oh! Edo Rocket - Zero idea about this, get back to you later.
- Last Exile - Beauty in motion, a classic movie.
- Ikki Tousen - Zero idea about this, get back to you later.
- Nabari No Ou - Zero idea about this, get back to you later.
- Vandread - Own it, love it. CGI meets anime with catchy opening tunes and the ladies, yes me likes the ladies.
- Gad Guard - A throw back to the early days of anime, a boy and his robot but just like Galaxy Railways, brought up to speed with crisp animation.
And to top it all off FUNimation also has a new video portal. Some of the titles you can find here included Darker Than Black, Guyver, Black Blood Brothers, Gunslinger Girl Il Teatrino, Jyu-Oh-Sei, Negima 2, Ouran High School Host Club, Romeo X Juliet, Shigurui: Death Frenzy and more. What FUNimation has done is tackle anime world from the single DVD (traditional) angle, box set angle and online distro. I am excited because FUNimation is hooking us otaku up, ditto for Viz with their collections of hot titles ... Bandai I'll get back to you on, not sure about them just yet. Take care, Happy New Year and here is to a very hopeful future for the world of anime.
