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Ok friends - I know you're wondering what exciting announcements happened at Anime Expo 2009. And if you're not I really wish you'd ask anyway, because for the first time going to Anime Expo, I bring back things that are truely and wonderfully exciting beyond "that new show looks interesting." But it's probably lucky that you weren't actually that curious, or else you would have already heard all this from much quicker news sources. So let's get right to it!
Trigun Movie! *WICKED AIR GUITAR SOLO* \m/ \m/
Yasuhiro Nightow, who created the Trigun manga, as well as Satoshi Nishimura, the director of the anime series were Guests of Honor at AX this year. We had the fortune of going to opening ceremonies, where Nightow announced that he'd brought a never before seen clip from the upcoming Trigun movie of which there had been little info. You better believe we hightailed it to his panel on Saturday. No release schedule was mentioned, but we do know that Nightow is writing it, Satoshi Nishimura will return as director, and the show's original music composer is also on board. They didn't mention a release schedule - the internet indicates the movie will be released "sometime in 2009," but I'm pressed to find a reliable citation or anything less vague than that.
I found this recording of the clip on youtube - it's not nearly as beautiful as when I saw it but it has surprizingly good audio considering everyone in the room was screaming their faces off (or more likely, this is actually a recording of one of the later re-screenings of the clip).
Nightow got all sentimental that he has so many US fans for a series that's 10 years old. He recorded the crowd's reaction and told us he'd show it to everyone working on the product so they'd be inspired to work harder. What's amazing is that this movie is being made almost entirely on the strengh of the US fanbase, since the show wasn't nearly the runaway hit in Japan as it was here.
Trigun is a show that means a lot to me as a fan, and was pretty much the tipping point between "I know what anime is" to being.. whatever it is I am now, nearly eight years ago. I am pleased as punch that this movie is actually going to happen, and hope the movie will drum up enough new interest in the out-of-print series to maybe get me a shiney new Remix thinpak box set or something. TRIGUN MOVIE WOOO!
So Much Manga!
Four years ago I attended the Viz panel, and during Q&A got up and asked if there were any plans to release One Piece faster. I was met with blank stares and a vague "maybe but probably not." See, One Piece is currently being published 1-2 chapters at a time in Shonen Jump, which comes out monthly (as opposed to the weekly schedule of Japan's Shonen Jump). Because they don't want to release One Piece books before they'd run in the mag, volumes come out every 3 to 4 months, and keeps falling more and more behind the Japanese releases. Absurd! To put this into perspective, Shonen Jump's hottest title, Naruto, was released on an accelerated schedule, and Shonen Jump skipped ahead 30 volumes so the series would be relatively caught up to the Japanese version.
But this year, the most wonderful thing has happened! As Funimation's anime releases have picked up, Viz announced that they had gotten together with all other One Piece liscence holders (primarily Funimation) to discuss some sort of corresponding schedule, and to prevent the anime from passing the manga. Long story short (too late!) starting in January, Viz is releasing 30 volumes of One Piece in 6 months. At five volumes a month, that's more than one volume per week! This will put them fairly close to the current Japanese volume. Thank you Viz! Words cannot express. Sorry bank account.
Portrait of Pirates!
Funimation's One Piece related merch has been sparse, but it's been picking up lately. I've recently picked up a Straw Hat patch as well as the One Piece wall scroll (merch pictures later). But lo and behold, more is (probably) coming! There's a line of One Piece figures in Japan called Portrait of Pirates. The One Piece POP figures are large, high quality, high detailed figures which include the mains as well as some of the well deserving side characters. To allow you to glance upon a shadow of their greatness:
Luffy
Sanji
The Mysterious Sogeking
Mihawk
The Cutest Tashigi Ever
Child Nami (so cute!)
Child Zoro
Child Frankie (?!)
They're even more impressive in person - I have dealer's room pictures I'll post later. These were scattered around AX for varying amounts of a lot of money - the full 9 inch figures (1/8) were going for around $50, and the child figures were around $25 each. This is a large and growing set, so the thought of buying them all at once in the dealer's hall was not really an option (short of massive credit card debt). Lucikly, the first person I asked about the POP figures said "oh hey, Funimation's should be bringing these to the US in the next few months." Ju-whaaa? Later I asked the Funimation booth, and then Brand Manager Adam Sheenan directly at the Funi panel. There was no definite date or prices, or even a confirmation, but I definitely got a "yes we're trying to get them, and we expect to have them sooner rather than later." If I do decide I have space for more One Piece figures and decide to get this set, that'll at least give me time to get them one paycheck at a time, and hopefully at lower prices that don't include import costs and convention price gouging.
Other Stuff (some of these are not con exclusive info, but just stuff I picked up on)
Trigun Movie! *WICKED AIR GUITAR SOLO* \m/ \m/
Yasuhiro Nightow, who created the Trigun manga, as well as Satoshi Nishimura, the director of the anime series were Guests of Honor at AX this year. We had the fortune of going to opening ceremonies, where Nightow announced that he'd brought a never before seen clip from the upcoming Trigun movie of which there had been little info. You better believe we hightailed it to his panel on Saturday. No release schedule was mentioned, but we do know that Nightow is writing it, Satoshi Nishimura will return as director, and the show's original music composer is also on board. They didn't mention a release schedule - the internet indicates the movie will be released "sometime in 2009," but I'm pressed to find a reliable citation or anything less vague than that.
I found this recording of the clip on youtube - it's not nearly as beautiful as when I saw it but it has surprizingly good audio considering everyone in the room was screaming their faces off (or more likely, this is actually a recording of one of the later re-screenings of the clip).
Nightow got all sentimental that he has so many US fans for a series that's 10 years old. He recorded the crowd's reaction and told us he'd show it to everyone working on the product so they'd be inspired to work harder. What's amazing is that this movie is being made almost entirely on the strengh of the US fanbase, since the show wasn't nearly the runaway hit in Japan as it was here.
Trigun is a show that means a lot to me as a fan, and was pretty much the tipping point between "I know what anime is" to being.. whatever it is I am now, nearly eight years ago. I am pleased as punch that this movie is actually going to happen, and hope the movie will drum up enough new interest in the out-of-print series to maybe get me a shiney new Remix thinpak box set or something. TRIGUN MOVIE WOOO!
So Much Manga!
Four years ago I attended the Viz panel, and during Q&A got up and asked if there were any plans to release One Piece faster. I was met with blank stares and a vague "maybe but probably not." See, One Piece is currently being published 1-2 chapters at a time in Shonen Jump, which comes out monthly (as opposed to the weekly schedule of Japan's Shonen Jump). Because they don't want to release One Piece books before they'd run in the mag, volumes come out every 3 to 4 months, and keeps falling more and more behind the Japanese releases. Absurd! To put this into perspective, Shonen Jump's hottest title, Naruto, was released on an accelerated schedule, and Shonen Jump skipped ahead 30 volumes so the series would be relatively caught up to the Japanese version.
But this year, the most wonderful thing has happened! As Funimation's anime releases have picked up, Viz announced that they had gotten together with all other One Piece liscence holders (primarily Funimation) to discuss some sort of corresponding schedule, and to prevent the anime from passing the manga. Long story short (too late!) starting in January, Viz is releasing 30 volumes of One Piece in 6 months. At five volumes a month, that's more than one volume per week! This will put them fairly close to the current Japanese volume. Thank you Viz! Words cannot express. Sorry bank account.
Portrait of Pirates!
Funimation's One Piece related merch has been sparse, but it's been picking up lately. I've recently picked up a Straw Hat patch as well as the One Piece wall scroll (merch pictures later). But lo and behold, more is (probably) coming! There's a line of One Piece figures in Japan called Portrait of Pirates. The One Piece POP figures are large, high quality, high detailed figures which include the mains as well as some of the well deserving side characters. To allow you to glance upon a shadow of their greatness:
Luffy
Sanji
The Mysterious Sogeking
Mihawk
The Cutest Tashigi Ever
Child Nami (so cute!)
Child Zoro
Child Frankie (?!)
They're even more impressive in person - I have dealer's room pictures I'll post later. These were scattered around AX for varying amounts of a lot of money - the full 9 inch figures (1/8) were going for around $50, and the child figures were around $25 each. This is a large and growing set, so the thought of buying them all at once in the dealer's hall was not really an option (short of massive credit card debt). Lucikly, the first person I asked about the POP figures said "oh hey, Funimation's should be bringing these to the US in the next few months." Ju-whaaa? Later I asked the Funimation booth, and then Brand Manager Adam Sheenan directly at the Funi panel. There was no definite date or prices, or even a confirmation, but I definitely got a "yes we're trying to get them, and we expect to have them sooner rather than later." If I do decide I have space for more One Piece figures and decide to get this set, that'll at least give me time to get them one paycheck at a time, and hopefully at lower prices that don't include import costs and convention price gouging.
Other Stuff (some of these are not con exclusive info, but just stuff I picked up on)
- RightStuf will be releasing a re-mastered (and cheaper) set of The Irresponsible Captain Tyler series and OVA collection. Temptiiiing.
- I saw a little Eureka Seven at AX last year and was intrigued, but never checked it out. This year Bandai has announced they have the movie, which will be released in select theatres for a single-night event, which would be a lot of fun to attend.
- Funimation has all of Dragon Ball (finally). The DBZ franchise doesn't interest me much, but this one might be fun to check out. Wait, there are HOW many episodes? Scratch that.
- Slayer's Revolution will feature the original dub cast (minus Xellos' voice, aka, the voice that destroyed Sanji). This is mostly here for the benefit of my many friends who are Slayers fans, since I haven't seen any of it.
- We'll soon see the launch of a new anime/manga related social networking site called ShoDojo - it will be a combination anime video player, chat, networking, discussion...blogging...type thing. You know, I'm not really sure what it's going to be. Interesting to see if so specific a networking site can really take off (and if it'll be any fun).
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