In 2007, Viz Media licensed the series for a bilingual release in North America. Episodes of the series were officially available for download soon after they aired in Japan; according to Viz, this was "significant because it marked the first time a well known Japanese anime property [was] made legally available to domestic audiences for download to own while the title still [aired] on Japanese television."[4] Viz Media began releasing these episodes via Direct2Drive on May 10, 2007. In addition to this downloadable release of a subtitled version of the series, Viz also acquired the rights for the home video release of both the subtitled and dubbed version of the series.[5]