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Blu-ray Editions of K-ON! and The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya Cancelled (Updated)

Following a news story on the UK Anime website, reporting that the Blu-ray box-set edition of K-ON! has been cancelled, ANN contacted a representative of Manga UK, who confirmed the Blu-ray editions of both K-ON! and The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya have been cancelled. Additionally, Manga has cancelled its hoped-for plans for a Blu-ray box-set of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood.

The reasons for the cancellations were economic, according to the Manga rep, who said the costs of remastering and manufacturing the titles were prohibitive.

However, the Manga representative stressed that other planned Blu-ray titles that it is distributing, acquired by Viz Media Europe/Kaze, are still going ahead, and their release will be unaffected. These include Blu-ray editions of Mardock Scramble: The First Compression, Samurai Girls, the film Roujin Z, and the first three film spinoffs from Bleach (Bleach: Memories of Nobody, Bleach: The DiamondDust Rebellion and Bleach the Movie: Fade to Black).

The Manga rep acknowledged that U.K. anime fans would be disappointed by the news, and that it had been a hard decision for the company.

Update - Jerome Mazandarani of Manga UK has put a statement about the cancellations, and the reasons for them, here. He says, "I personally, fought to maintain these Blu-ray releases against stiff opposition from my superiors, but the commercial considerations of running a successful company overruled my objections about the damage to our brand's credibility should we not release these titles. In summary, I would say that while we have made a sensible commercial decision, we have created a situation that is alienating to a good deal many of you and I sincerely hope that over time we can make it up to you."