| Two titles from Viz Communication, one animated and one in printed
form, will undergo some major changes in the next few months because of
market pressures and production oddities. Other fan favorites are still
going strong. Trish Ledoux and Toshifumi Yoshida of Viz had the information
at an A-Kon panel on Saturday. |
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| The dubbed Maison Ikkoku anime series will end, but the subtitled series
will continue, Ledoux and Yoshida said. Sales were not high enough of the
dubbed romantic comedy, the soundtrack for which had been produced in Canada.
"We fought hard to keep it going," said Yoshida. "Unless we sell the series
to the Lifetime channel or something, it will not continue." The two were
careful to note that there is still plenty of Maison Ikkoku anime in the
Viz pipeline, but it'll be released subbed, not dubbed, from now on. |
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| The Neon Genesis Evangelion manga also will go on hiatus for a while,
they said, not because of sales problems but because of production problems.
Viz creates the U.S. version of the Evangelion manga from Japanese, originals,
of course, and those originals will be slow in arriving while the Japanese
publisher prepares a compiled edition of the comics. |
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| Fans of Ranma 1/2 have no reason to worry. There are still dozens of
the 161 TV Ranma episodes to be released by Viz in the U.S. and the company
is only halfway through the Ranma manga series. "Sometimes I think I've
spent my entire life doing Ranma," Ledoux joked. Inu-Yasha, another Takahashi
Rumiko series, also is still coming as fast as Viz can release it, although
they're behind the Japanese release schedule - because Inu-Yasha is published
in a weekly manga compilation in Japan and monthly in the U.S. |
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