Minutes ago, Funimation Entertainment revealed at their annual Industry Panel at Anime Expo 2016 to a full capacity audience that they had acquired the rights to Drifters.
Drifters is a highly anticipated anime series from Kouta Hirano the creator of Hellsing. Funimation Entertainment secured the international rights to home entertainment, video on demand and broadcast distribution of the title from NBCUniversal Entertainment Japan. “Drifters” is set to premiere this October on the company’s subscription streaming service, FunimationNow, in the U.S., Canada, U.K., and Ireland.
Funimation had this to say regarding their securement of Drifters.
“We’re excited to expand our partnership with NBCUniversal Entertainment Japan following last year’s acquisition of ‘Seraph of the End: Vampire Reign,’” said Gen Fukunaga, CEO and founder of Funimation. “We are anticipating a great response from fans for Kouta Hirano’s ‘Drifters’ – given the tremendous popularity of his ‘Hellsing’ series.”
Drifters is based on the immensely popular, 5-volume manga series written by Kouta Hirano. Kouta Hirano, Hellsing writer, leads the creative team for the series. He is joined by fellow “Hellsing” alums Kenichi Suzuki (director) and Ryoji Nakamori (character designer) among others.
“With the addition of ‘Drifters,’ Funimation can already assure fans of an exciting fall simulcast season, both for subtitled shows and Broadcast Dubs (near-simulcast English dubbed shows),” said Mike DuBoise, EVP and COO of Funimation.
Below is Drifters plot from Wikipedia
Shimazu Toyohisa, while involved at the Battle of Sekigahara, manages to mortally wound Ii Naomasa, but is critically wounded in the process. As he walks from the field wounded and bleeding, Toyohisa finds himself transported to a corridor of doors, where a bespectacled man at a desk waits for him. This man, Murasaki, sends Toyohisa into the nearest door where he wakes up in another world. There, Toyohisa meets other great warriors like him who have been transported as well, to be part of a group known as “Drifters”. This world contains both native humans and a number of fantastical races, including elves, dwarves, and hobbits. However, the world is at war, with the humans waging a losing war against another group of great warriors, the “Ends”, who wish to take over the world and kill all of the Drifters. Under the Ends’ command are many terrible creatures, including dragons, which they use to destroy everything in their wake. At the start of the series, the Ends’ army has control of the northern part of the continent and are currently trying to invade the south through a pivotal fortress at the northernmost tip of a nation called Carneades. Meanwhile, the “Octobrist Organization”, a group of human magicians native to this world, attempt to bring together the many individual Drifters to save their world from the brutal Ends.
