Bandai Entertainment's Marketing Director Robert Napton was on hand at the New York Comic Con/Anime Festival to announce a number of new re-releases of previously licensed Bandai properties. The first was the original Mobile Suit Gundam series (often called "First Gundam"), which will see a two-part DVD release in 2011 under the Anime Legends label with both the English dub and original Japanese. The Japanese track was conspicuously absent in Bandai's first North American release of the series (also from Bandai), drawing widespread ire from Gundam fans looking for the original audio.
Speaking of Gundam, Bandai will also be bringing Gundam Unicorn to DVD, with two episodes per DVD in a three-part release. Each DVD will retail at $29.98. Until now the series has only been released in Blu-ray format. Meanwhile, the Gundam 00 movie will be released with both Japanese and English dubs, though Bandai had no further details on the release plans. The film will see its American premiere at the New York Anime Festival this Sunday, October 10 at 2:00 PM.
Napton brought Cristina Vee (voice of Mio in K-ON!) on stage during the panel to announce two new additions to the cast for K-ON!: Cassandra Lee as Rittsu and Shelby Lindley as Mugi. Finally, Bandai will release Mamoru Hosoda's critically acclaimed anime film The Girl Who Leapt Through Time and Kenji Kamiyama's Ghost in the Shell: Solid State Society on Blu-ray. No details yet on date/price.
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I apologize for the lateness of this article, but I've had limited Internet while on vacation.
North American anime distributor Bandai Entertainment was out in full force at Otakon 2010 in Baltimore, packing their panel room to capacity (something only achieved by a select few panels all weekend) and drawing a large group of anime press.
Bandai's two big acquisitions were Sora Kakeru Shōjo (The Girl Who Leapt Through Space, a.k.a. "SoraKake Girl") and My Otome o~S.ifr~ (the 3-episode OAV prequel to My Otome), both of which seem a little too unmarketable to be honest choices from Bandai's North American division. The most likely explanation is that both series were forced on BEA by their Japanese parent company or sold in a package deal.
Meanwhile, Bandai also fleshed out two of their existing licenses: Gundam Unicorn and K-ON! The second volume of the 6-episode Gundam OAV series (entitled "The Second Coming of Char") will run slightly longer than the first episode at 59 minutes, and the Blu-ray will also feature 29 minutes of bonus footage. It will be available November 2010 in the Bandai Store (street date price $44.99, pre-order $39.98). At other online retailers it will sell for an SRP of $59.98 (barring those stores' individual markdowns).
On the moé front, K-ON! — the slice-of-life series about a group of high school girls in a light music club — will be receiving an English dub from Bandai's mainstays at Bang Zoom Entertainment, including Stephanie Sheh (who was present at the panel) as Yui and EDIT: Cristina Vee* (who showed up in-costume to sing a batch of K-ON!'s songs) as Mio.
* We originally referred to voice actor Cristina Valenzuela (also known as "Cristina Vee") as "Christina Zee." We apologize for the error.
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