Funimation Roll-Out Riot Licenses
As announced during their last online virtual panel, FUNimation rolled out their Roll-Out Riot this week. & boy was there ever a riot during the first few days- literally. Funi surprised everyone on Monday when they revealed they had licensed 15 classic live-action Hong Kong Kung-Fu movies from the Shaw Brothers. We were expecting something anime related. Instead we got Sword of Swords, The Duel, The Lady Hermit, The 14 Amazons, Shaolin Hand Lock, Invincible Shaolin, Soul of the Sword, Life Gamble, Shaolin Rescuers, Shaolin Prince, Bastard Swordsman, Opium and The Kung Fu Master, The Supreme Swordsman, Return of Bastard Swordsman, & Hong Kong Godfather.
So that was a bit weird & definitely unexpected, but whatever, we moved on to the next day for hopes of more exciting news. & so on Tuesday, FUNimation licensed... two more live-action movies! Well at least these two were actually Japanese & can appeal to anime fans- "Kamui Gaiden" & "RoboGeisha." Kamui is actually based on an old manga from the 1960s, & is written by the awesome Kankuro Kudo (Ping Pong) & stars (L in the Death Note movies). It's also about ninjas. RoboGeisha is one of those crazy over the top movies that make bad Japanese movies so awesome. It's from the brilliant mind of Noboru Iguchi (Machine Girl) & is about... robots & geisha.
So with two days in a row of nothing but live-action licenses, anime fans were out for blood at this point. Fortunately, Funi was done announcing live-action stuff & finally moved onto anime on Wednesday. Granted it was only a license rescue, but boy is it a doozy- FLCL! FLCL was originally licensed by the small & short-lived company Synch-Point, & the DVDs have been out of print for a few years now. But now not only is FUNimation re-releasing the series on DVD, but for the firs time ever it'll be on Blu-ray too. That's right, FLCL in HD! Funi later confirmed that they'd be using the original dub for the OVA series & wouldn't be redubbing it (natch).
Pretty cool & all, but FUNimation had yet to actually announce any NEW anime yet. Luckily this changed with Thursday's announcement, which consisted of two new licenses- Jyushin Enbu: Hero Tales & Master of Martial Hearts. Hero Tales is of course based on the manga by FullMetal Alchemit creator Hiromu Arakawa, & currently runs in Yen Plus magazine here in the US. Master of Martial Hearts is a recent fan-service OVA series from famous hentai artist Jin Happobi, though this title itself isn't really hentai. It'll still be getting a TV-MA rating from Funi though. Think of it as similar to IkkiTousen.
& finally on the last day of the Roll-Out Riot, FUNimation announced two more brand new anime licenses- Axis Powers Hetalia, & the Sacred Blacksmith. Hetalia is a very popular web series where every character is the personification of a different country. Funi licensed both seasons of the 5-minute long episode series, meaning we'll get all 52 episodes in two sets. & Sacred Blacksmith of course the series that JUST concluded in Japan, so Funi was quick to pick that title up. We had all 12 episodes simulcasted on NebsTV this past season, but as we already know, the DVD release of the series will be a bit different from what was shown on TV. In other words, there will be a lot more fan-service & even nudity, & it'll be this version that FUNimation releases in the US later this year.
Click to viewSource: http://blog.funimation.com/category/announcements/2010-roll-out-riot-announcements