Manga Entertainment May 2014 MCM London Comic Con news round-up

Saturday afternoon of May's MCM London Comic Con saw distributor Manga Entertainment hold their now-traditional panel - so what did they have to show off?

The panel started with a trailer showing off Attack on Titan's English dub, part one of which is released on DVD and Blu-Ray on September 15th, of course.  The collector's edition will contain a DVD with 104 minutes of extras, including a "Making of" feature for the series.

The distributor also gave us a sneak preview of the Ghost in the Shell Blu-Ray Steelbook (which is looking good, incidentally), which will be released on September 29th.  Manga Entertainment hold worldwide rights to the film (outside of Japan), so will also be releasing this edition in the US, Canada and Australia.  Prior to the UK release, there will also be a number of screenings across Picturehouse cinemas around the country.

Also confirmed was a release date for The Devil is a Part-Timer, which will be arriving by October 27th 2014.

One brand new license announcement is that the company have licensed The Princess and the Pilot, which will be released in a subtitle-only form - more details will follow.

The company also had plenty of One Piece news to talk about, confirming the release of its first nine films as three film DVD triple packs, but with the eighth movie also released as a standalone film on both DVD and Blu-Ray with both English and Japanese language options.  Alongside that, the distributor has also licensed more of the TV series, taking the UK through to Collection 12.  The company are also talking to Toei about One Piece Film Z, but have nothing to report at this time.

Continuing down the shounen track, the distributor have announced that they have acquired Naruto Shippuden Movie 5 - The Blood Prison on DVD and Blu-Ray by December 22nd.

The final two Hellsing Ultimate OVAs (parts IX and X) should be released early in 2015 after the company receive masters from FUNimation, hopefully in October.

Also confirmed are release plans for the third Berserk movie, which is currently slated for an uncut UK release on DVD and Blu-Ray on October 6th.

Questions from the audience included discussion of shows that the company would be interested in licensing - Jerome cited Knights of Sidonia, Terraformers, Sword Art Online II and Black Butler's new series amongst them.  Also noted were Captain Earth and Gatchaman Crowds (the latter of which Jerome has been involved in talks with Tatsunoko Productions regarding), as well as Jojo's Bizarre Adventure (Jerome has been talking to Warner Bros Japan) and the BlazBlue anime.

Evangelion 3.0: You Can (Not) Redo has been confirmed of further delays to its western release for reasons outside of the distributor's control.

What are you looking forward to from this bundle of news?  Let us know!