And the Winner of the Cowboy Bebop Vine Competition is…
Early in June, we announced a Cowboy Bebop Vine competition where fans of the series were asked to re-create their favourite scenes or episodes from the series in the 6 seconds that Vine gives you. Competition entrants were fighting with Vine videos all for the glory of a pair of Play Arts Spike and Vicious action figures generously supplied by Square Enix & it was well worth it! We've had quite a few entries and we've collated some of them below. However, I'm happy to announce the winner of the competition is: Clyde McDonald!
Congratulations to Clyde and well done earning Spike and Vicious! A hearty Thank You and Well Done for all the entrants to the Cowboy Bebop competition! Thanks for taking part and spreading the word. We've linked some of the other entries below.
Also, we'd like to extend a hearty Thank You to the folks at Square Enix for providing Spike and Vicious!
Outlaw Star Cover Art
You asked for it, you got it! First shots of the cover art for our upcoming release of Outlaw Star on DVD! What do you guys think? Pretty, huh?
As you may remember, we are releasing the complete collection of Outlaw Star on DVD this year all gloriously remastered and in one glorious box set. The release will be in the style of the Anime Legends releases (so no super fancy cases or whatnot). We are looking at adding some cool things in with the packaging, however right now we're focused on making sure the quality is updated in as high a quality as we can get it. So keep your eyes peeled, we hope to bring some cool stuff with the collection release.
Outlaw Star is now available from pre-order on Amazon UK.
Fight the power! Anime Limited licenses Gurren Lagann for DVD & Blu-Ray!
Glasgow, UK 24 June, 2013 - Anime Limited, the Glasgow-based anime licensing company and parent company of All the Anime, is excited to announce the release of the classic anime TV series Gurren Lagann on DVD and Blu-ray for the UK.
Anime Limited focuses on bringing a fresh approach to classic works in new formats as well as introducing new Japanese animated cinema offerings to the UK. Anime Limited’s passion includes introducing high quality packaged releases as well as finding new ways of reaching fans and bringing anime to a wider audience.
In his skyless cavern of a village Simon toils daily, drilling holes to expand his stifling little world, until one day he makes an extraordinary discovery: a small glowing drill-bit and the man-sized mecha it activates. Before he can give it a second thought Simon's dragged into a plot to break through to the surface by the local gang leader Kamina, only to have the ceiling come crashing down on top of them under the weight of a giant monster! It somehow falls onto the boisterous Kamina and cowardly Simon to defend their village, but once they defeat the monster, what awaits the duo on the surface world?
Critically acclaimed and much loved by anime fans, Gurren Lagann is a triumph of storytelling. It is frequently listed as one of the seminal series of the last decade with top ratings by IGN (9.7 out of 10) describing it as “a great tale of the indomitable spirit of determined people”, Anime New Network (an A rating), UK Anime Network (8 out of 10) and THEM reviewer Tim Jones describing it as “chuck full of action, comedy, drama, adventure and sci-fi elements, managing to even entertain a person who couldn’t care less about mecha in the process.”
Anime Limited’s president Andrew Partridge says: ‘Gurren Lagann marks an exciting addition to our growing catalogue. We’re very excited to bring this to anime fans in the UK’.
Gurren Lagann will be available in the autumn in one complete DVD collection. It will have two Blu-ray sets with release to be confirmed shortly when pre-orders go live.
The Best Anime Never Watched
Last week, I put a question to the anime community via Facebook and Twitter which sparked a serious discussion: what, in your honest opinion, is the best anime (series or film) never watched? And boy did that discussion take off! There were some really (politely) heated debates on certain titles, passionate agreement on others.
The whole post on Facebook is well worth a look over if you've missed it, there are some really good tips and titles in there - however, I figured I'd round up the ten most popular titles mentioned, which in a post about never watched anime is a bit..... weird. Anyway, to the list!
In no particular order, the ten most discussed, liked and agreed upon titles are:
- Monster
- Heat Guy J
- The Macross franchise
- Baccano
- Capeta
- Angel's Egg - this caused an interesting, if rather heated debate!
- Urusei Yatsura (bonus points for anyone who remembers the Glaswegian indie band by the same name!)
- Wandering Son
- Fist of the North Star
- Area 88 (OVA)
Cowboy Bebop did get a few mentions, but I figured I'd leave it out of the list due to the plethora of other choices. However, it is a fantastic series and if you're curious or wholly unaware that it will be soon coming out on blu-ray, it is now available for pre-order on Amazon UK!
I did find the agreement on Monster interesting - since I get the feeling that it's likely to become a lot more known pretty soon if the HBO collaboration with Guillermo Del Toro takes off. Which, if anyone was going to do it, that pairing makes the most sense eh?
This list is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of quality titles mentioned - I heartily recommend reading the Facebook post and our Twitter timeline (we RTd some suggestions). Anything missing from the list? Feel free to add to it on Facebook and Twitter.
Once again we're back with the latest sales figures - this time May! It's been a very interesting month in anime and we'll summarise the actual noteworthy points at the bottom.
| TOP SELLERS OVERALL | ||
| RANK | TITLE | COMPANY |
| 1 | DRAGON BALL Z - SEASON SEVEN | MANGA UK |
| 2 | POKEMON 4EVER | CANAL UK |
| 3 | MY NEIGHBOUR TOTORO | CANAL UK |
| 4 | HELLSING - ULTIMATE - VOL 5-8 | MANGA UK |
| 5 | THE GIRL WHO LEAPT THROUGH TIME | MANGA UK |
| 6 | BLEACH - COMPLETE SERIES 10 | KAZE |
| 7 | BLACK ROCK SHOOTER - COMPLETE SERIES | MANGA UK |
| 8 | SPIRITED AWAY | CANAL UK |
| 9 | PENGUIN DRUM - BOX SET 1 | KAZE |
| 10 | AKIRA | MANGA UK |
| MAY TITLES | ||
| RANK | TITLE | COMPANY |
| 1 | DRAGON BALL Z - SEASON SEVEN | MANGA UK |
| 2 | HELLSING - ULTIMATE - VOL 5-8 | MANGA UK |
| 3 | BLEACH - COMPLETE SERIES 10 | KAZE |
| 4 | BLACK ROCK SHOOTER - COMPLETE SERIES | MANGA UK |
| 5 | PENGUIN DRUM - BOX SET 1 | KAZE |
| 6 | K-ON - SEASON 2 - PT 1 | MANGA UK |
| 7 | BODACIOUS SPACE PIRATES - PT 2 | MVM |
| 8 | MAYO CHIKI - COLLECTION | MVM |
| 9 | MAJIKOI-OH SAMURAI GIRLS COLLECTION | MVM |
| 10 | HIGH SCHOOL OF THE DEAD - COMPLETE | MANGA UK |
NOTES FROM ANDREW:
- Overall - top seller of this month sold just over 1,000 copies, not bad for something that came out in the middle of the month!
- Overall - lowest seller had to shift just over 350 copies.
- For May titles - top seller was the same as overall for once!
- For May titles - lowest seller was about 144 copies.
- We think there's a statistic glitch and High School of the Dead may actually have been the top seller but based on its release date a lot of the sales had not yet been processed in the system. We expect its actual result was in excess of 1,400 units in fact.
That's all for now, see you in June for more of the anime charts!