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AnimEigo's Riding Bean Kickstarter Ends, Meets Stretch Goal to Print More Manga
posted on by Karen Ressler
North American anime distributor AnimEigo's Kickstarter campaign for a "High Octane Edition" Blu-ray Disc release for the Riding Bean OAV ended on Tuesday with 1,752 backers pledging US$135,589—over 450% of its US$30,000 goal.
AnimEigo reached its sixth stretch goal of US$135,000 on Tuesday, and so will translate and print a 10-page manga that appeared in Gunsmith Cats and gives background into the production of Riding Bean. AnimEigo will also include an 11th page of related content. This manga will be available to backers digitally and in the artbook.
The campaign previously met stretch goals for new artwork by Kenichi Sonoda on the case sleeve, a new eight-page manga mini-story drawn by Sonoda for the insert and artbook, a Japanese commentary track featuring Sonoda and "1-2 other Japanese commentators," and an English commentary track with anime historian Gilles Poitras.
AnimEigo plans to release the anime in December.
The 1989 OVA is based on a manga by Kenichi Sonoda (Gunsmith Cats manga, Otaku no Video character design). AnimEigo released Riding Bean in 2002 on a dual-audio DVD, marking the company's first anime release along with MADOX-01.
In the story, Bean Bandit and his partner Rally Vincent are couriers for hire — transporting clients and delivering goods in his custom sports car "Roadbuster" for a hefty price. But when they are hired to escort a kidnapped girl named Chelsea to her home, they don't realize they're being framed for kidnapping as their former clients Semmerling and Carrie plan their escape with Chelsea's father and the ransom money.
AnimeEigo successfully funded a Kickstarter to release Bubblegum Crisis on Blu-ray Disc in 2013, and also funded a similar campaign to release Otaku no Video on Blu-ray Disc last June.
