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Manga Entertainment Podcast Updates including 2013 Q1 Schedule

posted on by Andrew Osmond

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

- Dragonball 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

- Dragonball 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 Shippuden 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 Dragonball Z booth, including the opportunity to watch episodes, playtest the Dragonball Z Kinect game and possibly playtest the One Piece game.

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


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