News

Manga Entertainment Podcast Updates including 2013 Q1 Schedule

Manga Entertainment has released the twelfth in its series of podcasts (68 minutes), featuring Jerome Mazandarani with Sarah Anderson of Simon & Schuster and Viz Media UK; Andrew Hewson; and host Jeremy Graves.

The main news of the podcast was a detailed rundown of Manga Entertainment titles in January to March 2013. Among the announcements, both Mardock Scramble: The Second Combustion and Oblivion Island are scheduled for March 25.

January 7

- Dragon Ball Z Season 5, episodes 140 to 165.

- Reissue of Shigurui: Death Frenzy, deleted for a short while, as a 3-disc DVD set and a 2-disc Blu-ray.

January 14

- Bleach Season 10 part 1, episodes 190 to 201.

January 21

- Code Geass - Lelouch of the Rebellion (1st season) on Blu-ray and DVD

- The World God Only Knows Season 2

January 28

- Journey to Agartha, aka Children Who Chase Lost Voices from Deep Below, the fantasy film by Makoto Shinkai. It will be released on DVD and Blu-ray, and also in a Collector's Edition. The latter will be in a cigar-box style and contain the DVD and Blu-ray discs; a 32-page booklet; and a large amount of extras. The Collector's Edition will be limited to 2000 copies in the UK.

February 4

- Tiger & Bunny part 1 - a DVD/Blu-ray combo pack (the first of four), in gatefold-style packaging, including "Hero" magazines and trading cards. It will feature the first seven episodes of the series on two DVDs and one Blu-ray. The RRP will be £34.99. Mazandarani said he thought the series would be reissued later in "vanilla" packaging.

February 11

- A single package, released both on Blu-ray and DVD, featuring the Eden of the East TV series plus the compilation film (Higashi no Eden Sōshū-hen Air Communication), and the two film sequels (Eden of the East: The King of Eden and Eden of the East: Paradise Lost).

- Baka and Test Season 2 - two DVD discs.

February 18

- Manga will release the first seven episodes of a non-anime card-based cartoon, Redakai, currently playing on ITV. Mazandarani commented, "It gives us a chance, like the Yu-Gi-Oh! movie we did last year, to get a bit wider distribution and get into some of the supermarkets."

February 24

- Bleach the Movie: Hell Verse (the fourth Bleach feature film), released on DVD and as a Collector's Edition DVD/Blu-ray pack.

March 4

- Dragon Ball Z Season 6, episodes 166 to 194.

March 11

- Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion R2 on Blu-ray and DVD.

- Bleach Season 10 part 2, episodes 202 to 212. (Mazandarani commented that the two-part release of Season 10 would include some of Season 11 - "Season 10 is the shortest season and we wanted to stretch it out to 22 episodes.")

March 18

- Persona 4 The Animation part 2 in a Blu-ray/DVD combo pack.

- Naruto Shippūden box-set 12, episodes 137 to 148.

March 25

- Mardock Scramble: The Second Combustion on DVD and Blu-ray

- Oblivion Island (a CGI family fantasy film from Production I.G) on DVD and Blu-ray.

All these titles should be available for pre-order by the end of November.

Mazandarani also mentioned the following:

- There will be "a few" Ninja Scroll posters by British artist Sam Gilbey available at the countrywide cinema screenings taking place around the country from Friday November 23.

- The Hyper Japan event from Friday will include a Dragon Ball Z booth, including the opportunity to watch episodes, playtest the Dragon Ball Z Kinect game and possibly playtest the One Piece game.

- Re the Dragon Ball franchise: "We have to get all Dragon Ball Z out at first. If Toei are happy with the sales results, then we can move on to Dragon Ball Z Kai or the original Dragon Ball, we'll have to figure out which one. It probably would be better to do the original Dragon Ball first."

- The Collectors Edition of Berserk: The Golden Age Arc - The Egg of the King will include a book originally included with the Japanese release, now translated into English.

- On sub-only releases: Blue Exorcist is the bestselling U.K. sub-only release, but it still only sold 2000 copies between the two volumes. Manga has to decide if it will re-release the series with the dub created by Neon Alley. Mazandarani thinks that if Blue Exorcist had been released with a dub, it would have probably sold twice as many copies.

Mazandarani also mentioned Cardcaptor Sakura, which was recently released in a sub-only edition by Madman Entertainment in Australia. Mazandarani said he was "definitely interested in getting (it) for the U.K., as the series previously played on ITV and has a cult appeal.

- On Blu-ray releases, Mazandarani said that the Blu-ray of Puella Magi Madoka Magica had sold 512 copies in its first week, plus a further hundred at MCM Expo. However, it only sold 60 copies in the second week - a drop of 90%. "If there's only 500 of you that want (the series) on Blu-ray, that's not enough. I need a couple of thousand of you to buy the Blu-ray."

Sarah Anderson also made some comments:

- Viz Media UK will publish the manga of Tiger & Bunny from May 2013, and a "gag" manga version later in that year.

- Other upcoming manga releases include the two-volume slipcase edition of Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (provisional U.K. release date December 6);

- the box-set of all 18 volumes of Ouran High School Host Club;

- the beginning of "three-in-one" collected editions of Neon Genesis Evangelion;

- the continuation of "three-in-one" editions of Bleach, Naruto, One Piece and Fullmetal Alchemist;

- a similar edition of Dragon Ball starting next year;

- and a "two-in-one" edition of Loveless.

- The manga 21st-Century Boys (the two-book sequel to 20th-Century Boys) will be released in 2013.

- Viz Media UK will "hopefully soon be able to announce something very exciting."

- Viz's UK sales are about 10% of the sales of the U.S. market, "but we're growing."

- Of Viz UK's bestsellers, Naruto is the top seller overall, partly because of the number of volumes; Death Note has the highest average sales per volume. Death Note continues to sell about 5000 copies a year. The U.K. sales of the Blue Exorcist manga are described as "amazing" and "Naruto level."