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NIS America Adds Katanagatari, Arakawa Under the Bridge

NIS America (NISA), the American subsidiary of the Nippon Ichi Software game company, announced this week that it acquired the rights to the television anime series Katanagatari and Arakawa Under the Bridge. Each series will be released in a Blu-ray Disc and DVD combination pack with English subtitles in July. The packs will include the same oversized chipboard boxes and hardcover art books common to other NISA releases.

Katanagatari is an anime adaptation of NisiOisin's 12-volume historical light novel series of the same name. The series revolves around Shichika Yasuri, the seventh generational head of the Kyoto-ryu school of martial arts in medieval Japan. He and his older sister Nanami live on an isolated island, until a military advisor named Togame tells him of the final 12 swords forged by a legendary swordsmith. At Togame's bidding, Shichika embarks on a journey to find all 12 of the swords. Although the series aired on television, it did not follow a traditional weekly broadcast schedule; 12 monthly episodes aired between January 25 and December 10, 2010.

In 2009, the television anime adaptation of Hikaru Nakamura's Arakawa Under the Bridge denpa-kei gag comedy manga was announced at Tokyo's Young Gangan Fes. Anime no Okage Summer 2009 event, with a second season green-lit this past June. In the story, an upper-class young man named Ko "Riku" Ichinomiya meets a beautiful homeless girl named Nino from the banks of Arakawa River, where many of Tokyo's most unusual residents live. The denpa-kei sub-genre of stories revolves around quirky people's lives; the sub-genre is named after the premise that bizarre behaviors are caused by electromagnetic waves (denpa).

A live-action television and film adaptation of the Arakawa Under the Bridge manga was also announced last month.