K-ON! Dub Cast Announced

More news about Bandai’s upcoming K-ON! release! They’ve announced that the show’s English language dub will be handled by Bang Zoom! Entertainment, the studio responsible for dubbing both The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya and Lucky Star. The role of Yui will be played by the prolific Stephanie Sheh, who played Mikuru in Haruhi and Akira in Lucky Star. Mio will be voiced by Cristina Vee, most famous for her fandubs of various anime songs on YouTube. Here is her rendition of Super Driver:

I must say, I’m a bit conflicted about these choices. Stephanie Sheh is an experienced voice actress, but her take on Mikuru was too high and squeaky for my liking. On the other hand, she did a GREAT job as Akira, so I honestly have no idea whether she’ll be good as Yui. As for Cristina Vee… she has an awesome singing voice, but little anime voice-acting experience. Is she really up to the challenge of playing Mio, K-ON!’s most popular character? Also, does this mean she’ll be dubbing K-ON!’s music into English?

More importantly, who will they get to dub Ritsu?

Yen Press Licenses Haruhi-chan Manga

Right on the heels of Bandai’s Haruhi-chan anime license announcement, Yen Press has revealed (via an unlisted YouTube video featuring the ASOS brigade) that they will be releasing the Haruhi-chan manga starting on October 26th.

Yen Press is also planning to release the K-ON! manga this winter. Don’t forget, you can watch all the Haruhi series for free on Crunchyroll, as well as win a special Haruhi virtual badge.

Bandai licenses Haruhi-chan and Churuya-san

Christina Vee and the ASOS Brigade have just announced a new Haruhi license by Bandai.

Wow, the acting in that was worse than usual. Could you tell they were reading from cue cards?

Anyhoo, it seems we’ll be getting Haruhi-chan and Churuya-san on DVD starting this summer, complete with a Bang Zoom dub using the same voice actors as the main Haruhi series. Of course, if you can’t wait that long for your next hit of Haruhi, you can always head on over to Crunchyroll and watch both shows for free.

[Via ANN]

Crunchyroll Licenses EVERY Haruhi Series

Crunchyroll, the subscription-based anime streaming site, just announced that they’ve acquired the online streaming and digital distribution rights to all of the Haruhi series. This includes The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya seasons 1 and 2, as well as the webseries Melancholy of Haruhi-chan Suzumiya and Nyoron Churuya-san. It does NOT, however, include the Disappearance film. These shows will soon be available for free to everybody in America, the British Isles, Scandanavia and the Middle East (but not Australia). However, in order to see the ad-free HD-quality streams, you have to subscribe to their Anime Membership service for $6.95 a month. Personally, I don’t think subscribing is worth it. Although I admire what Crunchyroll is trying to do, I’m also frustrated by the crappy quality of their video streams. For example, when I tried to watch Heroman, the HD stream looked so bad that the show was nigh-unwatchable. I think I’ll stick with my trusty Haruhi DVDs for the time being.

Are You Excited About the Disappearance Movie?

KyoAni obviously expected the announcement of their Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya film to generate lots of excitement and anticipation. However, the response thus far from the fan community has been underwhelming. Many fans have expressed concerns that the Disappearance arc is far too lengthy for a feature-length production. Other are merely apathetic towards Haruhi in general since the Endless Eight fiasco. However, there are also fans who are cautiously optimistic; they believe that KyoAni learned their lesson, and will produce a quality motion picture that does Haruhi justice.

So what do you think? Are you excited about the Disappearance movie? Let us know in the poll below, and join the discussion on our forums!

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