FuniCon 3.0 Wrap-Up
As you may have noticed, FUNimation held their third online virtual panel earlier this week. But due to technical difficulties, they didn't actually save the recording, so unless you watched it live you can't watch it at all anymore. As such, I'll be providing a quick recap of the important things mentioned in the panel.
- Most importantly, Funi announced a new anime license in the live video- "Black Butler," who's manga currently runs in Yen Plus magazine. Funi sure does seem to like licensing Yen Plus titles (Black Butler, Soul Eater, Hero Tales, Nabari no Ou, Bamboo Blade, Higurashi).
- Some surprisingly strong recent titles for them include Kenichi & Spice and Wolf. Hell Girl meanwhile failed to meet expectations, despite how much they loved the show. As such, they let Sentai pick up season 2 instead.
- The final verdict hasn't been decided yet, but Dance in the Vampire Bund will most likely be released unedited.
- Less extras appearing on their releases have nothing to do with moving to season sets, but rather there being less material available from Japan. But when they do get them, they add them in. Adam pointed out that the newer Baccano complete series set actually included extras that the singles didn't have.
- They completely denied the idea of "packaged deal" licenses, in which in order to get amazing show A they have to get mundane show B as well. While this was a practice used in the past, it hasn't been the case for some time now. Funi doesn't negotiate with these type of deals.
- It was pointed out that the German song used in an episode of Strike Witches was removed from Funi's DVD set. Like many non-Japanese songs used in anime, it's difficult to get the international rights to these sort of things.
- & finally, FUNimation showed off a few new trailers for some upcoming titles, including Initial D Fourth Stage & DragonBall Z Kai:
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