:anime: Honneamise Finally Releasing Honneamise?

It's hard telling whether this plan is aimed specifically for Japan or for the US, but Bandai Visual USA made a press release available on Jan. 7 detailing its parent company's (Bandai Visual) partnership with Memory-Tech and Microsoft in bringing classics The Wings of Honneamise and Patlabor 1 & 2, as well as the hot new OVA title Freedom, to the HD-DVD format this year.

As great as it would be to see its namesake and flagship movie finally get a re-releasal here in North America (it was formerlly licensed by Manga Ent.), it would seem that this PDF is referring more towards Japan. All of these titles are already on DVD there, so placing them on the next-gen format of HD-DVD would likely be the next step. Making that sort of jump in NA would only be sensible with Patlabor, as the other two haven't been on the more widely available and accepted DVD format, yet. And of course, it would make plenty of sense for BVU to announce such a deal on their own site, as the news pertains to their own parent company and since Microsoft is an American company.

This also brings about some speculation as to why it was made available in English and with no clear intent as to which region the press release is referring to. I know that one of Blu-ray's regions encompasses both Japan and the US, but I'm not too sure if HD-DVD still follows the current DVD regioning or stills separates the two sides either way. Moreover, BVU's link is displayed under Freedom's description, yet only that one. It is given that Honneamise and said OVA will appear stateside, but it is unknown as to when that will actually happen. Although this news is most likely referring to Japan, perhaps this may be a first sign of future licenses and plans to come for their branch across the Pacific.