Dragoncon isn’t on the top list of North American festivals that cover anime/manga; for that, you can easily turn to the larger scale ones…the ones we all know. But Funimation has always made a point of attending Atlanta. The other Atlanta con, that is…they’ll be back for some more news at Anime Weekend Atlanta detailing their fall simulcast season, any of their big releases for October, November and December, and anything else they have up their sleeves for 2016.
Funimation’s Justin Rojas decided to come along and represent. In fact, Funimation had a lot more than I was anticipating for Dragoncon – they usually do only 3, but decided to do 4 this time around. While the usual industry report and the staff favorites brought about full panels, the more interesting panel concerning the anime business was something to see. Not quite the “here’s-what-you-do-if-you-want-a-job-at-Funimation” style of panel, but it definitely brought about some good ideas for those who want to take their anime interests one step further and be like their heroines in Shirobako……only joking, but if voice acting isn’t your thing (and prefer to write or report, etc.), that was a great panel to go to.
Moving on to how things went down in the industry report. Justin chose to focus more on Funimation home video releases than anything else (eg. their simulcasts, their podcast/channel, etc.).
Along with the release of the Full Metal Alchemist Collector’s Edition remastered on Blu-ray (wow! I seriously did not believe it would be over $300!…even with that 300-page artbook and packaging!), and the soon-to-be-released collector’s edition of Space Dandy season 2 ‘Funimation exclusive’ (the features of which look so good, it actually makes me want to watch the show!), November has Danganronpa, Black Lagoon and Noein to offer, and December has Riddle Story of Devil (all of which have limited/collector’s editions).
As for Dragonball Z: Resurrection F, it’ll be making its release on DVD & Blu-ray on October. 20. The collector’s edition even has some little features; now I can’t say much not being a watcher of Dragonball Z, but Frieza propaganda postcards sound something worth getting.
Funimation also gave the opportunity to announce more on the news in July they delivered concerning Speed Racer in 2016. All 52 episodes from the original 1967 show will be remastered and released on DVD and Blu-ray. It’ll have all episodes in Japanese available for the first time (even the episodes that didn’t make it to TV in the West). I know when it was announced in July, the crowd went nuts, well I can vouch for that, as the crowd in the Dragoncon report were all over the place. Dragoncon being the nerd-fest as it is, Speed Racer is loved by all sorts of people, and with its release, which has no date yet…well, I’ll be importing it myself
While this year’s Dragoncon wasn’t my best, in terms of anime news, hearing shows like Danganronpa, Space Dandy (and especially Speed Racer), along with a few other releases they announced (both out now and coming in the next week) has put my faith in importing Funimation releases.
