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FUNimation does very well this week
- By Phyl Good
- Published 10/1/2008
- Anime and Manga
- Unrated
Phyl Good
View all articles by Phyl Good
This week, several of FUNimation's DVD releases have been nominated for the fifth annual TV DVD Awards, presented each year by Home Media Magazine in cooperation with DEG: Digital Entertainment Group and the Entertainment Merchants Association.
FUNimation's nominees in the Best International TV DVD category are Dragonball Z Season Five, Hell Girl Volume 5, and One Piece: Season 1 First Voyage. And this is where the "good company" comes in, because the other nominee in this category is BBC Video's Torchwood Season 1. Not too shabby!
In the category of Best Animated TV DVD, anime is also doing fairly well, as Anchor Bay's Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex 2nd GIG sits beside other nominees like Family Guy Presents: Blue Harvest, Futurama: The Beast With a Billion Backs, and Robot Chicken: Star Wars.
Fans can play a role in choosing the winners, by going through the form on the TV DVD Awards site. But you only have until October 3, so do it quickly. And the organizers don't want you just to vote for your favorite: vote for the DVD you really believe is put together the best. Factors the organizers suggest you should consider include special features, menus, ease of navigation, packaging, and sound and picture.
Winners will be announced on Tuesday, October 14, at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, during a gala evening that includes a cocktail reception and dinner.
And speaking of Hell Girl, the series has been launched on the American cable channel IFC as of September 30. It had already premiered on IFC's video-on-demand channel earlier in the year, but will now run on the regular linear cable channel. It will show at 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time on Tuesday nights.
Meanwhile, going from the sublime to perhaps the ridiculous, or at least fun -- one of FUNimation's newly-acquired characters, Monkey D. Luffy of the One Piece anime and manga, is now appearing on two official jerseys of players on the Pallavolo Modena team in the Italian Volleyball League. Apparently, the rules of the game allow a team to designate two players who can replace any of the back-row players during a match. However, these two players must wear different jerseys from the rest of their team-mates, to set them apart.
So Toei Animation, the creator of One Piece, is sponsoring the two jerseys for players Pietro Rinaldi and Edoardo Ciabattini. (You can have a gander at what the uniforms look like here.) This isn't a new idea for the Italian team, incidentally. In previous years the two special players have worn jerseys sponsored by Marvel: Spider Man and Iron Man. But this year it's Luffy's turn.
So between Torchwood and the Italian Volleyball League, FUNimation is keeping some pretty heady company lately.
FUNimation's nominees in the Best International TV DVD category are Dragonball Z Season Five, Hell Girl Volume 5, and One Piece: Season 1 First Voyage. And this is where the "good company" comes in, because the other nominee in this category is BBC Video's Torchwood Season 1. Not too shabby!
In the category of Best Animated TV DVD, anime is also doing fairly well, as Anchor Bay's Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex 2nd GIG sits beside other nominees like Family Guy Presents: Blue Harvest, Futurama: The Beast With a Billion Backs, and Robot Chicken: Star Wars.
Fans can play a role in choosing the winners, by going through the form on the TV DVD Awards site. But you only have until October 3, so do it quickly. And the organizers don't want you just to vote for your favorite: vote for the DVD you really believe is put together the best. Factors the organizers suggest you should consider include special features, menus, ease of navigation, packaging, and sound and picture.
Winners will be announced on Tuesday, October 14, at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, during a gala evening that includes a cocktail reception and dinner.
And speaking of Hell Girl, the series has been launched on the American cable channel IFC as of September 30. It had already premiered on IFC's video-on-demand channel earlier in the year, but will now run on the regular linear cable channel. It will show at 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time on Tuesday nights.
Meanwhile, going from the sublime to perhaps the ridiculous, or at least fun -- one of FUNimation's newly-acquired characters, Monkey D. Luffy of the One Piece anime and manga, is now appearing on two official jerseys of players on the Pallavolo Modena team in the Italian Volleyball League. Apparently, the rules of the game allow a team to designate two players who can replace any of the back-row players during a match. However, these two players must wear different jerseys from the rest of their team-mates, to set them apart.
So Toei Animation, the creator of One Piece, is sponsoring the two jerseys for players Pietro Rinaldi and Edoardo Ciabattini. (You can have a gander at what the uniforms look like here.) This isn't a new idea for the Italian team, incidentally. In previous years the two special players have worn jerseys sponsored by Marvel: Spider Man and Iron Man. But this year it's Luffy's turn.
So between Torchwood and the Italian Volleyball League, FUNimation is keeping some pretty heady company lately.