The World (Of Hack) Has Been Saved!

Breaking news: Funimation has made it Christmas in July for Dot Hack franchise fans! Their license rescues include the original .hack series, the Roots series, the Twilight series, and the G.U. trilogy. Before today, the only Hack title they had in their library was the Quantum series, which came out last year.

If these titles do well, Funimation might very well license other titles in the Hack franchise. I hope they somehow wrangle the rights to the Limitation OVAs that were originally bundled with the games. What Hack titles are you looking forward to getting?

News: Funimation Licenses Level E Anime

Remember when I begged for a licensed of Level E last year? I specifically said Funimation would do good by picking this anime series up - and they did!

ANN: Funimation Licenses Level E Sci-Fi Comedy TV Anime.

North American anime distributor Funimation announced at its panel at Katsucon on Saturday that it has obtained the rights to the comedy series Level E. The 2010 television anime adapted a comedy/science-fiction manga series by Yoshihiro Togashi (Hunter X Hunter, Yū Yū Hakusho) into 13 episodes. The story follows a high school freshman who moves into his own apartment, only to find that it is already inhabited by a strange man who claims to be an alien, and suffers from amnesia.

Although ANN does not report on it, it has been independently reported by others that Funimation has also licensed rights for home video release, which would mean release of Level E on DVD and Blu-Ray. This also supposedly means that Level E will no longer be hosted on Crunchyroll's streaming site but on Funi's own streaming services; something I'm sure will please the fans who dislike using CR for whatever reasons.


As for myself? I'm just excited that I'll be able to own Level E on DVD in the near future. Go, Prince Baka, go!

Interesting News Piece Of The Day

And by interesting, I mean holy fuck, what is going on panic-inducing kind of news.


ANN: Funimation Sues A.D. Vision, Sentai, Others for US$8 Million.

On November 4, 2011, FUNimation Entertainment filed a lawsuit in the district court of Harris County, Texas against John Ledford, as well as companies A.D. Vision, AEsir Holdings, Sxion 23 (A.K.A. Section23 Films), Valkyrie Media Partners, Seraphim Studios, Sentai Filmworks, Sentai Holdings, and Unio Mystica Holdings (A.K.A. Switchblade Pictures) for breach of contract and other claims. Ledford is the CEO and co-founder of A.D. Vision. In the lawsuit, Funimation claims that the defendants owe Funimation "an amount to be proven at trial but currently estimated" to be approximately US$8 million plus interest, costs, and attorneys' fees.

This cannot end well. But then I turn into a regular Chicken Little anytime it looks like something bad is about to happen, so maybe there's hope that things like this don't start stacking up and up until the entire industry collapses. Oh, dear.