Rather late on this one (apologies for that). Otakon recently happened and it's one of the biggest anime conventions primarily due to the industry announcements. While most of them were copy & paste from Anime Expo a couple of weeks ago, there's also some new additions added to the mix.
This post will be split into two parts; one for the Friday announcements (+ any Manga announcements) and another for Saturday & Sunday.
The first post will cover Viewster, Aniplex of America, Vertical Comics and Viz Media.
Viewster
One of the top streaming websites for UK and Europe had recently entered the US market with their newly created branch somewhere in North America. To help promote their service further, the website had announced a new premium membership called OMAKASE. The premium service will introduce ad-free videos with high definition quality, similar to other services like Crunchyroll. The existing catalogue of anime will also be made available in HD while customers who can't afford the membership can still enjoy their titles for free in SD form. The service will launch sometime this fall.
In addition, Viewster have announced their plans to stream Key the Metal Idol for countries worldwide outside Asia with English subtitles. It'll be made available around the same time as OMAKASE.
Aniplex of America
Aniplex of America's panel was mostly the same contents to what they showed at Anime Expo, with some minor additions.
The company has unveiled the official release dates for Volumes 2 and 3 of The Irregular at Magic High School Blu-ray sets. Volume 2 and 3 will feature the same sort of packaging as Volume 1 did which includes a single Blu-ray case, Japanese audio w/English subtitles, Booklet, Get to Know Magic Studies shorts and a cardboard slipcase box. Volume 2 will feature episodes 8-18 (Nine Schools Competition Arc) due for September 15th while Volume 3 will feature episodes 19-26 (Yokohama Disturbance Arc) due for December 8th.
Kodansha Comics
Kodansha have announced a small amount of titles for their panel. One of them was hinted to be an old classic, and when it was announced it's quite a surprise.
Leiji Matsumoto's Queen Emeraldas was the old classic that Kodansha had announced for English release. It will be published in two large-format hardcover volumes, each volume has more than 400 pages with the first volume planned for July 2016. The manga has also never been translated into English before. So if you like the Leijiverse and its classic shows like Captain Harlock and Galaxy Express 999, you'll love this.
Other titles the publisher will be releasing include Yui Sakuma's Complex Age, which will see a special large-format paperback books starting in June 2016, and Nao Emoto's Forget Me Not (Soredemo Boku wa Kimi ga Suki), an adaptation of the novel of the same name, with the first volume available sometime in March 2016.
Vertical
Vertical had some more announcements to share for the fans.
Their latest acquisitions include Devils Line (by Ryou Hanada), The God's Lie (also known as Kamisama ga Uso wo Tsuku., by Kaori Ozaki) and Mysterious Girlfriend X (also known as Nazo no Kanojo X, by Riichi Ueshiba). All three new additions will be available starting Spring 2016.
Vertical also provided some additional information about their existing licenses. They've stated that sales have so far gone up 70% over the past year, presumably due to the success of popular manga titles like Knights of Sidonia and Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin while Chi's Sweet Home had kept the company in business for 3 years. One thing that was pretty interesting is was that Vertical had been trying to get the manga rights to Nichijou for quite sometime but apparently Bandai had held them up. I would presume Bandai were originally going to release the manga before they dissolved.
Viz Media + Shojo Beat
While Viz Media started off with a blast at Anime Expo, they also have a couple more announcements for Otakon.
The publisher have announced Inio Asano's manga Goodnight Pun Pun (Oyasumi Punpun), which will be available sometime in 2016, and a limited first print only release of the Death Note Blanc et Noir artbook. It'll be available in hardcover form in 2016.
Lastly, for their Shojo Beat label, Viz have picked up Keiko Ishihara's The Heiress and the Chauffeur (Ojō-sama no Untenshu) which will be available sometime in May 2016 with the first volume.
Stay tuned for Part 2 where I'll be covering the Visual Novel publishers and the distributors Discotek and Funimation.
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