April Showers Bring…
May 1, 2008 | News | Aria
Snow, apparently.
I’m sure you’ve heard the news by now, but Aria has been licensed for North American release. For some reason, I’m not surprised. Right Stuf has gotten into the habit of licensing a lot of my favorite shows.
What’s interesting, however, is that the distributor held off on making their licensing announcement until a month after the show’s final season finished airing in Japan. I can’t help but wonder if they’re acknowledging the fact that many, if not most, of their buyers have been following the series in fansub format over the years, and would have been disappointed in a licensing announcement immediately prior to the series actually ending. It could just be a coincidence, of course, but the timing sure is suspicious.
Anyway, Aria is one of those rare shows that I’m always in the mood to watch an episode (or sixteen) of, so you can bet I’m looking forward to owning it on DVD. And I know I’m not alone. There’s an Aria fan born every minute, after all.
This is a very good news. I hope they do a very good job with dubbing, for I need dubbed dvds for my son.
A little bad news, then, Maglor… the release will be subtitle only.
I started my pre-literate five-year-old on subtitled anime (at one point he argued for being able to watch more sub-titled anime as “reading practice”, though we didn’t quite believe he was being completely honest about his motivation, though I concede I was using it as a prod to encourage him in his reading). He did do dubs some, but preferred the subs (the rest of the family’s sub-snobbery rubbed off on him).
He’s fifteen now. His Japanese is very good (straight As in Japanese at a local college, at any rate).
I don’t know, about the timing, Jeff — they held off for a month, but we’re still a couple of episodes away from having all the fansubs.
Yeah, the subs just got to 10 yesterday, but the major one (only one that I know of still subbing) has dropped it due to licensing. Unless someone else picks it up, anyone watching subs will be waiting for DVD release.
:D
Here’s to a good quality ARIA DVD release.
For some reason, I didn’t want to check this series out until a few months ago and I beat myself up for all the time I’ve wasted. I guess it’s a good thing it’s licensed because I can get me some official wall scrolls even though I have no space.
I originally addressed that point in my post, dm, but edited it out at the last minute. The way I see it, if they had planned on a May 1 announcement all along, it would have been reasonable to assume the fansub release would have been done by that point.
(I’m just speculating, of course… chances are, there’s nothing special about the timing of the announcement)
True — I just noticed that the gap between episodes nine and ten was about six weeks.
Happy news. I wonder how many pre-orders they got in the first twenty minutes. RightStuf sure knows how to separate me from my money.
This needs to be in HD. NOW.
Anyway… sorry for double posting… but…
you know what they should do? Make another series from about this city, but from a different profession’s point of view. For example, the mailman, the Salamander coordinators, or whatever Woody does. It’ll be really interesting. And they can have the undine girls as sub characters, so it’ll be from a different POV.
AoD people say that if it sells ridiculously well, there may be a dub eventually coming, a-la Gurren-Lagann.
“Happy news. I wonder how many pre-orders they got in the first twenty minutes. RightStuf sure knows how to separate me from my money.”
Indeed. I waited for about two hours so traffic could die down for a bit before preordering. I think you already know how happy I am for this license. :P
I think I got the whole April Showers thing now, since the announcement was on May 1.
Or maybe because the Mayflower was a shipboat?
I want to say something about reading subs at a young age but I don’t know what I can say. For an anecdote, I had probably a good 100-200 word reading vocabulary at the age of 6, before I entered first grade. I’m not sure how it compared to the average American kid speaking English (as I wasn’t) but some kids do learn well starting early.
On a flight back from California last week, a woman in the row behind me was reading a story to her son in Spanish. Both of them struck me as native English speakers (they spoke English otherwise), and the little boy was probably four or five years old at best. That’s some good parenting.
She also did a good job keeping him happy and distracted during the ridiculously bumpy approach and landing. I’m used to hairy landings, flying in and out of Denver and all, but that one made me glad I had eaten a light lunch. Ugh.
Oh, and on the Right Stuf’s hints… I’m starting to think that they don’t have much to do with the actual titles being licensed. When the “April Showers” hint was first revealed way back when, I don’t think it was made public that there would be an announcement on May 1. So, it was probably just a hint as to the timing.
I also don’t think guessing these licenses is all that difficult if you consider Right Stuf’s “niche” and the fact there’s only a handful of popular, unlicensed shows in that niche. That’s why neither the Marimite or Aria licenses have surprised me all that much. Right now, I’ve got my fingers crossed for a Mahoraba announcement. And I’m intrigued by the mention of Sketchbook Full Colors in the Aria promotional material…
At least you can find it licenced. Its hard to find licenced anime shows for Latin American release (with latin subs or dubs).
BTW - Have a nice labor day. ^_^
Their hints could be anything. “And if this last thing goes through, everyone will cheer. Hopefully my hard work will pay off,” seems like it could even be a Geneon title rescue. I don’t know if all the rumors hold any merit though.
I would like to see a Nodame Cantabile license from Right Stuf, although they did Piano already. Mahoraba would be nice too.
I gave up on Mahoraba and started getting R2s for it. There’s just no way, after all these years.
Well, if your luck is anything like mine, Pete, it’s guaranteed to be licensed now. Anyone want to buy some Kiminozo R2s?
Looking at Nozomi’s full catalog, it’s a little hard to detect a trend, though that’s made noisy by all the pre-Nozomi licenses that have been grandfathered in.
It is true that while asking “What fits into their recent pattern?” probably wouldn’t get you The Third, Aria would be on the short list of possibilties.
Maybe, maybe, a YKK license someday? Please?
Oh, God yes, YKK! Please!
YKK request thirded, as it could be considered as a standard barer for anime and manga like ARIA. :P
Oh lord. I will definitely purchase this. The author deserves my money.
I recent got into Aria and I like it. Still probably won’t buy the DVDs though since paying money for anime is a waste of money no matter how good a show it.
… 13 episodes isn’t worth $32? Really? (Yes, ARIA box 1 is $32 after a coupon code, and you save even more if you’re part of TRSI’s Got Anime program.)
Aside from that ridiculous statement immediately above, I’m glad people here are talking sense. The amount of whining on my own forums is just aggravating.
I see more evidence of them licensing the rest of Aria, than not. They do say they have licensed “ARIA,” not “Aria the Animation.”
@Koji Oe: If anime isn’t worth your money, then why do you bother wasting your time on something that doesn’t even matter to you?
Newbfy@ Because I like anime but I don’t want to waste money on it because I’m poor? I’d rather spend money on something I can’t download like figures and pillow cases anyway.
Great news :D
Time to save some money :)
I’m a softy. Reading the speculations the morning of May 1 actually brought tears of happiness. It seems silly to have this reaction to a cartoon, but… well, Akari and her friends have worked their way into my heart, like old friends. All this was brought home with full force watching the last few episodes.
Gosh, it must have been really something to have followed the manga from the beginning, and then to read those final chapters, which were published just before the corresponding episodes aired.
Great ending to an amasian series. Definitely purchasing dvds
So… how well does this have to sell before we see a Blu-Ray?
The first two seasons obviously weren’t animated in HD… I don’t know about the final season. Either way, I suspect the likelihood of ever seeing a Blu-ray release for the final season is extremely low.
ARIA The ORIGINATION, despite being aired as HD, was simply an upscale - the “stairstepping” distortion of diagonal lines is a telltale sign. The source material is fit for an anamorphic DVD release, but not much more.