FUNimation Entertainment announced on October 20, 2008, that it has acquired the digital, broadcast, theatrical, DVD, and merchandising rights to Shikabane Hime: Aka (Corpse Princess). This 13-episode supernatural horror-action anime series is the creation of Gainax and Feel, with music by Starchild Records, a division of King Records Company.

The basic story involves a girl named Makina Hoshimura (the "corpse princess"), an undead girl who must hunt down other undead - 108 of them, to be exact - in order to find peace and attain heaven. She is helped in her quest by a secret society of monks.

The Shikabane Hime story began in 2005 as a manga, serialized in Square Enix's manga magazine, Monthly Shonen Gangan, between April of that year and September 2008. In July of 2008, the same magazine carried the announcement that there was to be an anime series based on the manga, and the anime began running on Japan's AT-X television on October 2, 2008.

So FUNimation's acquisition of the episodes is relatively speedy, given the usual time gap in the past between Japanese airing and North American viewing. As always, the main preoccupation of the distributor is how to prevent illegal file sharing, and the company hopes this development will help. As Gen Fukunaga, CEO of FUNimation, says, "In bringing this series to anime fans within days of its premiere we are not only offering unique content and increasing the awareness of the series but we are offering a legal online alternative to illegal file sharing."

FUNimation had already announced the streaming of episode one of this series when it laid out the upcoming week's YouTube schedule, so the news of the acquisition wasn't entirely a surprise. The company will also offer free streaming of the English-subtitled episodes starting on Friday, October 24, 2008, on Joost.com, Hulu.com, and its own site. The download-to-own option of $1.99 per episode will also be available through the FUNimation site.