Japanese anime studio Production Reed opens Blu-ray doors

by Darren Murph posted Nov 14th 2008 at 3:57PM

Thanks to prohibitive licensing fees and all sorts of other ridiculous hurdles, the amount of anime studios making the leap to Blu remains incredibly small. Thankfully, Japanese studio Production Reed has ponied up the cash and courage to take the dive, officially opening up a Blu-ray website and announcing a few forthcoming titles for the format. The firm's first two offerings on BD will be Magical Princess Minky Momo and Dancougar: Super Beast Machine God box sets, with the first landing on January 23, 2009 and the latter arriving December 19, 2008. As much as we'd love to see this mark the beginning of a trend, we still have our doubts -- but then again, if BD adoption keeps heading up in Japan, we suppose anything could happen.

[Via ActiveAnime]

Filed under: Industry, Blu-ray

Tags: animation, anime, bd, blu-ray, blu-ray disc, Blu-rayDisc, cartoon, japan, japanese, Production Reed, ProductionReed

Subscribe to these comments

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Neutral

Tim Dunlap @ Nov 14th 2008 10:14PM

Heh, this was announced back in July and it's for Japan only with no English dub or subtitles to speak of on it. So why is it even news here? There's lots of anime coming out on BD in Japan. It's the US that needs the BD anime love. Funi has a bit and now Bandai is releasing Ghost in the Shell 2 Innocence coming up in January. But not much else is happening.

http://www.mania.com/aodvb/showthread.php?t=84276&highlight=dancougar

Neutral

Bert @ Nov 14th 2008 11:31PM

You guys also got the studio information wrong.

Production Reed is an old studio which was folded into Sunrise back in the 70's, and since Sunrise is a wholly owned subsidiary of Bandai Visual Japan, the above titles are being reissued on Blu-Ray for the enthusiast collector, which explains the high price for the first boxsets.

Blu-Ray adoption in Japan is also grater by a factor of four compared to the US since the major anime production houses get a break on fees for Blu-Ray production in order to spur sales to collectors.

Neutral

Black Bloke @ Nov 15th 2008 11:48PM

Just get Shinichiro Watanabe's stuff on Blu-ray and I'll be more interested.

Also Ghost in the Shell.

EA Sports MMA gameplay footage revealed during Strikeforce match Nintendo 'hasn't committed' to new Zelda for Wii in 2010 Xbox 360 port of 3D Dot Game Heroes 'possible'	HTML5 YouTube viewer: close, but not quite there Photoshop.com Mobile now available for Android devices Jailbroken iPhones in Australia getting Rickrolled by a worm
Brenthaven: The best computer backpack I've ever seen Is the Magic Mouse a dog? First look: Viewfinder supercharges Flickr search	Sunday Funnies: Barron's predicting profits? Entrepreneur's Journal: Putting together a solid sales contract Walmart, Amazon now slash DVD prices: What's next?
Reminder: Watch the first episode of Halo Legends today [update: It's gone] Homemade Fallout 3 Shishkebab, make 'em now before the apocalypse Gears of War 2 celebrates first anniversary with triple XP	High Speed, High Fashion: Izod secures deal as IndyCar title sponsor For an Imperfect World: The Official Rules of Shotgun NHTSA study indicates hybrids have higher pedestrian crash rates
BioWare's Neverwinter Nights downloadable modules no longer available PC Modern Warfare 2 can't be played until Tuesday, even if you get it early Sony Online faces lawsuit from visually impaired gamer	Patriots Taking Control in AFC East Mike Holmgren on Cleveland's Radar DeAngelo Hall Accuses Falcons Assistant Of Throwing Punches