New Release Date For Strike Witches 2 DVD/Blu-ray Combo Revealed?!

As some of you may have already heard from the FUNimation Live Q&A, the Strike Witches 2 DVD/Blu-ray Combo has been postponed to a yet unknown date in the future. How far into the future? Well, it happens I pre-ordered Strike Witches 2 a couple of weeks ago from TSRI. Yesterday I received an email from them concerning my order, which includes the new estimated date for the Strike Witches 2 set (press the picture to see a larger version):

December 12, 2027? Wow, that’s a long time to wait! This is of course just a placeholder – a temporary fictitious release date – but it made me laugh so I decided to show it here. On a more serious note, this delay follows FUNimation’s earlier announcement that the Heaven’s Lost Property Forte DVD/Blu-ray set will also be delayed to a yet unclear date due to FUNimation’s inability to gain the Blu-ray rights at this time. The Strike Witches 2 release also contains a Blu-ray copy and its U.S. release was supposed to happen in less than a year of its Japanese counterpart. This poses a hard question: is FUNimation loosing its ability to negotiate Blu-ray licenses for new series? A lot of people dream of Japan and the U.S. getting simultaneous Blu-ray releases (or at least a release less than a year after Japan), but because Japan and the U.S. share the same Blu-ray region code and have different pricing strategies this dream remains elusive. No need to worry about the Strike Witches 2 Blu-ray though – the Japanese Blu-rays have English subtitles on them, so when the time comes it will take minimal effort from FUNimation to release the series in the U.S. Let’s hope this time comes before 2027…