Tuesday, March 03, 2015

Upcoming Releases from Viz and Discotek - Now Available for Pre-order!

Viz and Discotek/Eastern Star have send over more upcoming release information, and we've now got them up on the store site for pre-order! Here's what's coming:

Viz
Ranma 1/2 DVD Set #6 (Eps #116-138) - Jun 2
Ranma 1/2 BLURAY Set #6 (Eps #116-138) - Jun 2
Bleach DVD Collection #25 Boxed Set (Eps 343-354) (Uncut) - Jun 23

Discotek / Eastern Star
Bokurano TV Series Complete Collection DVD - Mar 24
Chi's Sweet Home Season 1 Complete Collection DVD (Eps #1-104) - Mar 31
Lovely Complex (Love*Com) Complete Collection DVD Set (Thin-Pak) - Mar 31
Free! Iwatobi Swim Club Season 1 Complete Collection DVD (Eps #1-12) - Apr 28
Legendary Armor Samurai Troopers TV Series Complete Collection DVD - Apr 28
Lupin the 3rd: The Castle of Cagliostro BLURAY - Apr 28
Samurai Pizza Cats Complete Collection DVD Set (Eps #1-52) (Re-Issue) - Apr 28

Couple of notes. Discotek's releases of Lovely Complex and Samurai Pizza cats are re-issues of the previous editions at slightly lower MSRP. Season 1 of Free! Iwatobi Swim Club (which should perhaps be better named 'the fabulous abs club') will be sub only, and Chi's Sweet Home includes 104 episodes at about 3 minutes each.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

This is seriously f#$!ed up! No dub on Free! and where the hell is the next season of Sailor Moon?

Robert said...

We should be hearing from Viz on the next SM set soon, so no worries there.

Funimation has Free! Season 2, and that one will be getting a dub.

The story with Free! season 1 is that Crunchyroll got the home video rights to it awhile back along with a basket of titles they purchased for streaming. A lot of times now HV and DT rights come as a package deal, even if a company does want or need to HV rights to a series or vice versa, the Japanese make them pay for both in order to pick up a show. Funi approached them last October regarding a partnership to release the first season, but CR (as rumor has it) does not want to do business with any other company that streams (which they would consider a direct competitor) on anything they happen to have the HV rights to. Of course, CR would not condescend to open a home video division of their own, and that's understandable considering the new owners and their business goals. Having paid for the HV rights to those shows, they needed to dump (um, utilize) the HV rights in some way, so they went to DiscoTek since they do not have a streaming operation. Of course, DiscoTek is very small and does not generally produce dubs for new material, they currently only release dubs when the rights package for a re-release includes a previously produced dub track. That's not to say they won't, but it's not the business they are in currently.

So, thanks to Crunchyroll not wanting to do business with a streaming competitor, Free! S1 went to a physical release studio which is unlikely to produce a dub for it on HV, at least in the near future. Frankly, I doubt CR could really care less about home video releases, what treatment they get, or the fans that want them. The guys in the streaming business (and I've actually heard this from DT execs at a couple of different companies) look at home video as an anachronism and honestly think everyone would be better off if it just went away. Too bad it won't anytime soon. -_^

Unknown said...

Wow! That blows! Sooo that means I'll have season 2 of Free with no idea as to the back story. Grrreat Thanks crunchyroll.....Dick's! Anyhooo, thank you for the explanation Bob, much appreciated.
(even if it's not the happiest of news):-)