Comic Con, Day 1, pt. 3: Holy Crap, I Went to A Lot of Panels

Viz’s 24/7, all-dubbed (all dubbed in English as opposed to subtitled) channel Neon Alley will have a very exciting new series starting in the fall. They will be running Madoka Magica. This is a series that I love. As innocent as it looks, it’s far darker than you would think by outside appearances. I highly recommend this series. They will also be releasing the anime for the manga series Magi.

Only at Comic Con (OK, and other conventions… *sigh*) will you see Gandalf with Leia’s bounty hunter.

The news they had for Neon Alley was that they would be showing “Gargantia” and “Blood Lad” in 2014.

After the Viz post, I jogged over to the other side of the convention center (if you’ve been inside the San Diego Convention Center you have an idea of how far it is end-to-end). I had 30 minutes to get through Comic Con crowds to the other side of the center to see the Funimation panel.

I must say, I was happy to see that the crowds for both the anime and manga panels were quite full… and abundant. I had 5 panels going on about the same time as the Funimation panel, and most of them were anime or manga oriented. It made me tremendously happy to see that the anime/manga world is being heartily represented in a venue like Comic Con.

There was a lot of news at the Funimation panel, so I’ll get right to it.

I’ll start with what new anime releases Funimation has coming up. “Fairy Tale” has two new volumes of anime coming out. Volume 5 came out on June 20 and Volume 6 will be out on August 20. Season 5 of

Zoinks! It’s a shot of the WB booth.

“One Piece” was available on July 23. “Black Lagoon: Roberta’s Blood Trail” was released on August 6. They released the series “Haganai” on August 6. It is the story of a group of high school kids who don’t have any friends, so they decide to create a club to meet.

Now, when I first really started getting in to anime, I got into it back in the late nineties/early 2000’s with the series “Dragonball Z”. I admit it. What I didn’t know when (and something I learned much later) was that version was actually translated and all in Canada. Funimation re-released those episodes on DVD in what they called the “Rock the Dragon” edition. For those of us kinda nostalgic for the origin of the original “It’s over 9000” line, we can now buy it. 53 episodes of it were released on August 13. Yes, this is the Dragonball Z from the original Toonami broadcast back in the day.

A series that I have been eagerly wanting to watch and am very excited can be purchased in DVD form,

This is the place where many, though not all, people go to sit down and relax after a lot of walking and standing in line.

“Eureka 7 AO” was released also on August 13. I loved “Eureka 7”. I’m curious where they took the “Eureka 7” storyline. Also, the harem anime where the guy is being controlled by a devil, “High School DxD” will be released on August 20.

They’re also releasing the latest iteration of Lupin the III. It will focus on Fujiko. I’m curious about this series… largely because I’m wondering how close to the original animation style it will be. It will also be released on August 20.

I know I’m a huge fan of “Ghost in the Shell” since I saw the first movie back in the late nineties. I’ve watched every possible version that’s been available of “Ghost in the Shell”. Well, there will be brand spanking new “Ghost in the Shell” released on August 20 called “Ghost in the Shell: Arise”. I’m excited for

TARDIS and Bad Wolf

a new “Ghost in the Shell” series. They are also releasing the series, “Guilty Crown” on August 27.

Funimation has also gotten some rather awesome and exciting new acquisitions. They just acquired “HA” and “009:Re: Cyborg”. They also acquired “Evangelion 3.0” as well as the entire “.hack” series.

They also had Shoji Kawamari speak to the panel. He was the designer and/or creator and/or writer for “Ghost in the Shell”, “Aquarion”, “Ghost in the Shell”, “Space Battleship Yamato”, “Patlabor” and “Macross”. It was great listening to someone who has such a prestigious resume speak. They also offered a chance to meet and get a signed “Aquarion” poster. Needless to say, getting out of the room was an organized stampede.