Japanese Cartoons on iTunes, Sake Not Included
July 15, 2008

Those hardcore Japanese cartoons that were bookending your weekend? Now you can watch them any time you want.

Naruto, Bleach and Death Note, three manga, or graphic novel, titles that were turned into cartoons, are available on Apple’s iTunes service, courtesy of San Francisco-based Viz Media.

Naruto, which Cartoon Network airs Saturday mornings as part of its Toonami programming slate, is about a young, bullied boy who trains to become a ninja but is cursed by a spirit of –  you guessed it – a nine-tailed fox. The novel has sold more than 80 million copies in Japan and another 2 million in the U.S., where Time Warner-owned Cartoon Network has been airing the series since 2002.

Bleach, about a teenage boy who can see ghosts, first appeared in comic form in Japanese magazines in 2001 and debuted on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim slate three years later. The episodes air late Sunday nights.

Death Note is about a bored high school student who finds his name written in a notebook by a death god, signifying certain death to all the people whose names are in the book, and uses this so-called power to save other people. Death Note’s TV version ran on Nippon TV for one year (too morbid for a longer run, maybe?).

Naruto’s 25 episodes from its first season are available for $1.99 an episode while consumers can pay $27.99 and $34.99 for Bleach’s first two story arcs totaling 41 episodes. Death Note’s sells on iTunes for $31.99 for each of the season’s two volumes, which total 37 episodes.

Posted by Danny King on July 15, 2008 | Comments (0)