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Funimation Teases Possible License of Paranoia Agent Anime

It's an SD digipaint show from the mid-2000s, so I wouldn't expect anything amazing. PA did get a Blu-Ray release in Japan, and from what I've heard, it's at least a passable upscale. Hopefully we get that instead of a different encode that winds up being worse than DVD.

Ack. Gotta sell my set ASAP. This wouldn't be the first time that I sat on something that was rare and didn't get around to selling before it got reissued.

Just occurred to me, had Netflix picked this one up they would have probably redubbed it. So...silver bullet dodged?

I didn't even know It was unlicensed, I thought Funi bought out all of Geneon's catalog when they went under.

Zalis116 wrote:

Assuming Paranoia Agent is made available again, perhaps Baccano! or Blood+ will take up that mantle.

Not so sure of that since Aniplex owns the series and Funi's been losing video distribution rights to a number of titles they had from Aniplex, like earlier seasons of Black Butler and Fullmetal Alchemist.

Why would they have needed to redub Paranoia Agent? Evangelion is not an indicative case, since:

1) The original dub had translation choices and liberties that the creators disagreed with.
2) The original dub may have still been the property of ADV, due to the way contracts were done in the 1990s.
3) The creators took issue with undesired reactions to a modern remake/spinoff of the series, and took proactive steps to rein in any licensee adaptive freedoms.

None of those apply here. It's doubtful Netflix would've needed to take the expense to redub PA, since it already has a perfectly good and faithful dub (from the legendary New Generation Pictures), which in all likelihood would've become the property of the Japanese rightsholders once Geneon's contract expired.

Only some titles, mainly the ones that were recent/popular at the time and/or had been left incomplete by Geneon's shutdown. Later on, Funi did pick up some other Geneon titles like Serial Experiments Lain, Haibane Renmei, Texhnolyze, Hellsing TV, most of the Tenchi Muyo franchise, Gankutsuou, Gad Guard, Girls Bravo, Ikki-Tousen, Ai Yori Aoshi, Armitage III, Chobits, Black Lagoon, Gun x Sword, Gungrave, Vandread, Last Exile, and Trigun, but there never was a full package deal.