Just when you thought Funimation was going to take a steamroller to the anime industry — wouldn't you know it? — other publishers began showing some strong signs of life, ensuring that I'll actually buy some non-Funimation DVDs in upcoming months.

While the past few years have seen many publishers fold, NIS America is unfazed. The company, more established in the U.S. as a video game publisher — its signature franchise being the “;Disgaea”; series of Japanese strategy role-playing games — recently announced it would release four series domestically: “;Toradora,”; “;Pandora Hearts,”; “;Persona: Trinity Soul”; and “;Our Home's Fox Deity.”;

The inaugural releases are promising enough; the “;Persona”; video game series has enough fans to pique interest in the anime adaptation, “;Pandora Hearts”; has the name recognition of its Yen Press-published manga counterpart, and “;Toradora”; has a bit of a cult following. NIS also plans to include collectibles with its anime, much like it does with its games.

Among more established companies, Bandai rolled out its plans for the second season of “;The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya”; — and once again, it's doing so via a series of clever “;Return of the ASOS Brigade”; videos being posted to YouTube and www.asosbrigade.com. The live-action cast in those videos might be different — voice actress Christina Vee replaces Patricia Ja Lee as Haruhi, for example — but the way information subtly leaks out through these videos remains.

Expect a complete-season box set when these DVDs are released. It's a fair deal considering how difficult it would be otherwise for U.S. fans to track the “;Endless Eight”; story arc, in which eight slightly tweaked but fundamentally similar episodes aired one after another on Japanese TV.

Media Blasters, meanwhile, garnered a bit of buzz last week as news spread of old and new releases. The warring-kingdoms fantasy “;Record of Lodoss War,”; last seen sinking into the abyss of the Central Park Media bankruptcy, has been resurrected with a new DVD release planned.

The new comes in the form of “;Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei,”; the anime adaptation of the quirky school comedy manga being released stateside by Del Rey. With only English subtitles planned for the release, it'll be interesting to see how the company handles the series' nonstop stream of humor that relies heavily on Japanese cultural references.

IN SUNDAY'S 'DRAWN & QUARTERED'

Ahh, February, the month where we celebrate love. What better way then to wrap up this month than to look back at a romance with a science-fiction spin that captured hearts in the early days of U.S. anime fandom? Join me in the Sunday Today section as I take you on a whirlwind tour of the “;Tenchi Muyo”; universe.

SUNDAY'S A FINE DAY FOR ANIME COLUMNS

And now, an announcement: This is the last “;Cel Shaded”; column you'll read on a Tuesday.

We're doing a bit of behind-the-scenes cleaning and sprucing up around the Today section. You'll see the first fruits of that labor on Monday, but the result of all this shuffling is that this column will be joining the Sunday Today lineup.

Enjoy “;Otaku Ohana”; online in the meantime. I hope to get a few posts up until the next edition of “;Cel Shaded”; on March 7.

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Jason S. Yadao is the author of Rough Guides' “;The Rough Guide to Manga,”; now available. For more anime and manga news and commentary, check out “;Otaku Ohana”; at blogs.starbulletin.com/otakuohana. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/jsyadao or e-mail him at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).