The announcement that Bandai suddenly made Kannagi available is making rounds. John posted the official side, including the streaming at ANN (eat it, Crunchyroll). Andy confirmed that he worked on Kannagi in the recent batch. Certainly there was quite a bit of speculation and surprise. Derek suggested at Eastern Standard that Kannagi will be exclusive to TSRI and Amazon, for example. Is that possible? I don't think Bandai is that mad, but the story is sure strage. And most importantly, what is going on with true tears? The release of the first volume slipped from July 27 into August. Now Kannagi leapfrogged it. This fact is even stranger than Bandai's unusual sales tactics.
UPDATE: The plot thickens. Amazon does not actually sell Kannagi, it's "available from these sellers", and the sellers say: "Shipped from RightStuf.Com! New in shrinkwrap, licensed release!". So, is it even more exclusive? Nice going, Dark Lord.
Also, I had second thoughts in regards to true tears, and noticed that RACS lists it as a set. This means that Kannagi did not necesserily leapfrog anything, since only one volume was announced. RACS offers the true tears set for $28.98. This is only $2 more than one volume of Kannagi. I am putting the preorder in. Big savings, better anime, and I spite TRSI with its exclusivity all in one move.
UPDATE MOAR: Oof, shipping on these things bites: $7.99 with USPS (total $36.97). And I have Amazon Prime, so Kannagi would've shipped free. But true tears is still cheaper than Kannagi scattershot.
UPDATE: DiGiKerot told me on #animeblogger that "Bandais full press release for their release of Kannagi does mention that the two disks will be bundled together for a general release next year, so the RightStuf deal is a time-limited thing". He later pointed me to presser itself that says: "Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 will be made available as a 2-set edition for the general market sometime next year."
UPDATE: R in RACS is not happy, which is understandable right until the time he throws this weird justification:
It's not even the 'exclusive' thing that upsets me, it's the way you did an end run around everyone, prepositioned your assets, and then snuck the damn thing out at the last minute like thief in the night.
I just cannot see how prepositioning one's assets compares to thievery, but then I'm not a retailer.
STEVEN SAYS THAT ``"like a thief in the night" means "sneaky and quiet and unprincipled". It doesn't necessarily imply thievery as such.''
LATER, Evirus explained by e-mail:
Actually, "like a thief in the night" invokes the Bible verse that cautions how suddenly and unexpectedly the return of Jesus will be and has nothing to do with being unprincipled at all.
I suppose it's an appropriate simile considering Kannagi is about a deity.