Jamie Marchi News

The Anarchy Sisters do more than just curse in English now, but why no Blu-ray?!

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Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt (2010)

The raunchy, western influenced GAINAX anime Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt tore through the anime scene in late 2010 and took everyone by surprise. It was simulcast on Crunchyroll, but was taken down after FUNimation Entertainment obtained the licensing rights. They would eventually host the thirteen episode comedy series to their FUNi Elite members only, and it left many of us P&S fans dying to know when we'd get a US release and Dub cast. Well, turns out that's today.

It was on Saturday 28 at Anime Central that FUNimation at their Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt Focus Panel they finally revealed their US dub cast to take on the role of the fallen angels and assorted others. The release date is for July 10th 2012. Sure to be a smoking hot summer release. Panty will be played by Jamie Marchi (who has voiced Charlotte E. Yeager and Liz Thompson) and Stocking will be done by Monica Rial (who has voiced May Chang and Tashigi). Full Cast listing can be found HERE

Hold up! Maybe we'll just have to wait for Blu-ray.

The most surprising part of this news is that on FUNimation's own news page about their releases through July lists Panty & Stocking being on DVD only. The Japanese production was distributed in both DVD and BD. Oddly enough, other FUNi released for Shiki, Dragon Age The Movie, and Ouran High School Host Club are offering Blu-ray. Back at Anime Boston, FUNimation had promised the audience a DVD/BD release, but that was all changed when Kadokawa Pictures began restricting the international licensors of many series to drop all Blu-ray releases for this calendar year. Their reasoning behind the decision is unknown and has caused some fans to cancel their original pre-orders for series that they were originally promised for Blu-ray.

Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt BD Volume 1 JPN (Dec 2010)

Now, this doesn't mean there will never be a Blu-ray release outside of Japan. Kadokawa has just not yet allowed licensors to release Blu-ray. So far, we know it just wont be happening this year. Kadokawa's latest mandate seems foolhardy when you consider that the U.S. audience has been slowly favoring Blu-ray over DVD in the past few years. It just seems to be in our nature that we want our products to be of the highest possible quality available to us. You really have to wonder what got into Kadokawa's head that they wouldn't want to offer a product that people are begging to buy from you. I was personally very excited for this, but I really think you could count me among those who would rather just wait for Blu-ray. How about the rest of you?

The entire series can now be pre-ordered on Amazon.com HEREfor $49.99 USD and Rightstuf.com HERE(Limited Edition) for $38.99 USD, but Amazon prices have known to drop on pre-orders as the release date nears. Paid Elite members of FUnimation's website can watch the entire series run on their website HERE

Sources: ANN HERE / FUNimation.com HERE& HERE/ AnimeNew.biz HERE

-Kristoffer Remmell ( FoxxFireArt) is a freelance graphic artist, writer, and over all mystery geek.- Follow for news updates: @ AnimeVicers/ @ FoxxFireArt