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Sunday 5 July 2015

Industry News: Anime Expo 2015 Announcements Round-up (Part 3) - Crunchyroll & Visual Novel Publishers

The Expo is nearly over, but that doesn't stop the amount of announcements coming over. In this part I'll cover Crunchyroll and the visual novel publishers; JAST USA, MangaGamer and Sekai Project. Note that some of the games mentioned in this post may not be safe for work due to the game's eroge content.


So what's in store for these publishers?

Crunchyroll


Starting off with Crunchyroll, the streaming service have provided some more streaming announcements including both new additions from the Summer 2015 season and catalogue titles. 

They announced that their new additions include the popular Monster Musume (available for USA, Canada, UK, Irelands, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Latin America, the Netherlands, Scandinavia, and Turkey) and Gatchaman Crowds Insight (available for United States (and its territories), Canada, Central and South America (including the Caribbean), Australia and New Zealand, South Africa, Europe, and the Middle East and North Africa.).

Other titles from the same season include Teekyu 5 (North America, South America, Canada, United Kingdom, Ireland, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Denmark, Finland, Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden.), To Love-Ru Trouble Darkness (United States and Canada.), Non Non Biyori Repeat (Regions TBA), Million Doll (Regions TBA) and surprisingly enough Senki Zesshou Symphogear GX (Regions TBA). The first season of Symphogear was licensed by Funimation but was never released on home video (which is rather rare for Funimation, at least 90% of their titles have/will receive/d home releases), presumably due to poor streaming numbers and they haven't touched the second season Symphogear G.

For catalogue titles they added more Yu-Gi-Oh! with the original Japanese with English subtitled version of GX and bringing back their most recent expired titles Anohana: The Flowers We Saw That Day and Wagnaria! in time for the new season.

In addition they also picked up the streaming rights to The Perfect Insider which is airing this Autumn season. The service also have the manga simulpub rights so if you want to try out the series you can do so on Crunchyroll Manga. Speaking of Crunchyroll Manga, no news was revealed about the service during the Industry panel because the manga section will have its own panel. If there's new additions it'll be covered tomorrow with the other announced manga titles.

JAST USA


Now we can discuss the visual novels! I've saved this panel for this post because the other publishers were announcing their new additions days later when JAST started theirs so by having them all placed together makes it easier for readers to know what's going on in the visual novel world.

JAST USA announced some new acquisitions for their catalogue. Starting off with Flowers ~ Spring Arc, an all ages visual novel developed by Innocent Grey. The Spring arc is the first of four parts in the series and the publisher plans to release the first arc this fall. The next announcement was SoniComi, a love communication game featuring the Nitroplus mascot Super Sonico. They plan to release the game sometime this winter.

The rest of their announcements were release date updates. Lightning Warrior Raidy III (Ikazuchi no Senshi Raidy III ~Gyakushuu no Jashinkan~), will be ready for 'golden master' soon with a estimated release date for July 20th 2015. The eroge visual novel will also have a limited edition physical version with a replica colour paged manual of the Japanese version and 12 art cards. Seinarukana (Seinarukana -The Spirit of Eternity Sword 2-) was briefly mentioned at the panel, they plan to release the eroge visual novel sometime in September. And finally Shiny Days, an updated version of Summer Days and the next instalment in the School Days series will also be ready for 'golden master' soon with an estimated release date of August 25th 2015. The eroge visual novel will also receive a limited edition physical version featuring a mouse pad, 48 page artbook and a download code so that fans can get straight into the game at the release date.

MangaGamer


MangaGamer offered some announcements at the expo but it didn't have its own panel (presumably they were part of the Visual Novel panel for 18+ owners). That however didn't stop them from announcing some new releases.

Umineko: When They Cry (Umineko no Naku Koro ni) will be heading to Steam! The all ages sound novel will be released in episodic format similar to how they were handling Higurashi and will also include some additional features such as the original soundtrack, updated pixel art (the panchiko version apparently, not the PlayStation 3 version) with the option to switch back to the original. The translation will be updated with the co-operation of Witch Hunt helping them out.

They also announced they'll be bringing over Frontwing's remake of Blank Note's Himawari: The Sunflower for PC. The eroge version will also come with a code of the all ages Steam version. In addition they also plan to release St. Michael's A Kiss For The Petals -Remembering How We Met (Sono Hanabira ni Kuchizuke o - Deatta Koro no Omoide ni), the latest chapter in the A Kiss For The Petals yuri game series. Unlike the other titles in the eroge franchise, Remembering How We Met is an all ages game which started off on mobiles and Manga Gamer will be bringing it over onto PC.

The distributor also revealed that they have formed a partnership with Alice Soft, with their first title released together to be Beat Blades Haruka (Choukou Sennin Haruka).

Sekai Project


Sekai Project announced at their own industry panel that they managed to acquire the popular eroge visual G-senjou no Maou - The Devil on G-String from developer AKABEi SOFT2. The publisher is planning on removing the eroge content with the original creator for the Steam release. More news on the game will be revealed at Otakon. Purple Software's Chrono Clock was also announced and similar to G-senjou, Sekai Project is also removing the eroge content for the Steam release with the original creator's support.

In addition Sekai Project will also be releasing Root Double: Before Crime * After Days: Xtend Edition. The visual novel is all ages. Lemnisca Translations will also be helping out with the release. Love in Space's Sunrider: Liberation Day was also announced for release.

Sekai Project also revealed Narcissu will receive a remake. The company plans to work with original creator Tomo Kataoka to create the remake with a Narcissu 0 remake from the PlayStation Portable version in addition to remakes of Narcissu 1st, 2nd, 3rd and Narcissu 4th with completely new material. The remake's features include updated scenarios, material from drama CDs and other side material, new artwork, and re-recorded voices.

And lastly the publisher have announced a release dates for Spicy Tails' WORLD END ECONOMiCA episode.02 will be released this month.

That's it for this part. The final part will be tomorrow which will cover the manga announcements from Kodansha Comics, Vertical and Yen Press.

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Member of the Anime UK News forum, and also once part of the Sheffield Hallam Visual Arts society throughout 2013-2017. Been collecting anime since 2012 and supported the anime distributors ever since. Also been hanging around on the Blu-ray forum and Fandom Post forums.

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