Newswire #77 & #78 – 29th June 2016

It’s been a super busy couple of weeks once again at Anime Limited HQ, so it’s another double sized edition of the Newswire to bring you up to speed on everything. Also today we are happy to bring you details on forthcoming releases as part of our arrangement of distributing titles for Funimation in the UK. Read on below for the details.

All the anime / ANIME LIMITED UPDATES

~ First of all this week we bring you two new releases to add to your collection. We have Aldnoah.Zero Season 1 on DVD and Limited Collector’s Edition Blu-ray, and we bring the fourth and final part of Sword Art Online II on DVD and Limited Collector’s Edition Blu-ray/DVD. You can see our full unboxing of Aldnoah.Zero HERE and of SAO II Part 4 HERE.

~ Our next releases arrive this coming Monday (4th July). These being the film Expelled From Paradise, available on DVD and Limited Collector’s Edition Blu-ray/DVD, and the standard edition Blu-ray of the series Terror In Resonance. You can check out our full unboxing of Expelled From Paradise, published earlier today, HERE.

~ Looking ahead, 11th July (finally) sees the release of Ping Pong The Animation as a Limited Collector’s Edition Blu-ray/DVD set.

18th July sees the release of Assassination Classroom Season 1 Part 1 on DVD. (You’ll recall we have already released this on Limited Edition Blu-ray.)

25th July sees the release of our Tokyo Ghoul √A (aka season 2) standard edition Blu-ray.

~ We know there have been dates listed on some retailers for other upcoming releases of ours we have omitted from the list above, this is because the dates being listed were tentative and not final. To focus on those titles specifically, here’s where things stand:

Project Itoh’s The Empire of Corpses: Originally scheduled for release in July, unfortunately a delay in the production of the Steel box packaging we’re using for our release has meant we’ve had to shift this back. The new date to mark in your calendars for this release is 8th August. But, despite the shift in date, today we can show you what our release will look like. Check out the visual below.

Free! -Eternal Summer- : We know a lot of you are excited about this release and we’re sorry it’s taking longer than we hoped to bring it to you. As things stand this what we have planned is still in the approvals phase of things, so once we have that all done and dusted we can share with you what we have planned. But we can confirm our release will include the OVA episode as well as all 13 episodes of the series itself. Our new tentative date for the release is 29th August.

Beck Mongolian Chop Squad DVD collection: It’s been a long time since we last mentioned our release of this, so here’s the latest update for you. We said a while ago this release was TBC until further notice and this is still the case as things stand. The date in July being listed by some retailers was a only tentative one – and that will be changed shortly. In terms of where things stand with this, we’re in the process of getting the remainder of the series – as the series has never had a complete release in the UK – certified by the BBFC, and we’re in the approvals phase on things.

We know a lot of you are still wondering, following us mentioning it a long time ago now, if we have an update regarding a possible Blu-ray release of this. The short answer is that there is no update on this and we still don’t know if we will be able to release on Blu-ray at all in the future or not. This is partly why we’re now moving ahead with the DVD release, given it’s already been an extremely long wait for fans in the UK to own the entire series.

Makoto Shinkai Twin Pack (Voices of a Distant Star & The Place Promised in our Early Days): Again, the date being listed with retailers for a July release was a tentative one and we can confirm it won’t be coming out next month. A new date is TBC at this time. As for where things stand with this, we’re happy to say that the entire release has been QC’d, and we’re currently in the approvals phase when it comes to the remainder of our release. Until we’ve got the all clear on the approvals front you likely won’t see us mention this release again, but do know we’re closer to finally being able to bring you this release.

But to tide you over until then, for those of you wondering what’s included on the disc, obviously the main two features and we can confirm there is the English language dub and original Japanese audio in both 2.0 and 5.1 audio options for each language. Extras wise, there’s a lot! In terms of extras relating to Voices of a Distant Star there’s an alternate Japanese audio track of the feature with Makoto Shinkai himelf as part of the cast. There is also an interview with Makoto Shinkai, a storyboard version of the feature, a trailer collection and the “She and Her Cat” short.

For extras relating to The Place Promised in our Early Days, there’s trailers for the feature plus interviews with Makoto Shinkai and the primary voice actors in the feature Yuuka Nanri, Masato Hagiwara and Hidetaka Yoshioka.

~ REMINDER!!!!! If you’re wanting to take advantage of our special early-bird pricing for Fullmetal Alchemist Ultimate Edition, don’t forget this offer to pre-order it for only £124.99, the cheapest this set will EVER be, ends on 5th July. We’ve already sold through half of the 1000 units that are being produced for this so if you’re sitting on deciding we strongly encourage you taken advantage of this offer while it’s still on! Especially as it’s pay day, so perfect time to place that order 😉

Once the offer ends on 5th July the pre-order price will increase to £149.99 until it’s releas date in October. Once released any remaining units will be available to purchase through other retailers where the price will go up to the SRP of £299.99 with respective retailer discounts being applied. You can find more details on this at fullmetal.alltheanime.com

If you haven’t already, make sure you watch our exclusive trailer for Fullmetal Alchemist below.

~ For those of you going to MCM Ireland Comic Con in Dublin this weekend, our resident giant Jeremy will be hosting an AllTheAnime panel on Saturday! Final time is TBC at time of writing, but it’s looking to be on stage from around 13:30. Be sure to go along for lots of anime talk and details on upcoming releases of ours!

~ Also, as it’s been a few weeks since our last Newswire, I (Jeremy) want to extend a big thanks to everyone who came to our panels at Sunny Con in Newcastle  and MCM Northern Ireland Comic Con. Had a great time bringing you the panels and we hope you enjoyed them too!

FUNIMATION RELEASES UPDATE

About a month ago now news circulated online that we would be handling distribution for titles being released by Funimation in the UK. Admittedly we really haven’t said too much about this, as we wanted to hold off until we had more concrete details we could share with you. Today is that day and we’re very excited to be able to help bring fans in the UK many titles from Funimation’s catalogue, including the continuation of the Fairy Tail series on DVD – one we know a lot of people have been asking for.

First of all, some you may not have seen this but our company President did an interview back in May that includes discussion about what to expect from this distribution arrangement. We encourage you to have a read of this HERE as it will help paint a picture of what to expect going forward.

As noted in the interview, unless otherwise noted all release are Blu-ray/DVD combi pack releases, following the standard formula that has been set for Funimation releases abroad. This isn’t to say all releases in the future will be like this, but to start with at the very least this is how it will be.

So to begin with, in what we like to call phase one of this distribution arrangement, you can expect the following titles to be coming to the UK.
[Unless otherwise noted, all titles listed below are Blu-ray/DVD combi packs.]

• Yona of the Dawn Part 1 – 25th July
• Gonna Be The Twin-Tail! – 25th July
• Fairy Tail Part 10 – 15th August [DVD Only]
• No-Rin – 29th August

Other titles you can expect to be coming very soon, with final dates of release to be confirmed, are:

• Show By Rock Season 1
• Yurikuma Arashi
• Mikagura High School Suite
• Absolute Duo
• Barakamon
• Ninja Slayer
• Brothers Conflict
• Fairy Tail Part 11 [DVD only]
• Rain Cocoa Seasons 1 & 2
• Diamidaler vs. The Penguin Empire
• Yona of the Dawn Part 2
• Blazblue: Alter Memory
• High School DxD Season 3
• Fairy Tail Part 12 [DVD only]

Once again we’ll have more details for you about these very soon, and we’ll continue to update you about titles in here in our Newswire too. You’ll also start to see us mentioning these on our Anime Limited social media channels, and you can also expect Funimation to be mentioning them on their UK channel too in the coming weeks.

We appreciate there will likely be a lot of questions stemming from this news and the details we’ve provided above. So please feel free to post them in the comments section below or send us a message through our Facebook and Twitter and we’ll do our best to answer them for you.

~ And speaking of Funimation, if you’re haven’t already make sure you check out their FunimationNow streaming service. New subscribers get a 30-day free trial and given the Summer Season is starting next week, it’s the perfect time to sample their service.

UPCOMING EVENTS

As mentioned earlier, Jeremy will be at MCM Ireland Comic Con on Saturday to host the AllTheAnime panel! You can also find other events we’ll be at in the coming month below.

MCM Ireland Comic Con @ RDS, Ballsbridge, Dublin – Saturday 2nd July
— Panel (TBC)

MCM Manchester Comic Con @ Manchester Central, 30-31st July

Amecon @ Warwick Arts Centre, 29-31st July
— Panel (TBA)

Signing out~!

Jeremy