…It just wasn’t actually announced at the con! FUNi as announced that they’ll be releasing Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles on Blu-Ray on September 2nd. But wait, there’s more!

Featuring the definitive catalog of extras to date, FUNimation and Harmony Gold have held nothing back as the Blu-Ray release will contain 20 minutes of new extra features along with all the extras previously released on the standard and collector’s editions, including a featurette about the award-winning film’s creation called “Birth of a Sequel: The Making of The Shadow Chronicles.” New features include additional never-before-seen deleted scenes with directors commentary, outtakes, animatics and more.

Question, folks: now that Blu-Ray has more or less won the HD war, do you think it’s worth posting about things that get brought to the format? The announcements don’t come quite often enough for me to just round them up into one post regularly, I don’t think, but I am planning to start end-of-the-day round-ups again. Would you rather see these announcements there?

Anime on DVD reports that Bandai Entertainment has acquired the rights to Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence, will be dubbing it with their usual GitS cast, and will release it on Blu-Ray as well as DVD. No date yet, but it sounds like it’ll probably be in ‘09.

ICv2 reports that ADV Films has officially selected Blu-Ray as their high-def format of choice, and that their newest titles will start showing up on BD as early as this spring.

You know, it occurred to me when I was reading the article…they talked about who all was putting out what shows on what formats, and they mentioned Sony’s Tekkonkinkreet and Paprika Blu-Ray releases. I wonder if Blood+ will come out on BD? Hmm.

Nipping on the heels of an announcement that a couple of classic Gundam flicks are being released on Sony’s Blu Ray, two other very popular anime movies have been announced for the next-gen format: Vision of Escaflowne and Cowboy Bebop: Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door.

The Gundam discs are out February 22nd; Escaflowne and Bebop are due January 25th.

Edit: Oops, I forgot my source, anime!anime!. Bad journalist! No cookie!

AoD reports that Bandai Visual Japan is releasing a Blu-Ray box set of Yukikaze that will feature the English dub and subs as well as the original Japanese track. Now, I can’t imagine why a significant number of Japanese people would be interested in an English dub (maybe just for the lulz?), so maybe BVJ is seeing if American fans will take the bait and import it to the US?

Just a quickie on something I missed - Anime on DVD noticed listings that seem to declare that FUNimation will put Dragon Ball Z on Blu-Ray. Seeing as they announced their allegiance to the format recently, not to mention the way they like printing money by offering new versions of DBZ, I am about as surprised as, uh, someone who really isn’t surprised. ♥