A new batch of anime is coming to Funimation.
Thanks to partnerships with Gonzo and TMS Entertainment, Funimation recently acquired the streaming rights to several popular anime, including Yowamushi Pedal, Bananya, ItaKiss, Magic Knight Rayearth, Bokurano and The Pilot's Love Song. As of June 3, the anime streaming platform has gradually been releasing each of these new acquisitions.
One of the most successful sports manga and anime franchises, Yowamushi Pedal has run for four seasons and spawned a number of films, a live-action drama and even a video game adaptation. Currently, Funimation has the first two seasons of the competitive cycling anime available for streaming, but the films Yowamushi Pedal Re:RIDE, Yowamushi Pedal: Re:ROAD and Yowamushi Pedal: The Movie will join the site in the near future. Each entry in the franchise will be available with English subtitles in the United States and Canada.
Also streaming on Funimation is Bananya, the adorable short-form anime and recent Gucci collaborator about cat-banana hybrid creatures and their peaceful, lazy lives. The first season is currently available with subtitles and English dub on Funimation in the United States and Canada, but there are currently no plans to bring the second season, Bananya and the Curious Bunch, to the platform.
Funimation has also acquired the rights to the mecha series Bokurano, which will be available subtitled in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Brazil and Mexico. The series will also be made available on Funimation subsidiaries AnimeLab in Australia and New Zealand and Wakanim in France and Germany. International anime fans will soon be able to experience Bokurano's grim narrative of fifteen middle-schoolers forced to take turns piloting the deadly robot Zearth in order to protect the Earth from foreign invaders.
The romantic comedy ItaKiss follows Kotoko Aihara, a high school student in her final year, who is forced to live with her school's smartest student Naoki Irie after her house is destroyed by an earthquake. Unfortunately for Kotoko, she has had a crush on Irie for years, and now that she lives with him and his meddling mother, her chances with him have never been worse. ItaKiss will arrive on Funimation sometime in the near future and will become available with English subtitles in the United States and Canada.
A rare combination of the magical girl, isekai and mecha genres, studio CLAMP's Magic Knight Rayearth is a classic '90s anime about three girls who are transported to the fantasy world Cephiro, where they must rescue the imprisoned Princess Emeraude from the evil High Priest Zagato if they wish to save the world. While not currently available, Magic Knight Rayearth will soon arrive on Funimation, where it will be made available with both the original Japanese audio and an English dub. The series will stream on Funimation in the United States and Canada.
The final addition to Funimation's catalog is The Pilot's Love Song, a relatively obscure fantasy series about pilots-in-training during wartime. The series is perhaps better known for its spinoff anime film The Princess and the Pilot, which is currently available on Crunchyroll. The Pilot's Love Song is already on Funimation with English subtitles for American and Canadian audiences.
Source: Funimation
