Spirited Away Release Date and Berserk

[The Man in Black]

First, it seems we have a release date for Spirited Away on DVD:
According to Anime on DVD, Right Stuf International CEO Shawne Kleckner has confirmed that Disney will release American DVD and VHS versions of Spirited Away, Kiki's Delivery Service and Castle in the Sky on April 17th.

Some also asked John is there was going to be any more Berserk made. Since I've been asked this a few times, I thought it would be nice to share his answer with you.

Is there ever going to be more episodes of Berserk? The ending was left kind of open and never said what happened to Guts, Griffith, or Caska. I heard there was talk of an OVA to complete the series, is this true?

The 25 episode Kenpu Denki Berserk animation aired on late night Japanese TV between October 7, 1997 and March 31, 1998. The series earned unusually high ratings for its timeslot- higher ratings than contemporary late night shows including Outlaw Star and Vampire Miyu, but was still a late night show with a very limited target audience and very limited commercial potential. The TV series ending, which has been steadily criticized by American fans for years, was extended the year after its initial broadcast with the release of the Japanese Dreamcast game "Kenpu Denki Berserk: Sennen Teikoku no Taka Hen Sousitubana no Shou," released in Japan on December 16, 1999. This Dreamcast game continued the TV series story, but still did not provide a resolution to Gutts' conflict with Griffith. (This video game was released in America on March 16, 2000 under the title "Sword of the Berserk.")

In April 2002, nearly four years after the Berserk animation had ended on Japanese television, Media Blasters announced at the Anime Central convention that Japanese production studio OLM was considering the possibility of producing more Berserk animation. At that time, it was hinted that new animation would have to be produced in an OAV format because the next chapter of the Berserk story was simply too violent for adaptation as television animation. Now, almost a year later, it can only be assumed that OLM has decided against progressing with new Berserk animation. In the nearly 5 years since the Berserk television series ended on Japanese television, there has never been a confirmed report that new Berserk animation was scheduled for production, and there has never even been widespread rumor in Japan of plans for more animation. While the Berserk manga has been a consistent bestseller in Japanese bookstores, the animation was simply never successful enough in Japan to insure a second series. There's always a possibility that strong demand from the American market may lead Media Blasters to encourage the production of more Berserk animation, but at the present time such a hope looks remote.

So, there you have it. After sitting through the ending to Berserk and being traumatized, it would be nice to see some sort of resolution. As for the video game, I've seen the cut scenes from it. It's comforting, but it doesn't answer anything. On the plus side, the music from the game is really good. *heh*

[randomguy]

Good news, although only one of those titles really excites me. Don't get me wrong, but I didn't like Spirited Away, and although it will be nice to see it on DVD, I've already got Kiki on VHS.

But Castle in the Sky has me psyched. Disney has been sitting on a finished dub for, what, five years now? It's about damn time they released that movie. Here's hoping the rumors of two disc sets are true.

And let's get Whisper of the Heart, Nausicaa, and Porco Rosso already! Geez, if any other anime distributor in the nation got ahold of the rights to these films, every one of them would be out by now. Disney's sitting on a gold mine.