Friday, September 26, 2008

Updates - September 26th, 2008

Schedule Updates, Delays & Cancelations

Media Blasters sent over a bulletin yesterday announcing that the release of the 6th Voltron tin box (originally due out on Sept 30th) is being rescheduled for Dec 23rd. This will bump out the release of the 7th box to late January at least. They did not cite any reason for the delay, and we dated box #6 for Dec 30th. In fact, we're post dating any release scheduled for that week - we know from past experience the folly of any Anime company scheduling a release to street on Christmas week. :-)

After 50 phone calls and 200 bad cups of coffee Bandai finally shipped us the Limited Version of Lucky Star 3 this week, which went on the truck Wednesday afternoon. That puts delivery to our facility at Tuesday or Wednesday of next week, and we'll be pre-prepping orders so that they can ship out the minute the sets arrive. I should be very happy about this, but after so many delays it's hard to feel anything except "damn, I sure hope this doesn't happen again". I'll be glad to put this one to bed.



RIP Toonami - Maybe We Knew You Too Well

Cartoon Network announced during its programming last Saturday that it was ending the last vestiges of their Saturday night Toonami action block. Naruto was the only remaining anime series airing in that slot, and this continues the shakeup with Cartoon Network's programming schedule which has been paring down Anime titles over the past few months. I think CN has gotten themselves into a rut by focusing on 'sure things' and not continuing to experiment with cutting edge shows like they did back in 2004 and 2005. We'll have to wait and see what they will have for us going forward.

Anime Turning Up in Unexpected Places

Anime can turn up just about anywhere these days. The still below is from the recently released Mirrors horror movie. Proof positive that a well placed Negima wall scroll can make all the difference in an otherwise mediocre scene.

And as unusual as this might seem, even more bizarre is the unexpected appearance of Haruhi and her crew in this Tylenol commercial. See if you can find it!

Just for Fun - Macross F Movie Coming

New series announcements come in all forms, but the only place you can find any official indication of the upcoming Macross F (Macross Frontier) movie is a quick mention after the final episode of the TV series in place of the usual 'next episode' trailer. No more information about the movie is currently available, and I'm sure that's exactly how the producers want it for now. In Japanese marketing, less is more...


Thanks to the folks at Gigazine for this tidbit.

2009 Japanese Import Calendars Available for Pre-Order

With the usual fanfare we've rolled out our selection of 2009 Import Japanese Anime theme calendars for pre-order. It was a big list of shows this year that mostly have not yet made it to North America, so we chose to stock 22 calendars that we felt would be the most popular.

If you don't see something on the list that you'd like to have this year, we have until around the 9th or 10th of October to reserve our quantity of these so just write in and we'll see if we can add it to the list. And be sure to get your orders in over the next couple of weeks because we're going to close the pre-order window for most of them after Oct 17th. We expect these to start to ship around the end of November.

ADV Films Nov 08 Releases Posted

Some of the folks down at ADV Films made it back into the office this week and got their servers and e-mail back up and running. They also sent us over their November release schedule, which is another mish-mash of boxed set re-releases:

Area 88, the Original OVA Series DVD (Re-Issue)
Best Student Council Complete Collection DVD Boxed Set (Thin-Pak)

Sadly there is just nothing new in this batch, but then again, ADV hasn't announced anything new in 4 or 5 months and is unlikely to anytime soon. I think the re-release of the ancient adult title Guy: Double Target demonstrates where they are at (and we thought they had put the Soft Cel label and their adult release ambitions to bed 3 or 4 years ago). That said, I am VERY glad to see a Best Student Council boxed set - which is LONG over due. I'm also glad to see the BGC 2040 and Nadia boxes being re-pressed after a long hiatus. Don't ask me what the deal is with the two 'Holiday' limited editions, I don't have any information on them yet except that they exist. We'll add that info to the store site as soon as ADV cares to get it us, and remember, these days with ADV all plans are soft until 30 minutes prior... -_^

Notable Figure Pre-Orders

Even though I had only a limited amount of time this week to sift through all the new offerings from the figure and toy producers we did manage to get another fabulous batch of upcoming figures posted to the store. Among the new announcements are the wonderfully naughty Maid Sangou-Chan and Reika Kitami figures along with the absolutely gorgeous Kos Mos Bikini figure. Be sure to check them all out!


New Arrivals In Stock This Week

Ron just popped his head in and told me we have yet ANOTHER huge shipment of DVD's that just hit the dock. Ahhhhhh!! These are being in processed as we speak:

Kamichu Complete Collection DVD Boxed Set
Cat Girl Nuku Nuku The Whole Kitten-Kaboodle DVD Boxed Set (Thin-Pak)

We won't be able to get these updated on the store site until later this afternoon, but we will be including these in orders shipping out today!

In the new DVD dept this week we have an absolute truckload of new arrivals including Naruto Box #10 (Uncut) (which arrived 4 weeks early!), My-Otome Zwei, the Bleach Movie, the long awaited When They Cry #4, Tsubasa #8, the Negima OVA, the final volume of Otoboku - good grief there are really too many to list!

We have also received all the backstock of the Kyo Kara Maoh!, Season 2 DVD's and all but Vol #3 of Karin is now in stock, plus we managed to scrounge a few copies of Welcome to NHK, Vol #5 and have all of your pre-orders from back in June on the way.

In the manga dept we had quiet week with only 15 new volumes. Some of the notable new arrivals include Berserk Vol #25, Sundome Vol #3, Suzuka Vol #9, You're So Cool Vol #2 and the new series the Girl Who Runs Through Time which I know I lot of you have been waiting for.


We also had a quiet figure week giving all of you some time to digest the huge batch we posted last week. We do have the new Kanu Mogdan Drawing Figure in stock for you (it's really all about the nipples you know...) along with the surprisingly cool and sexy Shinobu-chan Figure which everyone should definitely take a look at - she certainly ended up on my shelf!



Well that's it for this week.
Have a great weekend everyone and enjoy your Anime!

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