Mega Man Star Force (anime) - History

History

Airing October 7, 2006 on TV Tokyo, the Shooting Star Rockman anime filled the timeslot previously held by Rockman EXE Beast+, the series' predecessor. Each of its episodes are approximately ten minutes in length as the program also shared the thirty-minute segment Oha Coliseum with the Saru Getchu anime series.

On April 17, 2007, VIZ Media announced that they acquired the rights for an English anime release titled Mega Man Star Force. The press release mentioned that 13 episodes were to be released at lengths of 20 minutes each (each containing approximately 2 Japanese episodes worth of content). During the E3 2007 video-game convention, IGN revealed in their hands-on impressions of the Star Force video game that the English anime would premiere on Toonami Jetstream on July 23, 2007. The show made its television debut on Cartoon Network on August 25 edited as a 2-hour faux-movie presentation composed of Japanese episodes 1 thru 9 and heavily slimmed-down versions of episodes 12, 15, and 16. The series would never air in normal episodic format on television, and subsequent episode airings online revealed that the unusual edits are exclusive to its television appearance.

The series is no longer being shown on Toonami Jetstream as the service is currently defunct.

According to the September 2007 issue of CoroCoro Comic, the anime would conclude in Japan on October 27, 2007 and, following the trend of its predecessor, continue with a new series called Shooting Star Rockman Tribe, premiering on November 3, 2007. The second anime follows the events of the second video game (which was also released in November). According to an interview with Fuyuka Ōura (Geo's voice actor in the Japanese version) at the 2007 Tokyo Game Show, Tribe has a deeper and "cooler" storyline than before, and the new character Solo is a prominent character in the plot.

As of October 6, 2007, the time-slot previously held by Saru Getchu was replaced with the Zero Duel Masters anime. On March 29, 2008, Tribe concluded with 21 episodes, and its time-slot was replaced with Pengin no Mondai. There are currently no known plans for another Mega Man anime in Japan, marking the first time a Mega Man anime has not been on the air in Japan since the six-month hiatus between Rockman EXE and Rockman EXE Axess in 2003.

Although the entire Rockman EXE series was distributed in Japan on DVD, there is no word on Star Force receiving the same treatment in Japan or in the United States. However, Manga Entertainment released a Region 2 box set in the UK on November 3, 2008. The box set contains all 13 episodes of the English dub that aired on Toonami Jetstream.