Updates 

Lot of status updates to relay this week, so lets get to it! 

In case you have been wondering, Sentai shipped the new Royal Space Force ~ The Wings of Honneamise BLURAY on time, but the DVD ended up coming late from the replicator. They are in bound now and should be there by Monday. By the way, while I can't imagine anyone who hasn't seen Honneamise by now, if you haven't you should check it out. It's from 'back in the day' when Anime was deliberately inspiring and offers a welcome departure from MOE and Harem TV shows. Plus, iterations of the character names make for great online passwords... :-)

Sentai also confirmed for me this week that the release of Gatchaman has indeed been delayed. The word is that JVC is just swamped with holiday orders for replications, and there are a lot of disks in those Gatchaman boxes so something had to give. Everyone is quoting Dec 10th now, but I was told that it's likely the actual ship date won't be more than a couple of weeks on the other side of the original Oct 29th street date. As always, we'll start shipping them to you as soon as they hit the dock. 

As expected, the purchasing guy at Media Blaster's distributor confirmed for me this week that the release of Rio: Rainbow Gate Complete Collection DVD is off the table for this year and would most likely now be released in 2014 - probably in the first or second quarter. He cited 'manufacturing delays', but he's probably just passing on whatever BS excuse the folks at Media Blasters told him. Man, and they didn't even try to dub this one either, and I suppose if they had it would have been kicked out to 2016 or something. We've gone ahead and left it up on the site for pre-order and just posted the release date as TBA.

Seems the laugh is on us. Well, maybe next year...

Funimation sent over their January schedule this week, and frankly, I had to do a double take when I saw the spreadsheet:  

One Piece Season 5 Part 5 DVD Boxed Set (Uncut) - Jan 14
Serial Experiments Lain Complete Series DVD/BD Combo Set (Classic) - Jan 28

Yikes. After seeing that I called up our rep and a asked if they were planning to keep the lights on down there next year - to which I was told yes, and February would be better. And really how could one be true and not the other. I'm sure a few additional odds and ends will get added in there between now and then though, or else some of the Dec titles will be delayed into January. Isn't that usually how it works? 

And instead of issuing a S.A.V.E. edition, Funi just dropped the MSRP of the Desert Punk Complete Collection DVD Boxed Set (Viridian Collection II) in place this week from $39.98 to $29.98. This is the second time they've dropped the price on that one and I suppose that means there is still a lot of extra inventory of it hanging out there in the channel that needs to be cleared out. Anyway, we've reduced our regular price for it to $19.98. :-)

NISA announced their release of the Wagnaria!! (Working!!) Season 2 Complete Collection DVD Boxed Set (Premium Edition), and we've got it up on the site now for pre-order. This premium edition includes a hardcover art book (full color, approx. 32 pages) featuring episode summaries, new character biographies, and original illustrations.

Release date is set for February 14th.

Nice!!

Synopsis: Sota Takanashi, Popura Taneshima, and the rest of Wagnaria's zany crew are back in WAGNARIA!!2! Whether it's Sota being reduced to tears over the death of an innocent bug, Kyoko calling in her old gang to cover some shifts, or Soma hilariously meddling in the personal lives of his co-workers, each day brings something new to the table! But if you're a man, be warned! Inami still packs quite a punch...

We also added AniPlex's (our favorite Anime company) upcoming release of Magi to the store site: 

Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic DVD Set #1 - Jan 14
Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic DVD Set #2 - Mar 18

There is going to be a BD version of it as well, but it's overseas release will be strictly limited to the area around Dejima in Nagasaki and will only be sold to the the Dutch. Everyone else will have to be happy with the $80 DVD sets.

In new license announcements, Sentai announced this week that they have picked up several new shows including Beyond the Boundary, the third season of Phi Brain, Outbreak Company, and the 2 episode OVA Time Bokan: Royal Revival. All will be released in 2014. 

And finally, I wanted to pass on a little amusing tid-bit of customer service fun that we handle. Almost on a daily basis, we will get the following e-mail from a fan overseas who is just checking us out for the first time:

"Hi! I'm [well intentioned foreign devil], and I was wondering do you ship to [my excellent country which is not the United States], and if so, how much does it cost?" 

A classic example of 'the answer is bigger than the question'. Obviously it will depend on a few keys things - like what, how, where, and several other factors, but I know - in the age of the iPhone everything should be as simple, right?  HEH - not hardly. Anyway, for the curious, we do have a little primer in the FAQ that at least explains what the factors are influencing the shipping costs for overseas parcels (like why small orders can be expensive to ship - especially if the items are large in size).

To get an exact price though, we really need you to setup an order first. :-)