Pages

Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Grave of the Fireflies Blu-ray coming to North America

Sentai Filmworks will release Isao Takahata's 1988 animated masterpiece Grave of the Fireflies on Blu-ray in North America this November.

 
The company, which describes itself as "one of the fastest-growing anime companies in North America," previously announced that they had acquired the North American distribution rights to the film and released a digitally-remastered DVD in March of this year.  The Blu-ray edition is scheduled to hit store shelves on November 20, 2012 and is currently available for pre-order on Amazon.com for $21.99.
 
Also available from Sentai Filmworks in November is Makoto Shinkai's 2011 film Children Who Chase Lost Voices (Hoshi o Ou Kodomo), which will be available on Blu-ray and DVD and will feature both the original Japanese language track with subtitles as well as a newly-recorded English dub.
 
 
If you are a Studio Ghibli fan and aren't already familiar with this film, you should definitely check it out.  As you can see from the cover art alone, the look of the characters is very "Ghibli-inspired" and the story reminds me a lot of some of the fantastical worlds created by Hayao Miyazaki in his films.  Both the Blu-ray and DVD editions are up for pre-order on Amazon and scheduled for release on November 13, 2012.