It's been a while since I looked at some of the major goings-on in anime news, so here's a quick tour of this week's highlights: Persona 4, the new Naruto Shippuden movie, the streaming of Fate Zero, and more.
Fate/Zero Streaming Soon on NicoNico: Aniplex has been ramping up its direct digital distribution of titles via channels like Nico Nico Douga (Japan's YouTube). Their newest streamed premiere is Fate/Zero (shown above, a prequel to the Fate/stay night franchise), which stars airing Sunday, October 2 at 1:00 A.M. Japan local time (UTC + 9 hours). Watch it here when the time's right in your area. English subtitles are included, along with many other languages; this is one of the first (if not the first) of domestic anime streams also aimed at an international audience.
Persona 4 Licensed For The U.S. By Sentai Filmworks: The Persona game franchise has a hefty following outside of Japan, and so the fans were immensely pleased to hear an anime adaptation was in the works. But what about an English-language release for it? Fans were in the dark until Sentai Filmworks stated they'd picked up the property and were preparing to release it via digital distribution in the short run and on DVD and Blu-ray Disc in 2012. No word yet on an English voice cast, but fans are (pardon the pun) vocal about wanting the game's English voice cast preserved in the English dub for the anime as well.
Fairy Tail Begins English Streaming: Fairy Tail, about the adventures of a guild of magicians, has garnered a great deal of attention in its manga incarnation and also in its subtitled simulcast stream airing on Crunchyroll. An English dub (and following that, a domestic home-video release) has been in the works for a while now, courtesy of FUNimation, and now the first episode of said dub has finally appeared. The live-action cast was announced earlier this year and consists of such longstanding (and outstanding) FUNimation English-dub regulars as Todd Haberkorn, Colleen Clinkenbeard, Monica Rial, Christopher R. Sabat, and R. Bruce Elliot.
VIZ Media Releases Naruto Shippuden The Movie: Bonds: Naruto has been a consistently prolific franchise, both in terms of the TV series itself (200 episodes and climbing) but in the standalone movie spinoffs that have been produced across its running time. The newest film, Naruto Shippuden The Movie: Bonds, is set during the latter half of the show's run, and features hero Naruto crossing paths with former friend and current rival Sasuke during an investigation of a ninja attack from the Land of Sky. The film was originally released in Japan in 2008, so this is another instance of the Western incarnation of a franchise playing long-term catch-up with the original. Also, historically, the movies have been little more than standalone stories, disconnected from the plot of the main series and used as a way to give us that many more adventures with the characters in question.
Bonds comes out October 25th, with a list price of $24.98 (Blu-ray) and $19.98 (DVD).
Images: Fate/zero © Nitroplus / TYPE-MOON, ufotable, FZPC. Image courtesy Aniplex Inc. Naruto Shippuden The Movie: Bonds © 2002 MASASHI KISHIMOTO / 2007 Shippuden © NMP 2008. Image courtesy VIZ Media.
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