VEXILLE, HANA, and LOVE AND HONOR Coming To North America ...

Some surprising pick ups for Funimation Entertainment announced at this year's Comic Con, along with one great big one that should put a smile on people's faces. The surprising ones first ...

Funimation have picked up domestic rights to Kore-Eda's Hana and Yoji Yamada's Love and Honor. It's not that these are live action titles that makes the pick ups surprising, the company has maintained a strong live action line for a good while now, it's that both are very serious drama's from very serious directors who already have well established fan bases and business relationships these shores. Who'd have thunk that either of these two directors would have films being released by an outfit that specializes in anime here? Regardless, given Tartan's rather half hearted treatment of Yamada's first two entries in his samurai trilogy - those being The Twilight Samurai and Hidden Blade - I'm not at all upset to see this final entry going elsewhere where it will hopefully be treated better.

The other pick up of note is Sori's Vexille, the dazzling new feature from the producers of Appleseed that is about to have its North American premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival. Yes, a theatrical release is planned prior to the DVD release.

Thanks to Ryan for the pointer