In a surprise move, Media Blasters has licensed Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei. I felt the series was really good, but I’m not sure if it will do that well as a retail release. From what I remember, afk fansubs had to do quite a bit of work with each release. There were always a ton of translator notes to explain references. Best of luck to Media Blasters with their new license.
Just a random note to break my long streak of not updating. NIS America has licensed ToraDora. It’s not surprising to me that TD got picked up- it was an excellent series after all. What is surprising is that NIS America is now in the anime import business. I guess it’s not a huge change from what they were previously doing, that is, importing JRPGs such as Disgaea.
Last I heard, FY2009 was not very kind to their pocketbooks. I hope that they are able to right the ship by branching out into other markets. I’m not sure that bringing anime to American will net them much money, but at least they picked a good series to with which to start their new ventures. I’m sure it’s very tricky to cater to such niche markets, but that’s a game NIS America is very used to.
Found the trailer for Durarara!! on youtube, and ANN posted a link to a 30-second TV spot for it. You’ll need to enable javascript for that second link. After watching both, I found the commercial to be more interesting, as the trailer didn’t have any speech and only showed random scenes from the anime with some overlaid Japanese text. Either way, it looks like an interesting series!
Trailer comes after the break.
PS. ANN also posted a link for a Chu-Bra!! commercial. Well 9/10 an anime with a name like Chu-Bra!! is going to be garbage. After watching the commercial, I have confirmed that it IS garbage.
ANN reports that a trailer has been posted for the second Gurren Lagann movie, which is set to open in April. I was going to wonder when the States would be graced with these movies, until I realized they’re just retellings of the anime series. Lame. Whats with their obsession with this? They’re constantly doing this with Evangelion.