One Week Ramblings: 7/8/14 Anime Expo Edition

It's that time of the year again: time for Anime Expo and all the announcements that came with it. Here are all the announcements, by company.

Sentai Filmworks

Sentai Filmworks was full of announcements this time around. First of all, they have one additional Spring 2014 anime title that they have licensed: Chaika -The Coffin Princess-. The show is currently available on Crunchyroll, and Sentai will provide a home video version later down the road.

They have also licensed the following shows from the newly-starting Summer 2014 season:

• Akame ga Kill
• Argevollen
• Blue Spring Ride (Ao Haru Ride)
• Glasslip
• Invaders of the Rokujoma
• Rail Wars
• Sabagebu! -Survival Game Club-

They talked about some of their upcoming limited edition boxsets, starting with High School of the Dead (including the OVA) coming in November, followed by Love, Chunibyo and Other Delusions!; later on, Beyond the Boundary will get the same treatment. Finally, there's the rest of Sentai's planned November 2014 releases (at the moment): Tari Tari, Natsuyuki Rendevous, and Stella Women's Academy, High School Division Class C3 will all get Blu-ray releases to go with their previous DVD releases, and Log Horizon collection 1 will be available with a dub... plus, they will release two new licenses from the Fall 2013 season: I couldn't become a hero, so I reluctantly decided to get a job (a.k.a. Yuushibu) and My mental choices are completely interfering with my school romantic comedy (a.k.a. Noucome).

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Aniplex of America

The only new news here is that on September 23rd, Aniplex of America will release the first season of Valvrave the Liberator on Blu-ray. The show will be available in Japanese with English subtitles (so no dub) with various extras for a store price of $120.

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NIS America

Upcoming releases from this company include the Hanasaku Iroha ~Home Sweet Home~ movie, coming October 14th, and Nyaruko: Crawling With Love! Season 2, coming November 4th. Both are available in their usual Premium Edition subtitled-only Blu-ray release standard.

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Funimation Entertainment

Funimation has three new licenses from the Summer 2014 season to go with their current slate: Barakamon, Sengoku Basara: Judge End, and Black Butler: Book of Circus.

They also announced several acquisitions related to their incredibly popular Psycho-Pass franchise: the Psycho-Pass Extended Edition, which, despite its name, is actually a season-long digest version that is airing this current Summer 2014 season, Psycho-Pass Season 2, which airs this fall, and Psycho-Pass: The Movie.

Finally, some good news for those who are a fan of A Certain Magical Index and A Certain Scientific Railgun but were disappointed that the current home video releases are DVD-only: Funimation plans to release Blu-ray/DVD combos of these shows soon. The first season of Index is coming late fall, and the first season of Railgun will appear in the winter. Moreover, in October, they will be releasing the first part of the second season of A Certain Magical Index on Blu-ray and DVD right from the get-go, with the second part and the movie to follow in later months.

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RightStuf (Nozomi Entertainment/Lucky Penny)

Four new licenses have appeared courtesy of this company. First, there's Space Pirate Mito Seasons 1 and 2, which is actually a license rescue for a title previously owned by Media Blasters, and will be released on their Lucky Penny label with remastered video and updated translations. Only the first season will have a dub; the second season (also known as Aoi & Mutsuki: A Pair of Queens) will be sub-only.

There's also Fantastic Detective Labyrinth (a.k.a. Suteki Tantei Labyrinth), an unlicensed show from 2007, which will be available this fall as a sub-only DVD from the Lucky Penny label. For a very recent show, they have also licensed Yondemasu-yo, Azazel-san, a black comedy with two seasons airing as recently as 2011 and Spring 2013, despite which has not even been streamed legally in the US. The series will be released under the Lucky Penny label sub-only sometime in 2015.

And then, there's one show that's gone unlicensed for a while which I've definitely wanted to be licensed: Yakitate!! Japan! This show is all about baking bread, which the magic of shonen makes it far crazier and epic than it has any right to be. The show really is a joy to watch and I am very much looking forward to this release. The 69-episode series will be released starting in 2015 under the Nozomi Entertainment label sub-only.

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So that's some of the big news from Anime Expo. What announcements are you looking forward to?