Anime Limited Confirms Cancellation of Numerous Titles; Including Death Parade, Ninja Slayer & Chaos Dragon

With MCM London Comic Con fast approaching we usually get excited about the prospect of new title announcements, but unfortunately during the course of the weekend some disappointing, but rather expected, news arrived in the form of cancellations. That rights; a large portion of previously announced Anime Limited releases have been confirmed as cancelled.

Titles such as Buddy Complex, Chaos Dragon, Death Parade and even Project Itoh: Genocidal Organ have all been confirmed as cancelled; with the reason being that the license for these titles has expired. As a result of these ‘expired licenses’ Anime Limited will not be able to release them within the UK.

A list of titles affected by this announcement are as follows:

• Buddy Complex
• Chaos Dragon
• Dagashi Kashi
• Death Parade
• Dimension W
• Ninja Slayer From Animation
• Project Itoh: Genocidal Organ
• Riddle Story of Devil
• Rolling Girls
• Shomin Smaple
• Tenchi Muyo! GXP

List of titles previously announced but not mentioned & removed from store fronts:

• Shomin Sample

All of these titles have been released in North America by FUNimation as Blu-Ray and DVD Combo Packs, with majority of these titles (such as Chaos Dragon, Dimension W, Ninja Slayer, Rolling Girls and Shomin Sample) being released on DVD in Australia by Madman Entertainment.

The reason for cancellation is because Anime Limited no longer hold the distribution rights to release these shows within the UK; as confirmed on Social Media during the weekend.

Many suspect that Sony’s recent acquisition of FUNimation – who Anime Limited may (or would) have sub-licensed these shows from – may have some involvement with the decision to cancel these titles.  However it’s also possible that the license Anime Limited had for releasing these shows expired, as some of these titles were originally announced three years ago, and that they were not able to release the titles within the UK during the time they held the license (as licenses are usually short-term rather than long-term).

Naturally its all speculation; but what we do know is that these titles will not be heading to the UK via Anime Limited.

via: Twitter [1], [2], [3], UK Anime News