Okay, with Anime Expo 2009 in the books, lets look at the happenings going on in the expo. Announcements, fun topics and more. All in a neat, compact, slightly snarky form for you to enjoy! Many, many websites provided great coverage including Anime News Networkand Mania.com. Let us organize everything shall we?

Nozomi Entertainment

• Astro Boy "mini sets" in October 2009 with cheaper sets of His and Her Circumstances and Boogiepop Phantom to come.
• Rental Magica coming in November 2009 w/ 100 pages book filled with notes
• Maria Watches Over Us Season 4 at some point in 2010. Lithographs featuring art from the show will be available soon.
• Aria Season 3, Aria OVA, Junjo Romantica and Antique Bakery all announced.
• More license rescuing of Anime 18 titles for their adult line. New title called Hypno-Love announced as well.

All in all, a good group of content announced by Nozomi. I would still love to see them pick up the PatLabor license though. Could we get a Urotsukidoji rescue too? Please?

Bandai Entertainment

• Bandai will be working with Lantis to bring J-pop and anime music to iTunes. Starting with JAM Project.
• Code Geass R2 on sale in August. Gundam 00 Box Set 1 on sale July. Lucky Star OVA in August. Hayate the Combat Butler (seven episode set) in July. .hack/GU movie for August.
• Anime Legends line up: true tears on 7/21 and sola is in August, Both complete box sets.
• Announcement of Eureka Seven the Movie license.
• Escaflowne the Movie will see Blu Ray release in September.

First off...JAM PROJECT! Ahem. With that out of the way, Bandai/Lantis could end up another tombstone in the giant graveyard of failed attempts to sell anime music in the US. It just hasn't worked. Hopefully focusing on iTunes should do the trick. They should look to expand to Amazon's download service as well which has a good following. Second, either Hayate is really expensive or Bandai isn't paying attention. Seven episode sets look small compared to 13 episode sets from the competition. It doesn't make sense. I'm still a bit let down by the lack of Blu Ray presence by Bandai up to this point but Escaflowne should look gorgeous.

CMX Manga

I hate to say it, but I've lost since stopped caring for most manga due to many reasons. Here is a write up for this panel.

Viz Media

• One Piece manga schedule has been accelerated. Five volumes every month starting January 2010. Volumes 24-53.
• Bleach the Movie 2: The DiamondDust Rebellion is due 9/9/09.
• Vol. 1 for Naruto Shippuden TV is due 9/29/09 with the first Naruto Shippuden movie out in November. "Kakashi Gaiden" will be shown on Viz's website on 8/6/09.
• NANA Box Set 1 is due on 9/8/09 with Honey & Clover on 9/22/09. 11 episodes and 13 episodes respectively.
• Various other Manga stuff.

I'll be blunt; Viz is one of the main reasons I quit reading and buying manga. Their release schedules are dreadful (as are most of the publishers). One Piece manga acceleration is better late than never I suppose. Viz has been absolutely awful at releasing this title and it's taken FUNimation to get them to pick up the pace. Good on them.

Naruto Shippuden being released as individual volumes is depressing compared to the healthy pace in which the Naruto box sets came out. Bleach is already painfully slow. Seeing dates for NANA and Honey & Clover is good though. For the most part though, Viz is just coasting on their Shonen Jump licenses. Can't say I blame them. I can't blame people for ignoring their releases and just watching the fansubs for Shonen Jump titles either. There's no hope for Gintama is there?

Yaoi Press

Panel information right here. An interesting note, they are publishing their manga on iTunes/iPhone now. This is a very smart move. More companies should look into this even if the iPhone is not available in my area.

FUNimation

• Fullmetal Alchemist OVA Collection on 8/4/09, Gunslinger Girl II on 8/18/09, Big Wind Up on 8/18/09 and Sergeant Frog Season 1 Part 1 on 9/22/09.
• Announced a Dragon Ball Season 1 set for 9/15/09. This is the original Dragon Ball series and will include the first 13 episodes which were in license limbo for years.
• Announced Sands of Destruction as a new license scheduled for next year.
• Evangelion 1.0: You are [Not] Alone will be released on DVD this fall. Evangelion 1.11 will be released on DVD and Blu Ray next year. They do not have the license for Evangelion 2.0 yet but they are interested in picking it up.
• Slayers Revolution dub cast was announced. Pretty much the same cast as the old CPM dub.
• Announced new license: Sengoku Basara from Production I.G. It's based on the video game series from Capcom

The Dragon Ball announcement is big for me as I'm a fan. Lets hope they The Evangelion movie announcement is a little weird, but considering that the Japanese Blu Ray of 1.11 just came out this past May, it's not unexpected. Lock up the next two movies and just get it over with. You're not fooling anyone and even inviting doubt that you won't license them will lead to massive fan moaning (or they will just download the BR rip like they did for 1.11). Sengoku Basara is completely unknown here in the US since Capcom never bothered to bring attention to the games here. Even the fighter. Shame.

There were some other interesting panels and discussion going on at the convention. Crunchyroll talked about more licenses for their streaming services. They also had a keynote address talking about entertainment on the internet which ran a little bit counter to Shawne Kleckner's (Right Stuf) keynote address detailing the need for releases to still be released on physical media to make the most profit on the property. I personally believe both will co-exist for quite awhile as making a profit on streaming media is still up in the air. Both sides presented interesting takes on the market coming from their respective businesses (streaming vs. retailer/publisher). Who is right? Who knows without seeing sales numbers. Numbers we'll never, ever see.

In other random news, Mangagamer has picked up both the Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni and SHUFFLE! visual novels for release on PC. Higurashi is the wild horror/suspense title that took people by complete surprise while SHUFFLE! is a romance title with some adult content (woo!). SHUFFLE will be available for download this summer while Higurashi will probably hit around October (play off of Halloween maybe/). JAST USA picked up Demonbane for release as well. Will this ZenOtaku be picking these up? No clue. Perhaps JAST or Mangagamer could persuade me?

Several other studios were no shows as far as panels are concerned. Neither Geneon Entertainment, Media Blasters or ADV Films made an appearance to speak with the fans or talk about anything. What should fans take away from that? I'm not sure. There's still other conventions coming up including San Diego Comic Con and Otakon so there are still some chances to connect with the fanbase. Even Central Park Media said their goodbye at the expo.

To wrap things up, Anime Expo 2009 topped 44,000 attendees this year and will take place next year on July 1-4. By the power of my amazing mental abilities, only 1/8th of the people who attended AX actually buy anime. Maybe.

Here's hoping I can attend next year!