FUNimation has acquired the English-language distribution rights for the film Vexille, the CG sci-fi flick by the makers of Appleseed, but that doesn’t mean they’re you’re only option. Twitch reports that you can buy the Hong Kong DVD (er, that is, the official Hong Kong release, not a cheap ripoff)– and it comes with English subtitles.

At least, I assume that it’s an official release, since otherwise YesAsia probably wouldn’t be selling it and Twitch wouldn’t be so surprised that it’s out in Hong Kong before it’s out in Japan. I could be wrong.

Well, one way or another, dub fans will still have to wait for FUNi, and of course you’ll have to have a region-free DVD player to play the Hong Kong DVD. But you earlybird sub fans with DVD drives on your computers can catch the worm, as it were.

First off, I guest-starred on Japanator’s podcast again this week, mostly talking about San Diego Comic-Con announcements, cowbells, and other goofiness. You can check it out here. I really need to learn to speak a little slower.

I actually spent most of the day cleaning (!), but there was a bit of news here and there:

The ADV panel (see liveblog thread) started out with just trailers, then talked about ADV manga a bit. They’ll be announcing some new licenses over the next few months, and they’ll also be collecting Azumanga Daioh into an omnibus edition which will come in a larger trim size, which is pretty groovy.

Jumping back to anime, ADV plans to start putting out much of its new anime in a monthly fashion, starting with Air TV.

Then they announced the film Appleseed EX Machina, which is pretty interesting giving FUNimation’s announcement of Vexille by the team behind the original Appleseed flick. They also plan on putting out a bundle of a bunch of their movies, and that’s pretty much it for ADV announcements.

Edit: Just to clarify, ADV is doing production work on Appleseed EX Machina, i.e. the dubbing - Warner Home Video still presumably has the rights.

All of FUNimation’s SDCC announcements (see liveblog thread) were movies this time around, and three of the four were live action.

But the biggest news for most anime fans is that they’ve licensed the upcoming film Vexille, the CG-animated film by the team that did the film of Shirow Masamune’s Appleseed. (Did you know that Paul Oakenfeld did the soundtrack for Vexille? ‘Cause I’m not sure I did.)

Also announced are two samurai flicks, Kaze Hana and Love and Honor, as well as the lavish $30 million Japan-Mongolia production of Genghis Khan.

Other than that, the only real news is that the second Cased Closed film will be out in winter, and the One Piece OP and ED have been dubbed. And now, I shall scoot off for Del Rey.