Scar wrote:On the top of my list to go see is Boxtrolls and the two Ghibli films if they happen to be playing at my local theaters. I got to see The Secret World of Arrietty one year in theaters for my birthday and it was the first time I got to see an anime movie in theaters and it was an incredible experience. I'd love to see The Wind Rises and The Story of Princess Kaguya in theaters if I got the chance. I still need to see Coralline but ParaNorman is one of my top favorite American animated movies so I'm really excited for Boxtrolls. The world can always use more stop motion animated films.
You'll get to see a LOT MORE Japanese stuff next year -- especially if you live in the US and near a university town.
There are companies getting into smaller exhibition of foreign films -- this is being targeted mainly at anime features.
They're doing one-day exhibitions in art theaters and cinemas mostly near universities across the US and (probably) Canada. It's a one day, one time thing so you have to go when they post showings that day... they don't repeat those showings. Look online at sites like AnimeNewsNetwork and you can find links to the film websites that will have the location showings dates and times. It's been a slow-building thing for the past few years but since even Disney's scaled back its exhibition of Ghibli features in theaters it's the best development in years for theatrical anime in the US -- aside from waiting for home video releases that may or may not be worth the money (which they aren't well over half the time).
All the Ghibli product is coming to Blu ray in the States but it will be about a year longer wait because of reverse importation.
There's a huge difference between Japanese mentality and the US... American studios will take a hit on initial home video orders knowing they will probably make at least half their money overseas, otherwise they'd charge even more than they do already in the US. The Japanese studios do NOT even consider international franchising for the most part for initial profit calculations. They expect to at least break even and do it in their home territory. That's a big reason why the home video releases are so much more expensive besides the fact that everything else in Japan is more expensive, period!
The Ghibli Blu rays cost, on average half as much in the US as they do in the US; right now, you can get them up to 60% off at DisneyMovieClub IF you're a DisneyMovieClub member. The Blu rays AND DVD's were 50% at Amazon.com until this past Saturday. The Amazon sale is unfortunately over...
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Tokuma/Ghibli -- and by extension, Disney -- WANTS to make as much money off the Japanese home video releases before they even consider what they'll sell in the US. There are several films which will likely NEVER be sold in the US by Disney because A) they're too adult or "too Japanese" for American animation audiences and B) the licenses to these films are held by different companies -- see Grave of the Fireflies, see From Up on Poppy Hill. C) Disney has first dibs on Ghibli films but they DON'T have to license them; they're concentrating on Hayao Miyazaki because he's become an internationally-known household name. He's an easy sell they don't have to do a bunch of advertising for. There's only a few American animation individuals who are probably better-known than him and most of those men are dead now...
Europe gets a lot of Ghibli stuff earlier because A) the films are often licensed by companies other than Disney; Disney holds US and Japanese home video distribution rights as well as theatrical distribution in the US; B) since European Blu rays have different region coding than Japan and the US which share identical (Region A) coding, it's easier to enforce street date/market controls. Almost all the Ghibli films out on Blu ray in Japan are also out on Blu ray in Europe! Problem: Don't expect those discs to play on your PS3 or American Blu ray player... It's the DVD situation all over again!
(*I'm not getting into DVD; DVD's been around almost 20 years now and everybody by now should know the story there or can look up the rhyme, reason, and nonsense behind DVD region coding. It makes me head hurt even typing this out!)
I'm seeing that the past year has actually been somewhat good for non-Studio Ghibli Japanese theatrical animation product. There are some really good films coming out from directors who aren't named Miyazaki, have spotty track records (Shoji Kawamori, Rin Taro, Otomo, etc. -- 85% of the feature directors!), or are unfortunately dead and much missed (Satoshi Kon).
The same group that produced "Summer Wars" came out with "Wolf Children" which is also supposed to be very good. It's out on video in the US right now.
There's a Blood/Last Vampire feature film that's actually supposed to be good. It's called Blood-C: The Last Dark and is out on US home video, too. You can pretty much skip the rest of the animation in that franchise... the only other one in the series that was good was the original film, Blood: The Last Vampire. Goes without saying neither of these films is really suitable for children!
The big one that's not getting much talk is Akira. Re-released for the first time in like 3-4 years in the US; out-of-print and way overpriced on previous Blu ray and DVD editions. The new release can be found online for $25 or less. What makes the new release different is that it's the first time since the laser disc days that the original 1988 English dub has been available on optical disc in the States! You can listen to either English dub (1988/2001) or the remastered Japanese audio. Also NOT recommended for children.