Sunday, July 02, 2006

:anime: Geneon Licensing Announcement Concerning Vampires, Makeup, and Mercenaries

At Anime Expo 2006, Geneon Entertainment announced their acquisition of Hellsing Ultimate OVA, Paradise Kiss, and Black Lagoon [Link 1] [Link 2]. Both Hellsing and Black Lagoon were produced by Geneon, as have a number of recent shows, so this news was to be expected. Also of note, the former will apparently retain the celebrated original English dub cast from the first series. Hopefully, the other two OVAs will receive equally nice dub casts, as both are very deserving of one. Since Paradise Kiss is from the same mangaka (Ai Yazawa) who created the wildly successful and acclaimed NANA, as well as the same animation studio, perhaps that anime will also come stateside one day.

In addition to these, Geneon also picked up Hello Kitty: Stump Village, Cool Dimension, and Disgaea (haven't ever heard of the first two; seem like new titles in development). At least Black Lagoon has been listed for a 2007 release, while Cool Dimension will see a joint October Japan/US sale and Helling Ultimate OVA in December.

UPDATE: It appears that Cool Dimension is a live-action film, whereas the Hello Kitty feature is a claymation work. On a side note, I really do hope that Geneon can retain the Franz Ferdinand-sung ending to Paradise Kiss.

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