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Tezuka Anime Downloads Added to American iTunes Store (Updated)
posted on by Egan Loo
Tezuka Productions has announced that it has added or previewed three anime series, one anime feature, and eight anime shorts to the American iTunes Store for downloading on September 4. In the TV Shows category, the animation company has added the 1980 52-episode television version of Astro Boy, the 1993-2000 10-episode OVA version of Black Jack, and the 2004 13-episode television version of Phoenix. All are English-dubbed.
In the Movies category, Tezuka Production will be adding Jungle Emperor Leo: The Movie (known as Kimba the White Lion in the earlier television version's dubbing) and eight of founder Osamu Tezuka's experimental films in the Short Films subcategory: "Tales of a Street Corner," "Mermaid," "Broken Down Film," "Drop," "Pictures at an Exhibition," "Jumping," "Legend of the Forest," and "MURAMASA." Jungle Emperor Leo is dubbed into English, but the experimental films are not dubbed.
All of the anime listed above are not available on the Japanese version of the iTunes Store. The Japanese version currently just has anime songs, soundtracks, music videos, and opening and ending animation videos.
Update: The Nippon Keizai Shimbun paper has noted on September 5 that the same titles and more are available in Japan via Yahoo! Japan's streaming video service. Thanks, enjin2000.
