Shogakukan Inc. and Shueisha Inc. said Friday they have jointly bought out Kaze of France and Anime Virtual S.A. of Germany. The firms have been marketing DVDs derived from original Japanese animations.
The two Japanese publishing houses did not reveal the costs of the acquisitions.
Kaze and Anime Virtual have added French and German subtitles to the original animations, while also dubbing DVD programs based on the Japanese versions into the European languages.