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Older and current
series grab spotlight

The big three conventions for announcements of anime and manga licensing acquisitions -- Anime Expo and the San Diego Comic Con in California, and Otakon in Maryland -- are all in the books, which means it's time to take a look at what will be winging its way across the Pacific in coming months.

It was a good summer for fans of older series, as ADV announced picking up rights to the original "Macross" series. At Otakon, Central Park Media announced that it had the rights to the original 1960s "Astro Boy" series as well as "Kimba the White Lion," and was also working on a special boxed collection of the 1980s giant robot series "Armored Trooper Votoms."

Things were rather quiet on the newer series front, though. Sure, Bandai announced "Mai-Hime," a show about teen girls and their powers to manipulate matter, and "Gundam Seed Destiny," the latest installment in the sprawling giant robot franchise; Viz grabbed the two-episode "Saikano: Another Love Song"; and Central Park Media picked up "Animation Runner Kuromi 2."

But many of the properties that seem to be gathering fans via Internet buzz and other means were absent. Among the no-shows: Ken "Love Hina" Akamatsu's "Negima," the CLAMP all-star drama "Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle" and the alien frog invasion comedy "Keroro Gunso" ("Sgt. Frog").

Whatever the case might have been, it appears that maintenance on current titles, rather than acquisition of new titles, was this year's theme.

And for those of you wondering how fellow staff enthusiast Wilma Jandoc and I did on our licensing wish lists, published in the June 26 "Drawn & Quartered" Sunday column, we each scored one apiece: Del Rey Manga picked up my desired "School Rumble," while Koch Vision will be bringing out 26 episodes of the old Nickelodeon cartoon "Adventures of the Little Prince," which Wilma had hoped for.