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Section23 Films Adds Utakata, Taisho Baseball Girls (Updated)

posted on by Egan Loo
Also in November: 2nd Xam'd BD/DVD set, 1st GS Mikami DVD set, 2nd Hell Girl 3 DVD set

The North American anime distributor Section23 Films has announced that it will release the Utakata (Uta∽Kata) and Taishō Baseball Girls. (Taishō Yakyū Musume.) television anime series in November. Both anime were licensed through Sentai Filmworks. Utakata's first English-subtitled DVD collection will ship on November 2, and the complete English-subtitled DVD collection for Taishō Baseball Girls. will ship on November 16.

The 2004 Utakata anime reunited director Keiji Gotoh with his Kiddy Grade team in the creative group gímik. The story centers around Ichika Tachibana, a 14-year-old girl who discovers an old, busted mirror in an unused school building. A mysterious girl named Manatsu appears from inside the mirror and offers Ichika the magical powers of Djinn. However, as her powers grows, Ichika finds herself in the middle of a swirling web of deception and danger. Other Kiddy Grade veterans who worked on Utakata include the series script supervisor Hidefumi Kimura and character designer Megumi Kadonosono.

The 2009 Taishō Baseball Girls. anime adapted Atsushi Kagurazaka's two historical slice-of-life novels about two 14-year-old Japanese high school girls named Koume and Akiko who decide to start a baseball team in Japan in 1925. At the time, few baseball teams — male or female — exist in the country. First though, the two girls have no clue where to find nine players, how to use the equipment, and what even the rules are. Takashi Ikehata (Daphne in the Brilliant Blue, Genshiken, Potemayo) both directed and co-wrote the anime at the J.C. Staff studio. The other writers were Nobuhiko Tenkawa and Masahiko Shiraishi (D.I.C.E.). Kanetoshi Kamimoto (Burst Angel, Mushi-Uta) adapted the characters for animation based on Sadaji Koike's novel illustrations. Tokuma Shoten's Monthly Comic Ryū magazine launched the manga version by Shinpei Ito (Hyper Dolls, Moldiver, Cutie Honey aGoGo!) in July of 2008.

Section23 will also release the second Blu-ray Disc and DVD collections for Xam'd with English dubbing and subtitles on November 9. The first English-subtitled DVD collection for Ghost Sweeper Mikami and the second English-subtitled DVD collection for Hell Girl: Three Vessels will follow on November 23 and November 30, respectively.

Images © gímik, HAL/Bandai Visual
© Atsushi Kagurazaka/Tokuma Shoten/Tōhō Seika Sakurabana-Kai

Update: More production and story information added.

Update 2: Section23 Films has clarified with ANN that the DVD collection for Utakata contains the complete 12-episode television series and the original video anime spinoff.


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