Anime Expo 2018: Industry Panel Rundown for Sunrise

By: ThunderheavyarmOnce again, I got the opportunity to cover the panel of new announcements for Mobile Suit Gundam series as well as some collaborative releases. Sadly, this year didn’t have a large hail to Glorious Zeon, but there was something definitely worth sticking around to see.The panel was hosted by Akane hagiho, Naohiro Ogata “The Gundam Guy” and producer for Gundam Origin Osamu Taniguchi.First, there is always the reminder of the 1:1 scale Unicorn Gundam outside of Diver City in Japan. The photos are incredible, but given the reaction of the audience members that had seen it, it must be an inspiring site. And as always, for those of you who are into Gunpla and find yourselves in Japan be sure to visit Gundam Base, the official Gunpla Store. But now for the non-Gundam announcements.

• Love Live Sunshine is now available for streaming on Funimation and Crunchyroll.
• Cowboy Bebop is having a 20^th Anniversary edition release, it will be available for pre-order on Funimation.com and comes with the full series as well as a bunch of goodies. But you’ll need to hurry as it’s only available until 7/12/18.
• Code Geass Lelouch of the Rebellion I- Initiation will be coming out soon, details will be announced on Funimation.com so be sure to keep an eye out when you’re streaming your anime.
• Double Decker is a new property coming out this fall on Crunchyroll. A story of a grizzled veteran and an enthusiastic rookie. The panelists compared it to Tiger and Bunny and said it was going to be an Action Comedy.

And with that out of the way, here are the announcements for Sunrise releases through Rightstuf:

• Gundam 00 is having a 10^th Anniversary release in both a regular and special edition that will be available through Rightstuf.com
• The first season of Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans is now available for purchase. Season 2 will be available on 8/2/18.
• A new Gunpla series is currently streaming on Crunchyroll as well as gundam.info. The series is called Gundam Build Divers.
• Mobile Suit Gundam The Origin Episode 6 Rise of the Red Comet is now available for streaming on Hulu and rightstuf. Continuing from episode 5 this episode centers around the battle of Loum. It’s available in both dubbed and subbed.
• While there’s no word if it will come to the US, there is a new Gundam movie being released this November in Japan called Gundam Narrative and takes place one year after the events of Unicorn.
• Finally, further projects in the Gundam universe will be focusing on events that happened from UC 97 – UC122. No word on anything besides the movie already mentioned are in the works for animation.
• For those of you that are into Gunpla, there is a new line of Gundam models available on gundam.info
• And there is a new game available on PS4 and will be coming to steam later this summer called New Gundam Breaker. A Gunpla game designed completely around customizing your Gundam and pitting it in combat. Work with various combinations in order to beat the game.

And our final piece, for those of you that follow us on twitter, you’re already aware of this. But for those that aren’t Sunrise at the end of the panel announced that they would be creating a live action Gundam movie. They have partnered with Bandai Namco as well as Legendary as their producers for the film. While we don’t have any information, and all parties are being tight lipped about a release date, there was still a lot of hype in the room for this movie. Even the Vice Executive of Productions for Legendary Cale Boyter was ecstatic to be a part of this project as he grew up with the original Gundam series when he was a child.That’s all for the rundown for Sunrise everyone. As mentioned before you can find everything that I talked about through their various online outlets for streaming and purchase. So until next time…GG, everyone!