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ADV Films to Distribute Princess Resurrection Anime (Updated)

The North American company A.D. Vision will be localizing and distributing the Princess Resurrection horror comedy anime for the licensing company Sentai Filmworks. The Madhouse anime studio adapted Yasunori Mitsunaga's manga about a boy named Hiro who comes to a decrepit mansion to meet his sister. However, his sister turns up missing, and Hiro loses his life during his search for her. The mistress of the mansion resurrects Hiro and reveals herself as Hime, a princess of the monster kingdom.

A.D. Vision's Amusement Park Media production arm will handle the anime's localization, while its corporate sibling ADV Films will handle distribution. The first of six volumes will ship on March 17, 2009. Before the home video release, A.D. Vision's Anime Network plans to run episodes on its cable video-on-demand service and stream a few English-subtitled episodes online. Sentai Filmworks has merchandising rights "on ad hoc basis," but no products are in the pipeline now. Del Rey will release the fifth volume of the original manga in North America next January, while Kodansha will release the eighth volume in Japan this month. The Japanese television network TBS is the licenser for both Princess Resurrection and Clannad, another recent Sentai Filmworks anime acquisition.

When ANN asked A.D. Vision CEO John Ledford about the title's appeal, he responded, "Well, the title's cool for one thing. I've got resurrection on my mind a lot these days! But seriously, TBS is a great partner to work with, and Princess Resurrection is a show with lots of action, cool characters, and let's face it — it's a cool plot."

Image © Yasunori Mitsunaga, Kodansha/Princess Resurrection Production Committee

Update: A.D. Vision will distribute all 26 episodes of the 2007 anime series, including the broadcasted side story episode and the second side story episode which was released only on DVD in Japan in February.