Today, during the Anime Limited Panel at MCM Manchester, Andrew Partridge and Jeremy Graves took to the stage to announce some new acquisitions for the UK market, and provide some further details about previously announced titles.
They opened by talking about the Ping Pong announcement from yesterday. A partnership with Sunrise; Anime Limited will be releasing the Gundam Series, starting with Mobile Suit Gundam.. It will see release on blu-ray with both English audio and Japanese audio with English subtitles. This 43 episode series will see itself split across two sets, with part one due out later this year. They teased that we can expect more Gundam news at MCM London.
Beck: Mongolian Chop Squad, a 26-episode series, has been acquired for release as a DVD-only title this November, and will be avaialable as a complete series collection with English audio and Japanese audio with English subtitles. It was also announced that Blood Blockade Battlefront will be coming to the UK, though with Viewster recently having started streaming this, we had our suspicions.
Following on from acquisitions, Anime Limited jumped right into unveiling some fourth quarter release plans. In October, we can expect Ping Pong The Aniamtion, Sword Art Online II Part 2, and Mobile Suit Gundam Part 1. November will see the earlier announced Beck and Mobile Suit Gundam Part 2 releasing, alongside Fusé and Samurai Flamenco. It was confirmed that Samurai Flamenco will be split over two subtitle-only volumes and be avaialble only on blu-ray. December sees Gundam Reconguista in G Part 1, a subtitle-only release, and Gankutsuo: The Count of Monte Cristo, Anime Limited’s first steel box edition.
Sword Art Online II Part 2 and A Letter To Momo are also expected to be released in December. They ended the announcements with confirmation that all of Full Metal Panic will arrive by the end of the year, but they are still looking into the possibility of an Ultimate Edition.
The Q&A session revealed some further information as well. In response to a question regarding Gundam, Andrew responded that he wants to release as much Gundam in the west as possible. They specified that future steelbook releases will depend on the product, as artbooks cannot be included. In confirming that Anime Limited have Aldnoah;Zero, they specified they are waiting on Aniplex USA to determine a release strategy, although Andrew would like the first part out this year. Durarara!! x2 is in a similar boat, and Baccano remains a work-in-progress.
Anime Limited’s Escaflowne release is tentatively scheduled for early 2016, with them still looking into how the Director’s Cut version of the series will be handled. Apparently Blood Blockade Battlefront was challenging to acquire, but is somewhat of a passion project for Andrew, being a show he liked and wants to give a “cool edition” to. Andrew is still keen on Death Parade; alas, there is no news on that front.
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