News
Hanabee Announces Unlimited Blade Works and Chaika - The Coffin Princess Avenging Battle
posted on by Jon Hayward
The news was revealed during Hanabee's weekly HanabeeLIVE stream.
Fate/Stay Night: Unlimited Blade Works will begin streaming from Sunday the 12th of October at 2am AEST. Cam mentioned during the stream that home video release on DVD and Blu-ray is "roughly" scheduled for the end of 2015. If you can't wait, ANN has compiled it's collected thoughts on Unlimited Blade Works' first episode right here.
Chaika - The Coffin Princess Avenging Battle will premiere at some stage in October, however a start date has yet to be confirmed.
Hanabee will stream both series on hanabee.com.au in Australia & New Zealand.
You can read more about Hanabee's two new acquisitions below;
©TYPE-MOON・ufotable・FSNPC
Fate/Stay Night: Unlimited Blade Works
Every few decades a group of mages duel through the use of summoned servants for the right to claim and make a wish on the holy grail. Rin Tohsaka is a member of one of the houses of mages that compete for the grail and she is determined to win in memory of her Father, however her plan starts to come apart when the summoned servant, Archer, isn't quite what Rin expected.
Unlimited Blade Works is based on the original Fate/Stay Night visual novel's "Unlimited Blade Works" story path. Kinoko Nasu created the concept for Fate/stay night as a story in college, however he set aside the project to found Type-Moon as a doujin soft circle with friend and artist Takashi Takeuchi. After the success of their adult dōjin visual novel, Tsukihime (in all of it's associated forms) Type-Moon was incorporated as a commercial entity and Nasu and Takeuchi decided that Fate/stay night would be the company's first commercial product. Dengeki Online published a interview in 2006 with Takeuchi and Nasu that goes further into Type-Moon's history, if you're interested you can read a English translation on Comipress.
The new series had a unusual premiere, with worldwide premiere screenings held in Japan's Tokyo, Osaka, and Tokushima prefecture, Los Angeles, California in the United States, Paris, France, Nuremberg, Germany, and Seoul, South Korea on the 28th of September 2014. The series premiered on Japanese TV on the 4th of October and will run for two cours (quarters) with the second cour to premiere in April 2015. This series is produced by ufotable and directed by Takahiro Miura (Fate/Zero) with art director Koji Eto (Steins;Gate, Fate/Zero, Captain Earth). The character designs for the series are being adapted by Tomonori Sudou (Coyote Ragtime Show), Hisayuki Tabata (Yuyushiki) and Atsushi Ikariya (The Devil is a Part-Timer!) and Hideyuki Fukasawa (Vividred Operation) is composing the music. Mashiro Ayano performs the opening theme "ideal white" while musical group Kalafina is performing the ending "believe."
Crunchyroll and Hulu are streaming the series in English speaking territories.
Studio DEEN previously animated the original Fate/stay night anime series in 2006 and followed with the Fate/stay night: Unlimited Blade Works film in 2010 which covered the same story route as this TV series. In North America, Funimation originally released the anime series in 2009 and later Sentai Filmworks released both the anime series and the film. In Australia, Madman Entertainment released the complete anime series on DVD in 2008 then in March 2013 they released the Unlimited Blade Works film.
Studio ufotable previously animated the Fate/Zero prequel anime series that was based on Gen Urobuchi and Type-Moon's novel. Madman acquired Fate/Zero and streamed the series from August 2013 on the Madman Screening Room and later released on DVD and Blu-ray from February 2014.
Fate/Stay night has been adapted into a manga series by Datto Nishiwaki, multiple light-novels and video games and even a magical girl alternate universe manga, Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya. That particular manga series has also been adapted into a anime series with an additional two series, Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya 2wei! and Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya 2wei Herz!. Hanabee has licensed both Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya and Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya 2wei! with the former due to hit DVD and Blu-ray in December and the latter has been streamed on hanabee.com.au.
And finally, in July of this year an anime adaptation of Fate/Stay night's "Heaven's Feel" route was green-lit and will also be produced by ufotable.
Chaika - The Coffin Princess Avenging Battle
Toru Acura is a 20-year-old retired soldier meandering through life now that the war has ended. He encounters Chaika Trabant, a 14-year-old sorceress carrying a coffin and follows her in hopes of finding meaning to his life again. The two travel with Toru's adopted sister, Akari, the employed member of the group and thus Toru's source of income. Chaika's goal is simple, hunt down the remains of the deposed emperor, each a powerful magical artifact in it's own right. However when girls who look just like Chaika appear before the trio, each claiming to be Chaika and sharing the same goal the question has to be asked, just who is Chaika?
The series adapts Ichiro Sakaki's Hitsugi no Chaika fantasy light novels. Sakaki launched the light novel series with illustrations by Namaniku ATK (Nitroplus) in 2010 and Fujimi Shobo published the eighth volume in January 2014. Shinta Sakayama began drawing a manga adaptation in Kadokawa Shoten's Monthly Shōnen Ace magazine in 2011 and Kanikama started a four-panel comic adaptation in Kadokawa Shoten's 4-Koma Nano Ace in 2011.
Soichi Masui (Scrapped Princess) is returning to direct the anime at Bones with series composition by Touko Machida (Tears to Tiara). Nobuhiro Arai (Honey and Clover key animation) will design the characters for the series, while Seikou Nagaoka (Pretty Rhythm Aurora Dream) is composing the soundtrack. The voice actress unit coffin princess comprising of Anzai, Yui Makino, and Saeko Zōgō will return to perform the ending theme song, "Watashi wa Omae no Naka ni Iru" (I Am Inside of You). The series premieres in Japan on Tokyo MX today (October 8th 2014).
The first season of Chaika The Coffin Princess was part of Hanabee's launch titles for their video on demand service in June and you can still watch the series on Hanabee.com.au. And Crunchyroll are streaming the series almost anywhere a landmass with a internet connection exists.
