(yes, we're playing catch-up.)
A blurb in the newest issue of Animerica confirms recent rumors that AnimeVillage is shopping the Gundam Wing TV series to Cartoon Network. Bandai did not return our e-mail on this matter.
Manga Entertainment has finally sent out press releases heralding the new Macross Plus DVD's. The first volume will be $29.95 list for both the first and second episodes, and will contain extras including a newly remixed Dolby Digital 5.1 channel English soundtrack, a musical photo gallery, trailers, web links, and several previews, as well as support for reigons 1, 2, and 4. However, according to the newest update to the Manga Entertainment FAQ, Wings of Honneamise, Black Jack, Castle of Cagliostro, Giant Robo and X DVD's have been pushed back to a yet-to-be-determined date. The Macross Plus DVD will ship on September 28.
Ain't It Cool News is combining their efforts with Ghiblink (Nausicaa.net) to offer an online version of the Princess Mononoke theatrical trailer. Ain't it Cool News was having some technical issues, but Ghiblink hopes to have the trailer up on their servers by this weekend.
Mark Deli reports that AIC's new survey, asking fans what they want to see in a third Tenchi Muyo! OAV series (originally located at http://www.anime-int.com/magazine/acl/anke/index.html) has been translated into English. The English version, created by Andrew Turner of the Tenchi Mailing List, can be found at http://turner.mikomi.org/ques2cooked.html .
ADV Films announced at San Diego Comic Con the aquisition of Lady Death, an animaption project by anime studio Phoenix Entertainment based on the series by Chaos! Comics. No exact release date was named, but the film, which follows the title character (an incarnation of armeggedon) is being aimed for a Halloween 2001 release.
Disney DVD's of both Kiki's Delivery Service and Castle in the Sky are both possible after February/March 2000, according to one source at Disney. It is possible that the two would be sold around the same time as the video release of Princess Mononoke.
Imagine Gaming Network reports that American toy manufacturer Toycom has licensed the entire Macross toy line and is planning to release the entire mecha model series domestically. Fully transformable Macross Plus toys, including the VF-11B, YF-19, and YF-21, will be released in a few months for $20-50 suggested retail.
Karen and Bruce Duffy's Marmalade Boy Guide has been given a major overhaul for its 1999 re-release, including 400 pictures, complete plot synopsis, pencil board and trading card guides, and a new section detailing the characters that were originally going to die in the series. "I think any diehard MB fans will want to find out who they were and how it came to be that they weren't killed off," wrote editor Karen Duffy. "I certainly dropped my jaw as Masatomo and I worked on translations for that section." The new guide can be found at http://www.ncn.com/~excel/KDs/MBGuideOnline/MBGuideHomeNLinksPage.html
Daily Yomiuri reports that Konami has won a suit against a group of fan animators for damaging the image of a character from the popular dating game Tokimeki Memorial by portraying the characters in the game in various "dojinshi-style" sexual situations on an animated video and VCD. Judge Toshiaki Iimura called the act "extremely malicious" and declared it a violation of copyright and trademark laws, despite the group's insistance that it contributed to sales of the game. All development and existing copies of the fan-animation, including masters, still in posession of the animation group.
AnimeUSA Convention has been postponed indefinitely, according to webmaster Marc Yu of Anime-USA.com, due to hotel difficulties. "As of today, we only had 20 out of the 500 rooms required under our contract with the hotel," Yu said. Refunds to those who registered for the event will be mailed back "as soon as possible."
