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Sentai Filmworks Adds Queen's Blade: Rebellion Anime
posted on by Crystalyn Hodgkins
North American anime licensor Sentai Filmworks announced on Tuesday that it has licensed the Queen's Blade: Rebellion anime. The company noted it will release the anime "through select digital outlets soon" and then will release the series on home video. The company did not specify if it had licensed both the Queen's Blade: Rebellion television anime series and the Queen's Blade Rebellion Premium Visual Book original anime DVD that was bundled with a book of the same name in January.
The main story is set four years after the first Queen's Blade anime's storyline. Annelotte, who is played by voice actress Aya Endō, leads the army that stands up to the tyranny of the new queen.
The story originated in Hobby Japan's Queen's Blade fantasy game book franchise, which are Japanese spinoffs from Flying Buffalo's Lost Worlds game series. (In these games, players simulate turn-based fighting with books that each represent a character.) The Queen's Blade books also inspired the previous two television anime series and several original video anime volumes. The Rebellion storyline in particular already spawned two prologue original video anime DVDs that were bundled with the Queen's Blade Premium Visual Books.
A new director, Yousei Morino (I''s, Kakyūsei 2), is helming the third series at the studio ARMS, but Hideki Shirone is returning from Queen's Blade Utsukushiki Tōshi-tachi. Animation directors Takayuki Noguchi and Yukiko Ishibashi now join Rin-Sin on the character design duties. The anime premiered in Japan on April 3. Crunchyroll is streaming the series in various countries outside of Japan as it airs.
The North American anime distributor Media Blasters, when asked in March if it would "be getting and dubbing the rest of Queen's Blade" such as the Queen's Blade: Rebellion original video anime and television series, the company had replied then that "we will db all of QB."
Update: Background information added.
Image ©2012 Hobby Japan/QUEEN'S BLADE REBELLION PARTNERS
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