Draglade alumni make friends in Draglade 2

I see some new faces in the concept art for Draglade 2. Rio sits in the center and it looks like he is the protagonist of the sequel. The dual blade wielding hero will be joined by other newcomers like a girl with a scythe, possibly the first female playable character in the Draglade universe, and a tall male character with short red hair. Don’t worry Hibito, Kyle, Daichi and Guy (i.e. the cast from the first game) are in Draglade 2 as rivals. The total roster is bumped up to ten, which equates to a 2.5x increase in the number of playable characters. More importantly, wireless battles are still part of Draglade 2.

Surprisingly, Draglade 2 is being published under the Banpresto label, which was supposed to be completely absorbed into Namco Bandai as of April 2008. Draglade 2 is slated for the summer. I wonder how this will affect a possible international release. Will Atlus be able to localize the sequel to a series they are familiar with? Or will Namco Bandai automatically gain the rights to Draglade 2 since Banpresto will be essentially part of Namco Bandai?