Anime Freebies and Sales

Three freebies and one (kind of) freebie this time around…First, the freebies:

The 2004 movie version of Air is being streamed by Animate.tv to commemorate the opening of the Clannad movie. The movie is split into three parts (part 1, part 2, part 3). Both Air and Clannad are co-productions of Key and Toei Animation.

Here is a brief plot summary from the ANN Encyclopedia:

“A long time ago, a winged maiden was held prisoner in a castle – cursed never to experience love, lest she die. Centuries later, in a sleepy coastal town, a young girl relives this agony.”

There are a couple of caveats. First, there is no sub or dub…the movie is in Japanese. Second, the sreaming requires Windows with recent versions of Internet Expolorer and Windows Media Player (for DRM).

ANN Story:
Air Movie Streamed for Free in Japanese

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On a related note, ADV is offering the first episode of Air (TV) for free until September 6 (mentioned by David in an earlier post). The movie was an alternate re-telling of the TV series. According to the ANN Encyclopedia, here is the plot of the TV series:

“Yukito Kunisaki is on a journey, seeking a girl with wings who flies in the sky, as mentioned in a childhood tale. During this journey, he settles down in a small town, trying to make some money. There, he meets a strange girl named Misuzu. Misuzu quickly makes Yukito her friend and invites him to stay with her. Yukito decides to stay in the small town, and continue searching for the winged girl his mother had searched for in her life.”

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FUNimation is streaming the first 4 episodes of Suzuka. Just go to their Suzuka page; click on Video; then, select the episode you want to watch. The story synopsis from Wikipedia:

“The story primarily follows the life of the teenager Yamato Akitsuki, who moved to Tokyo to change himself, and his main love interest Suzuka Asahina, who is a talented and highly scouted high jumper that lives in his aunt’s dormitory and attends his new high school.”

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At this year’s Comic Con in San Diego, AnimEigo gave away free Yawara preview DVDs which contained the first 4 episodes of the series. AnimEigo is now extending a version of this to everyone who was not able to attend Comic Con…look at the “August 9th, 2007: FREE Yawara Preview discs available on the website!” section of their website.

Here’s the (kind of ) free deal…if you order anything from their website, you can get the disc(s) (you can order up to 3 at a time) for no additional charge. If you want to order the preview disc(s) only, there will be a $5 shipping and handling. charge.

For those unfamiliar with the series, it is an adaptation of Naoki Urasawa’s manga, Yawara! which ran in Big Comic Spirits from 1986 to 1993. Here is a synopsis with some additional anime info from Wikipedia:

“The story is about Yawara Inokuma, a young girl who aspires to an ordinary life but who, due to her innate talent, is forced to keep practicing judo by her authoritarian grandfather, Jigorō Inokuma, with the aim of achieving championship in Japan and the gold medal in the Barcelona’s 1992 Olympic Games. Because of all the pressure from her grandfather, she has a generally bad attitude about judo, avoiding it as much as she can. However, as the manga continues, she begins to understand why her grandfather so loves judo, and she begins to appreciate it more.

In 1989, Yomiuri TV (part of the Nihon TV network) began broadcasting an anime adaptation, which ran from October 16, 1989 through September 21, 1992 for a total of 124 episodes. Each episode ended with a countdown to the number of days remaining to the start of the Barcelona Olympics.”

Real life sometimes mirrors fiction…at the 1992 Barcelona Games, which was the first time Women’s Judo was a medal event, Japan’s Ryoko Tamura won a silver medal. She promptly was nicknamed “Yawara-chan”.

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Now on to the sales…first, Haruhi says:

RightStuf!’s new sale is called “Bring on the Bargains!” and features products from Bandai Entertainment. You can take 40% off the retail price of DVDs and UMDs and 33% off the retail price of CDs. This includes pre-orders. The coupon code is BRINGON and the sale ends September 9, 2007 at 11:59 CDT.

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AnimeNation’s Funimation sale continues.

For a limited (but undetermined) time, you can save 40% on a select list of FUNimation titles…and if you’re lucky you could recieve a free babbit bag.

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Yes, they had a problem with selling a bootleg version of a Sailor Moon boxset, but if you believe that was an aberration, then you may be interested in this amazon.com sale. You can save up to 50% on select anime titles from the following categories…Action, Family-friendly, Horror & Sci-Fi, and Romance/Comedy.

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ADV Films is celebrating its 15th anniversary and part of its celebration is to offer a sale where a select list of DVDs (over 1000) are offered at $15. No end date is given.

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Barnes & Noble.com has a coupon for $10 off a $40 or more purchase. One caveat…you must use PayPal. The coupon code is D9U3D3W and it expires on September 4, 2007.