Vampire Hunter D Bloodlust and the Legend of Akira – Animerica October 1999

Pokemon is mentioned in Entertainment Weekly and the question asked is “Has anime arrived?” because Pokemon and Pikachu is being referenced frequently in mainstream press.

15 years ago an article “The Legacy of Akira” was written and the impacts are still seen today. Interesting note that Troma released “My Neighbor Totoro” in the ’90s–before Disney got hold of the Studio Ghibli films. Great article as always by Patrick Macias.

ADV was in production hell with Lady Death. There’s an article saying production would start in early 2000 with a tentative scheduled release for Halloween 2001. Lady Death actually released in July 2004.

On the same page was mention of the release of Martian Successor Nadesico on November 9th in subtitle and English dub VHS. Even though anime movies are starting to be released on DVD, American studios haven’t started to release all series on DVD.

Anime the time forgot for this issue: Variable Geo, City Hunter, Sailor Victory

One of my favorite anime movies, Vampire Hunter D – Bloodlust, makes it’s appearance. The one gripe I have about Urban Vision’s release of this movie was the lack of the Japanese audio, all you got was the English dub. It’s a fantastic dub, but I’ve always wanted to watch the Japanese version with subtitles.

Ad for Neil Gaiman’s Sandman “The Dream Hunters” illustrated by Yoshitaka Amano.

Next is an ad of Bandai Entertainment’s two best selling titles Cowboy Bebop and Outlaw Star. If you notice in the ad, Pioneer (later known as Geneon) distributed Bandai Entertainment’s titles. Pioneer also distributed Dragon Ball Z for FUNimation. That’s like Marvel releasing comic books from DC Comics and Image. Bandai Entertainment and FUNimation would later handle their own distribution.

This month’s theme for anime fan art is “Monday Night Football” Goofy fun as always.