Funimation Acquires Druaga and Dragonaut

[Koby]

The North American anime distributor Funimation has announced at Katsucon on Saturday that it has acquired the Bamboo Blade, The Tower of Druaga: the Aegis of Uruk, The Tower of Druaga: the Sword of Uruk, Dragonaut - The Resonance, and Blassreiter television series. Bamboo Blade comes from the licensor D. Rights, while the other four projects come from GDH, the parent company of the Gonzo anime studio. Funimation will make still more announcements next week through its new official blog.

The Tower of Druaga: the Aegis of Uruk and The Tower of Druaga: the Sword of Uruk anime series are part of a multimedia remake of NAMCO's classic Tower of Druaga maze adventure game. Gonzo, its game developer sibling Gonzo Rosso, and director Koichi Chigira co-developed this fantasy story about a mysterious fortified tower fraught with peril, and a party of adventurers who seek the fabled Blue Crystal Rod treasure at the tower's highest floor. Gonzo made news last spring when it announced that it would stream the anime episodes worldwide within a day of their Japanese broadcast. At the end of the series in June, Gonzo revealed the sequel series, The Tower of Druaga: the Sword of Uruk. That second series has since premiered last month in Japan and is still airing. Funimation will ship the 25 episodes of both series in two sets in late 2009.

Manabu Ono directed the Dragonaut - The Resonance science-fiction anime anime series for Gonzo from October 2007 to March 2008. The story is set on Earth after the International Solarsystem Development Agency (ISDA) breeds dragons to fend off a potential asteroid threat. However, another threat emerges in the form of dragon-like creatures from space, and Jin Kamishina must face the new foe as a "Dragonaut" pilot. Funimation will begin shipping the 25-episode series in late 2009. There is an unaired 26th episode that was released on DVD in Japan, but Funimation has not announced plans for this extra.

[Citizenmanman]

Never heard of any of them before, but they sound good, I will be looking forward to getting my hands on them at some point.

[Koby]

Never heard of any of them before, but they sound good, I will be looking forward to getting my hands on them at some point.

Well I haven't seen Bamboo Blade and Blassreiter. However I have watched The Tower of Druaga: the Aegis of Uruk and Dragonaut - The Resonance. I'm still watching The Tower of Druaga: the Sword of Uruk as it is still airing in Japan and being subbed.

The Tower of Druaga series is pretty good, a bit of a comedy-parody / dungeon type anime. Overall I'd rate it about an 8/10.

Dragonaut - the Resonance was pretty good for a bit but went down hill pretty fast as the series went on. Still haven't seen the "special dvd only episode 26" however. Anyhow, overall it was still good enough that I would still recommend watching if you had the time to do so. I rated the series an 8/10 on MAL.

So all in all, I think FUNimation did a pretty good job in selecting to license those series. I'd like to see them license Hitman Reborn now. They have already licensed some other great shows such as Soul Eater and D.Gray-man which I am looking forward to being released in dub.