Fans of the classic anime, "The Vision of Escaflowne," will be treated to a whole new take on the beloved anime series, with North American distributor Funimation Entertainment stating that it is planning to release a new English dub for the director's cut of the series.
There is a catch, however, as Funimation would only do so provided that fans pitch in through a Kickstarter campaign for $150,000, the distributor announced on Saturday. If the campaign proves successful, the distributor will release the HD version of the series' director's cut, featuring scenes that were not included when the English dub for "Escaflowne" was released by Bandai Entertainment years ago.
Funimation also stated that, provided that the $150,000 goal is met, it would release both a standard edition and a collector's edition, with the standard edition being a Blu-ray Disc/DVD combo pack with the director's cut and the planned new dub, while the collector's edition would include the new dub in the Blu-ray Disc and the Bandai dub on DVD.
Of course, such a decision was met with some criticism from some fans, who raised the question of why a large, well-funded distributor like Funimation would need extra funding from its target audience. According to Funimation, however, the Kickstarter campaign is simply a way in order to determine if there is significant demand from the market.
In an interview with Anime News Network, Funimation social media coordinator Lauren Moore stated the company's rationale for its Kickstarter campaign. "It's not really looking at fans to help us do something that we couldn't do or couldn't achieve, it's more, 'Hey, if you really want this, almost consider this a preorder,'" she said.
Funimation brand manager Jennifer Fu further stated that the amount set in the Kickstarter campaign does not in any way cover the entire production costs of dubbing the series' director's cut. "There's really no way for us to reveal this, the only thing we're saying is that the $150,000 is not actually the production costs," she said.
Though the campaign got a bit controversial due to its financial aspects, fans seemed to have reacted greatly to the prospect of the popular anime released once more. As of writing, the Kickstarter campaign has already raised $127,181, with 30 days more to go.
The impressive figures seem to prove that the demand - and more importantly, the support - really is there for "The Vision of Escaflowne."
