Otokon 2009 Announcements

The big show in Baltimore is over, and it was great! Attendance numbers are coming in at over 26,000, and I sure believe it. Here's a quick roundup of industry announcements.

Hint hint, it's almost all Funimation:

Funimation announced that it has licensed four of the Detective Conan films. The films are: Detective Conan: The Last Magician of the Century, Detective Conan: Captured In Her Eyes, Detective Conan: Count Down to Heaven, and Detective Conan: The Phantom of Baker Street. All four films are based on the main character from Gosho Aoyama's Detective Conan manga - a prodigy detective trapped in a seven-year-old's body. Funimation will begin releasing the movies individually this winter.

Funimation also announced at its panel on Saturday that it has licensed the new Casshern Sins and Eden of The East series. Casshern is the new 2008-2009 version of the series which just ended it's Japanese TV run in March. The story follows a cyborg who rises against the robotic armies that have subjugated all of humanity. Eden of The East is the latest series from Production I.G,and just ended it's Japanese run last month with the announcement of two theatrical films. Funi will release both the Casshern Sins and Eden of The East television anime series sometime in 2010.

Later at the show Funi said they had acquired the rights to the original Dragon Ball Z masters for the show and the films, and will be re-releasing them all in a complete collection, broken into an appropriate seven parts starting this fall. The collection will have the show back in its original 4:3 aspect ratio, as opposed to Funi's previous cut-off widescreen releases, along with Japanese and English tracks, a set of features, and a collector's booklet. Each set will go for approx $80 MSRP, meaning the entirety of Dragon Ball Z on DVD will be $560 MSRP. We'll have it for much less that that, of course, probably under $400. :-) They also announced the English cast for Nabari No Ou and Spice & Wolf. I'll have that list up on the blog later this week as soon as I get some time.

At the AniPlex booth they were saying that Sony will be releasing the second half of Blood+ this October to coincide with the DVD release of the live action Blood movie. Now that's music to my ears, though I'll be happier when we hear it directly from Sony.

At Bandai's panel they discussed their dumb new marketing strategy, but had no new license announcements or much else to talk about.

Finally, lots of Otakon 09 Cosplay action can be found here. Of course, way too many people were cosplaying Team Fortress 2