The official Code Geass website now has an announcement about the leak of six minutes of Code Geass R2’s third episode. They claim that the leak was NOT from a Sunrise employee but an accident from when they were testing an online broadcasting service– the Bandai Channel. (Which makes rumors of an arrest a little…odd. Cover up or mistake?)

Anyway, they apologize for all the confusion and difficulty (and delay of legitimate online airing, which they’re hoping will cut down on the illegal downloading). And the most important info: the third episode will air on April 20th as planned.

Word on the streets (and/or Random Curiosity) is that the final six minutes of the third episode of Code Geass R2 (set to air on April 20th) has been leaked to the internet by a staff member, who was subsequently arrested.

Now rumors are floating about that the episode might not air on the 20th after all, or that some of it might even be remade. I am officially reloading Sunrise’s official website regularly waiting for an official announcement of some kind.

Odex: Some of you may remember a (longish) while back that Odex’s attempt to sue PacNet for the right to get user information to go along with the IP addresses of anime downloaders was stalled when a judge determined that Odex, being a licensor instead of a copyright owner, could not sue. Odex then added six Japanese companies (Gonzo, Kadokawa, Showgate, Sunrise, TV Tokyo, and Yomiuri) to the suit and PacNet has now agreed to give up the names. Odex continues to be reviled, and PacNet and Justice Woo Bih Li are no longer heroes of the anime community. If Odex sues all the downloaders and gets money from them, they could be up $9 million. Blech.
Source: TorrentFreak

ADV: ANN has an update on ADV’s title removal, including MORE titles that have been removed from the website. They also stumbled upon what was supposed to be an unpublished article on ICv2 (thanks, Google) that talked of financial problems between ADV and ARM Corp., a subsidiary of Japan Contents Investment (JCI), which has also invested in ADV. The article, according to ICv2 CEO Milton Griepp, is not correct as it’s currently written, though it’s possible that ADV’s issues will turn out to be related– which is, of course, something no one knows for sure just now. ADV has still not commented officially, but ANN also notes that various anime retailers say they have NOT received any cancellation notices for these titles from ADV.
Source: ANN

Bandai Visual USA: Those prices are still crazy. Just thought I’d let you know.

Current Mood:  Disappointed

I reported on aO yesterday that a magazine had reported that Code Geass’s second season would be airing starting in October. Now, even then I - and my source, Heisei Democracy, and their source, Random Curiosity - noted that it should be taken as a rumor.

And it looks like we were right to be skeptical: Sunrise has posted on its official website that the magazine made a mistake, and the actual start date has not been announced yet - but that it will be coming soon. I think technically this means that it COULD still be starting in October, or at least this fall, but it’s been my experience that if something’s true, a company’s not going to come out and call it a mistake, even if it wasn’t supposed to be announced yet.

So, we’ll see. I, for one, am crossing my fingers that this means it’ll be coming out in September instead. ♥