“Love Hina” Goes FUNimation

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Well, FUNimation does it again. FUNimation has gone out and picked up an anime title previously licensed by anther company (having previously done this with Slayers and One Piece). This time, they’ve scored the entire TV series for Love Hina to include the Christmas Special and Spring Special (no word on whether this includes the 3-episode OVA Love Hina Again or the 1-episode OVA that Bandai released on their Christmas Special DVD). Wow!

With this (assuming they have everything Bandai had previously licensed), FUNimation now has nearly every Akamatsu-sensei anime created or inspired including Itsudatte My Santa OVA, Negima!, and Negima!?. The only thing they lack is Earth Defender Mao-chan (when does ADV’s license expire anyway?).

My Thoughts About This

My initial reaction is to be excited by this. Love Hina was one of the early anime titles I watched and so I have an attachment to it. It is also the title who’s dub put me off English dubs forever. Having it in FUNimation’s tent would seem to be a good thing. Then I remember the hopes that were raised when FUNimation rescued Slayers, Slayers Next, and Slayers Try from CPM. FUNimation gave indications of making nice improvements but in the end, there will be no new dub and last word was no new subtitles either (though FUNimation did push back the release of Slayers a month, so I still cling to the wish that maybe we’ll still get updated subtitles). FUNimation has said nothing this time regarding their plans for Love Hina.

Personally, the series needs to be redone from scratch, both dub and subtitles. However, it would be cheaper for FUNimation to keep the dub (no matter how bad) and just give the hardcore fans updated subtitles. I hope at the very least, FUNimation will re-translate the subtitles and bring them up to FUNimation’s standards. If FUNimation can do this, I will be double-dipping for sure.

Update (31 July 2007):

It appears that FUNimation did not license Love Hina Again. I doubt they’ll tell me if they are going to attempt to license it (considering it was a later license on the part of Bandai, it might not be totally free yet) but I’m going to try to find out something as well as try to get word on the subtitle situation (which is most important to me).