The London Expo was held over this past weekend. It is one of the biggest trade events for the UK anime industry and, as a result, is where many of the most exciting news stories are first broken to the public. Below are the new UK licenses announced by the likes of Manga Ent. and MVM, while the miscellaneous notes offer some interesting tidbits of information from the same companies.

Also, please note, this news post is sourced from a combination of convention reports, including EyeOnAnime, Fudce at AnimeOnDVD and UKAnime.net, all of which offer valuable information that is more than worth reading.

New UK anime licenses

Beez
• Gundam 00 (Season 1)
Manga Entertainment
• Afro Samurai: Resurrection
• Blue Dragon
• Ghost In The Shell 2.0
• Naruto Shippuuden
MVM
• Blade Of The Immortal
• Cutey Honey (live action)
• Desert Punk (a.k.a. Sunabōzu)
• Romeo X Juliet
• Samurai Deeper Kyo
• Slayers (inc. NEXT, TRY, REVOLUTION)
• Solty Rei

Misc notes

ADV notes

• Planning to re-release catalogue titles. Specifically, Get Backers will be collected and released over 2 box-sets.

Beez notes

• "Up market" box-set of Gundam Wing is being planned; sourced from new HD masters straight from Japan.
• Gurren Lagann UK DVD release should mimic US DVD specification i.e. "double volume" releases.

Manga Ent notes

• Blood+ is currently too expensive for a UK release.
• Manga Ent. anime will be appearing on iTunes and XBOX Live.
• Naruto Shippuuden is planned to debut on UK DVD in the summer of 2009.
• Origin: Spirits of the Past has sold well, especially at ASDA, while Naruto has, so far, sold a combined 120,000 DVDs in the UK.
• The recent Funimation licenses are not a part of any on-going distribution agreement between the two companies, rather, each title was licensed seperately.
• The UK DVD release of the Claymore anime will begin in January '09 across several 'single' DVD volumes i.e. the traditional method of releasing anime on DVD, as opposed to a box-set.

Revelation Films notes

• Reassured their customers that they intend to finish releasing all of the anime series they suddenly placed on hiatus earlier in 2008.