Into the Geek Realm: Fanime, pt. 3 Viz Anime Edition

Now to talk about all things anime.

2 new volumes of anime heavy hitters are coming out. Naruto Shippunden volume 18 is now available

Nightwing
Picture by Brit Cossel

and volume 19 in coming out in June. Bleach volume 20 is out now and volume 21 is coming out in July.

Berserk: the Golden Age arc 3 is coming out on Blu-Ray. That’s right, you can own an HD version of Berserk: the Golden Age. That is currently available. As well as Accel World (which takes place in the same universe as Sword Art Online).

The anime classic Ranma ½ is being released on Blu-Ray DVD. The series is being remastered and looking better than the previous DVD release. Set 1 is currently available. Set 2 will be available soon (no date as of Fanime). There will be a total of 7 sets of Ranma.

My favorite recent anime, K, is out on Blu-Ray. It’s the entire first season of K.

Blood Lad (one of the best mangas of 2013 according to the Comic Con panel) has an anime. It’s going to be streamed on Hulu Plus with a new episode every Sunday.

Speaking of online streaming, Neon Alley is no longer running like a network. They have anime both dubbed and subbed now that they are showing free, so there’s no more subscription. Neon Alley is currently streaming Death Note, Vampire Knight and much more.

GLADOS
Picture by Jeanie Butera

And the biggest of anime news. Viz has the completely licensed the whole of Sailor Moon. This is every single Sailor Moon series. The series is going to be unsanitized… yes, that means that Sailor Jupiter and Sailor Neptune will be lovers instead of cousins. They also redid the dubbing. They are undoing the damage that 4Kids did to Sailor Moon when it first ran in the mid-late nineties. Sailor Moon is also being streamed on Hulu Plus with two new episodes every Monday (which started on 19.May). This is eventually culminate is the streaming of the latest Sailor Moon series, Sailor Moon Crystal in July. There will also be plenty of Sailor Moon oriented events happening at Anime Expo in July.

After the dearth of information that I received at Viz Media panel, I stayed to catch the Shonen Jump Meet & Greet. It was exactly like the podcast that they recorded at Comic Con last year. They asked a bunch of questions related to the series they are running and encouraged people to interact with the American editors of the series. It was fun to get to talk to the editors and give them answers that would make them think as well as make them laugh. They also ran a contest for a food-related creature for the series Toriko that will be shown to the series creator and might actually show up in a future chapter of the manga.

After the two Viz panels, I had a bit of a break for dinner between panels. Since all the panels were in the Fairmont, I got dinner in that hotel. I got some sushi and another little snacky thing to eat as well as a couple of drinks. The cocktails were great. The sushi was great. And I had another interesting conversation with another gent at the bar… however, the guy did start making me a bit uncomfortable. It was a fun and interesting conversation and it was obvious that this man spent a lot of time at the bar in the lounge of the Fairmont Hotel. So, after I finished eating and drinking, I made my way to my next panel.